When Baby D was born, one of the mos noticeable things about him was his full head of black hair. It was everywhere on his head, beautiful and thick. Each nurse would note it when she came in to check on us or take his temperature.
After a few weeks though, it started thinning all over his head except right on top, so that soon he was down to a faux-hawk... Now, I've heard that babies often lose the hair they're born with, and that eventually it gets replaced with their "real" hair, so basically, you don't know if the colour or texture is going to stay the same. I've also heard that sometimes they're totally bald in between the two stages, and other times the old hair is falling out while the new hair is growing in, so you can't really tell it's happening.
All I know now is that, after thinning out for some time, Baby D's hair has been seeming to grow back in for the last three weeks or so. Of course, when you spend as much time, continuously, looking at something or someone, you usually can't see the change. It's like trying to figure out on a day-by-day basis if you're gaining or losing weight. It's basically impossible. So, while the hair on the sides of his head is maybe-sort-of growing back in, the hair on the back of his head is gone gone gone!
That's right ladies and gents. Baby D has a bald spot. It's not on the top, it's right on the back of his head. It's what my older sister lovingly refers to as a "pillow spot" and is apparently common with babies who sleep on their backs (which is basically the safe way for all babies to sleep)... Until they start sitting up, a lot of babies spend so much time on their backs that they essentially rub their heads clean of any hair there. Of course, the truly hilarious aspect of all of this is that he has hair again at the nape of his neck, so it looks like a really hilarious rat tale situation. I call his hair situation "the reverse mullet": it's party in the front, business in the back (and then a rat tale - heheh).
The other hilarious thing about him now is the bobblehead situation. While he learns to hold his head up, he's in this in-between stage where he seems to think he's a bobblehead. If he's sitting, he's bobbling constantly. I've seen this with all babies I know passing through his age and stage, so you'd think I'd get used to it, but instead, it never ceases to amuse and amaze me.
So, I have a balding, bobble-headed little man to take care of. And I couldn't be happier :)
Showing posts with label musings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label musings. Show all posts
Monday, March 21, 2011
From the Mouths of Babes (part 4)
This one comes to you from the UAE, courtesy of Abu Dhabi Angel.
The setting:
Angel is watching a program on TV in which they are eating hot dogs. At the same time, Abu Dhabi Mama is cooking burgers in the kitchen.
Angel (in utter amazement): "Mama, I can smell the food from the tv!"
The setting:
Angel is watching a program on TV in which they are eating hot dogs. At the same time, Abu Dhabi Mama is cooking burgers in the kitchen.
Angel (in utter amazement): "Mama, I can smell the food from the tv!"
Sunday, March 06, 2011
Of Grocery Shopping and Cake Baking
It's really very hard to believe that I've already been off work for three months. I started Mat leave on December 3rd, and when I think about what I've been doing with my time "off", I have to remember to change my perspective significantly...
Left t0 my old ways of thinking, it's tempting to say 'I have nothing to show for the last three months', but, uh, HELLO, I have a two and a half month old baby to show for it! And that's what I mean by a shift in perspective. Because after you've spent your whole life in school, followed by 6 years at an office job, you measure productivity by deliverables. For as long as I can remember, I've had something to submit: homework assignments, first drafts, book reports, lab results, presentations, standard operating procedures, flow charts, meeting minutes, work tickets... The list goes on and on and on.
This project though, the one I'm working on write now, project Little Boy, is not "deliverable based". I don't get to submit Dude to anyone for evaluation every two weeks. I don't file a report nightly ('today Dude slept 10 hours and was awake 14 hours. He had 8 diaper changes, 10 feedings and a bath. He spent one hour being burped, one hour in his baby swing, and 15 minutes doing tummy time. He looked at me and laughed 7 separate times. He cried 12 separate times.')
No, Dude-raising is a long term project, a VERY, long term project, and while there are milestones by which I can assess how I'm doing, there are also a million little repetitive tasks that fill up the day before I add anything extra, like, say, cooking, or laundry.
Still, on the one hand, though my tasks now never end and my time isn't mine any longer, on the other hand, my schedule is as open-ended as it's ever been. At this age for Little Dude, so long as he's fed, burped, changed and warm, he really doesn't care about anything else. And so I can decide at 1:30 pm that I will do some grocery shopping at 2, or bake a cake on the fly, or try a new recipe I've never made and spend 40 minutes going through the store aisles painstakingly searching for ingredients. I can spend all day reading a book while I feed, burp, wrap, and rock the Little Dude. And that is what I have to show for the last three months, because soon this stage will be over: he'll be crawling or teething or talking or going to playgroups and my schedule will be tied down again, and 2 a.m. will no longer be the same as 2 pm., so I'm enjoying it while it lasts...
Left t0 my old ways of thinking, it's tempting to say 'I have nothing to show for the last three months', but, uh, HELLO, I have a two and a half month old baby to show for it! And that's what I mean by a shift in perspective. Because after you've spent your whole life in school, followed by 6 years at an office job, you measure productivity by deliverables. For as long as I can remember, I've had something to submit: homework assignments, first drafts, book reports, lab results, presentations, standard operating procedures, flow charts, meeting minutes, work tickets... The list goes on and on and on.
This project though, the one I'm working on write now, project Little Boy, is not "deliverable based". I don't get to submit Dude to anyone for evaluation every two weeks. I don't file a report nightly ('today Dude slept 10 hours and was awake 14 hours. He had 8 diaper changes, 10 feedings and a bath. He spent one hour being burped, one hour in his baby swing, and 15 minutes doing tummy time. He looked at me and laughed 7 separate times. He cried 12 separate times.')
No, Dude-raising is a long term project, a VERY, long term project, and while there are milestones by which I can assess how I'm doing, there are also a million little repetitive tasks that fill up the day before I add anything extra, like, say, cooking, or laundry.
Still, on the one hand, though my tasks now never end and my time isn't mine any longer, on the other hand, my schedule is as open-ended as it's ever been. At this age for Little Dude, so long as he's fed, burped, changed and warm, he really doesn't care about anything else. And so I can decide at 1:30 pm that I will do some grocery shopping at 2, or bake a cake on the fly, or try a new recipe I've never made and spend 40 minutes going through the store aisles painstakingly searching for ingredients. I can spend all day reading a book while I feed, burp, wrap, and rock the Little Dude. And that is what I have to show for the last three months, because soon this stage will be over: he'll be crawling or teething or talking or going to playgroups and my schedule will be tied down again, and 2 a.m. will no longer be the same as 2 pm., so I'm enjoying it while it lasts...
Friday, March 04, 2011
An interesting video....
I really quite enjoyed this little video by the folks at National Geographic. Take a look...
Saturday, May 08, 2010
Generation A
I'm reading this book by Douglas Coupland right now, and it's been a bit of a disappointed. Years ago, either at the end of high school or in early university, I read Microserfs and really really enjoyed it. So I suppose I expected Generation A to live up to the same hype... And maybe it has, and maybe that's the problem.
The book title is a reference to Kurt Vonnegut's statement, made in a commencement address in 1994 to graduating students at Syracuse University:
But this book's actually about the generation after Generation X, my generation. We've been labeled everything under the sun - sometimes Generation Y, sometimes Generation D (for "Digital"). And we've been called a lot of things: lazy, self-centred, convinced that we're the smartest and best at everything, and that we deserve raises and promotions just for showing up to work.
So why don't I like the book? Well, while there's a lot of cleverness and wit, and while the author manages, with some irreverence, to capture the ridiculous materialism and media obsession of modern-time, there's almost too much of it, and the characters are pretty vapid and superficial. I have a hard time caring about vapid characters, and I need to like characters to enjoy a book. But maybe the book gets it just right and this is the problem. Maybe by being such an accurate description of Generation A, by portraying my generation as the shallow, materialistic people we are, Coupland's lost my interest. Are we all actually like this? I don't think so, but I think there's an alarming number of us who are (as evidenced by the characters (who are unfortunately real people) on shows like Jersey Shore and The Hills) to scare me about our future... How many of us, relative to past generations, read books? How many of us follow politics, or business, or something other than movies and tv shows? How many of us know what happens in countries other than our own?
I'll finish the book, but only because I'm so close to the end. Maybe it's frustrating me because it shows such a bleak and meaningless future. That's not the future I want.
The book title is a reference to Kurt Vonnegut's statement, made in a commencement address in 1994 to graduating students at Syracuse University:
"Now you young twerps want a new name for your generation? Probably not, you just want jobs, right? Well, the media do us all such tremendous favors when they call you Generation X, right? Two clicks from the very end of the alphabet. I hereby declare you Generation A, as much at the beginning of a series of astonishing triumphs and failures as Adam and Eve were so long ago."
But this book's actually about the generation after Generation X, my generation. We've been labeled everything under the sun - sometimes Generation Y, sometimes Generation D (for "Digital"). And we've been called a lot of things: lazy, self-centred, convinced that we're the smartest and best at everything, and that we deserve raises and promotions just for showing up to work.
So why don't I like the book? Well, while there's a lot of cleverness and wit, and while the author manages, with some irreverence, to capture the ridiculous materialism and media obsession of modern-time, there's almost too much of it, and the characters are pretty vapid and superficial. I have a hard time caring about vapid characters, and I need to like characters to enjoy a book. But maybe the book gets it just right and this is the problem. Maybe by being such an accurate description of Generation A, by portraying my generation as the shallow, materialistic people we are, Coupland's lost my interest. Are we all actually like this? I don't think so, but I think there's an alarming number of us who are (as evidenced by the characters (who are unfortunately real people) on shows like Jersey Shore and The Hills) to scare me about our future... How many of us, relative to past generations, read books? How many of us follow politics, or business, or something other than movies and tv shows? How many of us know what happens in countries other than our own?
I'll finish the book, but only because I'm so close to the end. Maybe it's frustrating me because it shows such a bleak and meaningless future. That's not the future I want.
Sunday, May 02, 2010
The Angels are Coming!
Yes, it's true. A couple of weeks ago, I got the fantastic news. After several months of bracing myself that my various international little angels would not be visiting this summer, a twist of wind blew fate the other way and both (both!) of my out-of-country sisters will be coming to visit.
What does this mean? Well, first of all, it means that my Dubai Angela and Angel will soon be meeting Baby Angela (our beautiful latest addition who arrived last September) for the first time, and I'm sure they'll be doing their best to "babysit" her from day 1. My younger sister tells me the story of speaking on the phone with Dubai Angela, who announced to her last fall, "Auntie, when we come in the summer, I'll be four and a half, so you can leave baby with me and take a nap or go for a walk!" (oh, to be four and a half again and think that four and a half is old!).
The California Angels will arrive shortly after, in June, and then the party will truly begin. Luckily, they'd met Baby Angela this winter when she and her mommy took a little trip south, and they took turns "babysitting" too. Ah, the fun.
What else does it mean? It means that Ottawa will be loud, filled with that gorgeous, ear-splitting decibel of children everywhere, in the back yard running through the sprinkler, in the kitchen asking for peanut butter and honey sandwiches, under your arm momentarily when you manage to scoop them up for kisses before they run past you to go fight over a toy or finish a game of tag or tea.
There is nothing I love more than watching my parents with their grandchildren, the conversations that take place between a child who still stares at the world with wonder and a parent whose wisdom and lifetime of experience has shown him its reality. Last summer, a couple of days before Dubai Angela went home, she and Grandma had the most beautiful conversation on the carpet in the living room after night prayer. The rest of us listened as Angela asked Grandma why she couldn't go back with them to Dubai, as she painstakingly explained where everyone would sleep, how there was enough room for everyone there around the supper table, convinced that if she solved this one little problem Grandma and Grandpa could get on the plane and come back with them... My mother evaded, pointing out that she hadn't bought a plane ticket, that maybe there would be none left, and finally saying to Little Angela, "but I can't live in Dubai - Ottawa's my home"... It was beautiful and sweet and funny and sad all at once, and you could see three and a half year old Angela growing up with the realization that sometimes you have to be apart from the people you love, sometimes it's not as simple as getting a plane ticket...
I don't think I'll ever forget that conversation. It reminded me of one I had with my Grandfather, long ago, on his veranda in Alexandria, the moment between my mother's father and I, his kind, knowing smile, my young mind struggling to understand. I used to cry each summer we would visit Egypt, when we'd get in the car to leave Alexandria for Cairo, and again, when we'd get in the car to drive through Cairo one last time for the airport. I'd look behind me at the waving hands and cry and cry, and ask why they couldn't all just live in Canada with me. I remember learning Little Angela's lesson and growing older with that knowledge. I remember, when I was little, it not being enough that I would see all those loved ones soon. And now it is enough. And now I'm grateful.
What does this mean? Well, first of all, it means that my Dubai Angela and Angel will soon be meeting Baby Angela (our beautiful latest addition who arrived last September) for the first time, and I'm sure they'll be doing their best to "babysit" her from day 1. My younger sister tells me the story of speaking on the phone with Dubai Angela, who announced to her last fall, "Auntie, when we come in the summer, I'll be four and a half, so you can leave baby with me and take a nap or go for a walk!" (oh, to be four and a half again and think that four and a half is old!).
The California Angels will arrive shortly after, in June, and then the party will truly begin. Luckily, they'd met Baby Angela this winter when she and her mommy took a little trip south, and they took turns "babysitting" too. Ah, the fun.
What else does it mean? It means that Ottawa will be loud, filled with that gorgeous, ear-splitting decibel of children everywhere, in the back yard running through the sprinkler, in the kitchen asking for peanut butter and honey sandwiches, under your arm momentarily when you manage to scoop them up for kisses before they run past you to go fight over a toy or finish a game of tag or tea.
There is nothing I love more than watching my parents with their grandchildren, the conversations that take place between a child who still stares at the world with wonder and a parent whose wisdom and lifetime of experience has shown him its reality. Last summer, a couple of days before Dubai Angela went home, she and Grandma had the most beautiful conversation on the carpet in the living room after night prayer. The rest of us listened as Angela asked Grandma why she couldn't go back with them to Dubai, as she painstakingly explained where everyone would sleep, how there was enough room for everyone there around the supper table, convinced that if she solved this one little problem Grandma and Grandpa could get on the plane and come back with them... My mother evaded, pointing out that she hadn't bought a plane ticket, that maybe there would be none left, and finally saying to Little Angela, "but I can't live in Dubai - Ottawa's my home"... It was beautiful and sweet and funny and sad all at once, and you could see three and a half year old Angela growing up with the realization that sometimes you have to be apart from the people you love, sometimes it's not as simple as getting a plane ticket...
I don't think I'll ever forget that conversation. It reminded me of one I had with my Grandfather, long ago, on his veranda in Alexandria, the moment between my mother's father and I, his kind, knowing smile, my young mind struggling to understand. I used to cry each summer we would visit Egypt, when we'd get in the car to leave Alexandria for Cairo, and again, when we'd get in the car to drive through Cairo one last time for the airport. I'd look behind me at the waving hands and cry and cry, and ask why they couldn't all just live in Canada with me. I remember learning Little Angela's lesson and growing older with that knowledge. I remember, when I was little, it not being enough that I would see all those loved ones soon. And now it is enough. And now I'm grateful.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Sports-fan Vengeance
When M and I were engaged, I constantly told him that he was a nicer, more discipline version of me. Being so nice, he of course protested and denied my point, but after 2+ years of marriage, I am convinced that I'm more right than ever.
Exhibit A: we went on a little trip to Boston over Easter - and the city is gorgeous! Beautiful architecture, gorgeous nature, nice people, incredible history. The only thing I couldn't appreciate was their hockey team - the Boston Bruins. Now, the Bruins are major rivals to my boys, the Montreal Canadiens, and we were there in the thick of the play-off race, so when Boston lost one of the games they had that weekend (to Toronto, no less!) I was smugly satisfied. "But why?" M asked, "why do you want them to do badly?"
"Because they're our rivals - I have to hate them. I DO hate them." and I meant it. Not the individual players or people - I have nothing against those, but the team, the Bruins as an entity: I can't want them to do well. What kind of a Habs fan would that make me?
Exhibit B: My beloved Canadiens have pulled off a miraculous upset in round 1 of this year's play-offs, beating the unbeatable Washington Capitals, a team with Ovechkin, Backstrom, Semin, Knuble, and a defenseman named Mike Green who's been nominated for the Norris trophy this year. I'm listing all these guys so you realize who GOOD washington was. And we beat them. And on the night of their elimination, as we were leading the score 2-0 with 5 minutes left, the TV panned across the Washington audience and showed us their desolate faces. M felt sorry for them. I laughed at them. I may have said "Nana nana boo-boo". Mature. I know. But the point is, I felt pure and total glee at their frustration. Again, my bewildered husband asked "Why?" - and I truly can't remember what I answered, but I justified my behaviour. Now, to put it in more articulate words, I think this is the reason: this is the joy in being a fan. You laugh at the other team because if they weren't losing you'd be losing. Victory and defeat in sports are mutually exclusive. Victory only goes to one side. So I'm laughing at them not so much because they're losing, but because the fact that they're losing means I'm winning. In life, this is different. In life, you can make yourself a winner and help other people be winners at the same time. I would never allow myself to laugh at another's misfortune in life. But in sports, I more than allow it, I enjoy it. M still thinks this is unreasonable, and that's all the proof I need that's he's nicer. Waaaaaaaay nicer. I'm lucky my husband is so awesome.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go get my hate on for the Pittsburgh Penguins. This is gonna be more difficult. Crosby was Canada's golden boy 2 months ago, and now he must become an enemy. Wish me luck!
Exhibit A: we went on a little trip to Boston over Easter - and the city is gorgeous! Beautiful architecture, gorgeous nature, nice people, incredible history. The only thing I couldn't appreciate was their hockey team - the Boston Bruins. Now, the Bruins are major rivals to my boys, the Montreal Canadiens, and we were there in the thick of the play-off race, so when Boston lost one of the games they had that weekend (to Toronto, no less!) I was smugly satisfied. "But why?" M asked, "why do you want them to do badly?"
"Because they're our rivals - I have to hate them. I DO hate them." and I meant it. Not the individual players or people - I have nothing against those, but the team, the Bruins as an entity: I can't want them to do well. What kind of a Habs fan would that make me?
Exhibit B: My beloved Canadiens have pulled off a miraculous upset in round 1 of this year's play-offs, beating the unbeatable Washington Capitals, a team with Ovechkin, Backstrom, Semin, Knuble, and a defenseman named Mike Green who's been nominated for the Norris trophy this year. I'm listing all these guys so you realize who GOOD washington was. And we beat them. And on the night of their elimination, as we were leading the score 2-0 with 5 minutes left, the TV panned across the Washington audience and showed us their desolate faces. M felt sorry for them. I laughed at them. I may have said "Nana nana boo-boo". Mature. I know. But the point is, I felt pure and total glee at their frustration. Again, my bewildered husband asked "Why?" - and I truly can't remember what I answered, but I justified my behaviour. Now, to put it in more articulate words, I think this is the reason: this is the joy in being a fan. You laugh at the other team because if they weren't losing you'd be losing. Victory and defeat in sports are mutually exclusive. Victory only goes to one side. So I'm laughing at them not so much because they're losing, but because the fact that they're losing means I'm winning. In life, this is different. In life, you can make yourself a winner and help other people be winners at the same time. I would never allow myself to laugh at another's misfortune in life. But in sports, I more than allow it, I enjoy it. M still thinks this is unreasonable, and that's all the proof I need that's he's nicer. Waaaaaaaay nicer. I'm lucky my husband is so awesome.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go get my hate on for the Pittsburgh Penguins. This is gonna be more difficult. Crosby was Canada's golden boy 2 months ago, and now he must become an enemy. Wish me luck!
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
Because it's almost graduation time...
I have a confession to make: I've never read Harry Potter. I just didn't do it early enough (tried one time with the first book and lost interest) and now it seems weird to pick it up. I can't commit to 7 books, not when there are so many others I want to read and so little time to begin with. Not now. That said, I'll probably do it some day - maybe in 2 months, maybe in 30 years, who knows? Also, despite having never read it, I really do like JK Rowling, and I was in Boston last weekend for a visit and toured Harvard (or Hahvahd - as the locals say) so when I read JK Rowling's graduation address to the Harvard class of 2008, I wanted to share. It's a beautiful read, full of wisdom and good ideas, and above all, compassion. Enjoy:
President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.
The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion.
Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.
You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self improvement.
Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expired between that day and this.
I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.
These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.
Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.
I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension. I know that the irony strikes with the force of a cartoon anvil, now.
So they hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.
I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.
I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.
What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.
At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.
I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.
However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown.
Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.
Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.
So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.
Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.
The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.
So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.
Now you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.
One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working at the African research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.
There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.
Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to speak against their governments. Visitors to our offices included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had left behind.
I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him back to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.
And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just had to give him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.
Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.
Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard, and read.
And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.
Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.
Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.
Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.
And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.
I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.
What is more, those who choose not to empathise enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.
One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.
That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.
But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.
If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, people who have been kind enough not to sue me when I took their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.
So today, I wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
I wish you all very good lives.
Thank you very much.
President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.
The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion.
Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.
You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self improvement.
Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expired between that day and this.
I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.
These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.
Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.
I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension. I know that the irony strikes with the force of a cartoon anvil, now.
So they hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.
I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.
I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.
What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.
At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.
I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.
However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown.
Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.
Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.
So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.
Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.
The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.
So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.
Now you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.
One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working at the African research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.
There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.
Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to speak against their governments. Visitors to our offices included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had left behind.
I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him back to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.
And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just had to give him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.
Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.
Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard, and read.
And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.
Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.
Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.
Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.
And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.
I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.
What is more, those who choose not to empathise enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.
One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.
That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.
But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.
If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, people who have been kind enough not to sue me when I took their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.
So today, I wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
I wish you all very good lives.
Thank you very much.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Closing thoughts
I was going to write a long, after-the-fact post about the Olympics, but the fact that I wanted to make it long was putting it off, so I've decided to ramble a little instead, and include what I felt were a few links to other articles/media that gave me the warm and fuzzies inside.
General thoughts are:
General thoughts are:
- I love this country. It's huge and generous and physically cold but emotionally warm and inviting. We smile at each other. We generally mean well. We have a lot of wonderful things that some of the bigger, more powerful countries around us do not (hello healthcare!) and I'm perfectly happy with out humble approach to patriotism. I don't see it as essential to have a flag on hand every time we finish well in an event just so we can wave it. It's enough to be wearing our colours, to be smiling, to be us. I also didn't truly care whether we "owned the podium" or not. Long after the rest of these Olympics are forgotten, the two Canadian moments most of us will remember are Alexandre Bilodeau hugging his brother Frederic, and Joannie Rochette, going out there and giving the skate of her life while still grieving her mother's sudden death. Sports are a symbol of what we love and who we aspire to be, not the real thing.
- The men's hockey final was awesome, but I think for many, the game that really made us feel it was the quarter-finals against Russia. I, for one, came into this game with dread and fear and foreboding in the worst possible way. I always always always feel my team (no matter who) is going to lose, and last Wednesday was no exception. But we won. In fact, not only did we win, we KILLED. We were very, very good. At one point, around the time that the score was 4-1 or 5-1, one of the Canadian commentators said, "we came into this game talking about the Russians' skill, but what about the Canadians' skill..." and you know what? He was right? I think of our guys as hard working, I think of them as tough and honest, and taken individually, each as a star with his NHL team, I would trade the entire Habs roster to have any one of them come play in Montreal, but altogether, as I was comparing teams, did I think of them as skilled? No. And why is that? Is it our humility taken to an unproductive level? I think so, and it begs the question, could we stand to feel a bit more pride not just in our work ethic and tenacity, but in our competence, in our skill? Again, I think so.
- That said, I like our humility... I like our ability to laugh at ourselves, as we did during the tongue-in-cheek closing ceremonies (apologizing athletes? William Shatner? giant flying moose and beavers? It may just be that I have a corny sense of humour, but I LOVED). So, I suppose it's a balance of confidence and humility together.
- You know I love hockey, and you know my little sister hates it, but even she was moved when she saw the men's team win gold on Sunday. And hockey does something to most of us as Canadians, seeps into us and becomes part of who we are as people, even if we aren't huge fans or don't know the stats. This fantastic article by Michael Grange really captured the spirit of hockey's effect on our identities, and I had to share.
- And now, because Stephen Brunt said it so much better than I can, here's a great photo essay about how I, and many others, felt about the games.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Because this says what I wanted to say, but better
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Guilty as charged
This article is scary - apparently, since 2008, our use of social networking sites has increased 82%, and people in several countries (the US, Australia, UK, and several other European countries) spend about 5.5 hours a day, 7 days a week, on social networking sites. While Canada isn't listed here (ignored again, sigh...) I bet the numbers aren't all that different for us.
I got on Facebook a little over a year ago - giving in to the fact that it was one of the easier ways to stay in touch with friends I didn't see any more, friends who were still in Ottawa, or traveling elsewhere (like Japan, where one of my dearest friends is living and posting all her photos from her travels to Facebook). Since then, I have to say that I've gotten pretty hooked, more hooked than I'd like to admit - although I think I fall well shy of the 5.5 hours this survey claims people spend daily.
While I might be "logged in" to my account almost all the time, I'm rarely actually sitting at my computer browsing through ... I know this frustrates the heck out of a lot of my friends, who start a chat with me, only to discover that my status is misleading, and that I'm only "online" in theory.
Still, a number like this wakes you up. It's hard to say how much of my FB time is a waste, and how much I really get something out of. I feel a lot more connected with some of my friends than I have in years, and when we do get to chat, I catch up with people I really miss, but I also miss that old fashioned device - the telephone. More talk, less text, I say. Now let's see if I'm all talk.
I got on Facebook a little over a year ago - giving in to the fact that it was one of the easier ways to stay in touch with friends I didn't see any more, friends who were still in Ottawa, or traveling elsewhere (like Japan, where one of my dearest friends is living and posting all her photos from her travels to Facebook). Since then, I have to say that I've gotten pretty hooked, more hooked than I'd like to admit - although I think I fall well shy of the 5.5 hours this survey claims people spend daily.
While I might be "logged in" to my account almost all the time, I'm rarely actually sitting at my computer browsing through ... I know this frustrates the heck out of a lot of my friends, who start a chat with me, only to discover that my status is misleading, and that I'm only "online" in theory.
Still, a number like this wakes you up. It's hard to say how much of my FB time is a waste, and how much I really get something out of. I feel a lot more connected with some of my friends than I have in years, and when we do get to chat, I catch up with people I really miss, but I also miss that old fashioned device - the telephone. More talk, less text, I say. Now let's see if I'm all talk.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Snuggie Temptation...
When I sit down to watch tv or a movie, I like a blanket to keep me warm, especially if I'm tired or sleep-deprived. So when the snuggie came out last year, I have to admit that I was very very tempted to get one.
Have you seen the commercials? Insanely corny and ridiculous:
Better yet, have you seen the spoofs:
They should be a total reason not to get the thing, right? But I actually want it even more now... I mean, a blanket with sleeves - how awesome is that? and I love tv or commercials that fall into the "so bad they're good" category. Don't get me wrong, if I buy the thing, I won't be out and about in public with it, or wear it on an airplane like in the commercial (sorry, too embarrassing), but something for the couch or the desk sounds good...
Thus far, I haven't caved, but the moment may come soon. I'll keep you posted.
Have you seen the commercials? Insanely corny and ridiculous:
Better yet, have you seen the spoofs:
They should be a total reason not to get the thing, right? But I actually want it even more now... I mean, a blanket with sleeves - how awesome is that? and I love tv or commercials that fall into the "so bad they're good" category. Don't get me wrong, if I buy the thing, I won't be out and about in public with it, or wear it on an airplane like in the commercial (sorry, too embarrassing), but something for the couch or the desk sounds good...
Thus far, I haven't caved, but the moment may come soon. I'll keep you posted.
Monday, January 04, 2010
New Years Resolutions
I write New Years Resolutions the way I dream, throwing in a variety of plans and hopes, from the immediate and practical to the out-there and wishful. So... let me try to write some things I can actually accomplish, just to keep myself from getting discouraged, and then let me write somethings that are less likely to keep it interesting and more motivating, and then - just for the heck of it - I'll add some thing(s) that are more 'Life Resolution' than 'New Years Resolution', just to remind me that I still want to get to them at some point.
- Read a Tariq Ramadan book or two. This man is a genius and I just heard him speak at a conference last week. He has such great ideas and is so good at articulating them that I'm constantly buying his books with the intention to read them, but I have a hard time with long non-fiction books (articles -good, books - not so good) and they're quite academic at the start that I can't get past that. But I must this year. Even if I start in the middle of one of the books to get over the dreaded "first chapter curse", I'll do it.
- Write more. My good friend Jen over at UticaAvenue and my sister and I have started a little "weekly writing circle" virtually, seeing as we're all in different locations. It's a start, but I need to dedicate more time to writing. I actually would like to start submitting writing to magazines and journals and see what happens. This is my realistic goal...
- My unrealistic one? Write a novel/novella... I've tried this before but it's never amounted to anything. I think I can do it, with more time and focus, neither of which I currently have. Still, I would love to walk into a store one day and see my name on something. Ultimate dream.
- Exercise more, eat better. This one is on-going and needs constant reminding. Working on it. This entire month is going to be an exercise in conscious, healthier eating. Will keep you posted.
- Stay in touch with family/friends who aren't living nearby. I am really really awful at this, as all my friends/family who aren't in Montreal know. Case in point: my friends in Ottawa thought we'd be seeing each other constantly the whole year and a half I was commuting and living there 2 nights a week. I saw a few of them once or twice. That was it.
- Join a community garden - another far-away one. there are so few gardens with so few spaces that even if I got on a waiting list now, it would take 3 or 4 years before I was actually allotted a spot, so next best thing....
- Start buying organic. This one IS doable, and I hope to be doing it soon. The more reading I do about this, the more convinced I am that our food system is so messed up, and so tied in with disease, not to mention water wastage, fossil fuels, carbon emissions, that it's worth changing my personal approach to it.
- Bike to work in the summer. If you live anywhere in Eastern Canada, you know that it's not very easy to bike in the winter. I could do it if I really tried, but it involves a LOT of risk with the way drivers in this city drive, along with the snow and ice and all. But now that I'm living so close to my office, it should be doable when the snow is gone.
and that's what I'd like to do, this month, this year, this life...
Thursday, December 03, 2009
If you're reading this...
you're very lucky. Just like I am for being able to write it.
In the spirit of American Thanksgiving (I know: I'm fiercely, proudly Canadian, but I have a lot of American friends, so I was very aware of their recent holiday) and of living with gratitude in general, I thought I'd share a recent thought. First, to give you the background:
Last week, I had a little "procedure" done to remove a chelazion (basically a cyst from a non-draining oil-gland) off my eyelid. The whole procedure took less than 10 minutes and was done right at the clinic I went to. Very very simple. All I had to do was ice it for the next two days, and put in ointment to help it heal.
So, there I was after the surgery, lying on my couch, trying to decide what to do with my sudden free time. I thought about watching tv, but it was super hard to do with an ice pack over one eye. Same with surfing the internet or reading a book. Even without the ice pack, my eye tired very easily and didn't want to do a lot of work. In the end, I napped and listened to the radio, but it got me thinking. I can see. and the fact that I can see gives me access to so many things I have come to rely on as basic in my life, things I didn't know what to do without for 48 hours. Take it one step further. Not only could I see, I had access to a computer and internet.
I'm not sure what percentage of the world's population has internet at home, but it can't be the majority of us - not even close. Some of us don't even have running water.
So yes, if you're reading this, you likely have running water, and access to medicine, and you can see. I have all three of these things and many many others that I take for granted. And for all of this, I am grateful.
Happy thanksgiving - or as my friend Jenny calls it - Happy Gratitude Day.
In the spirit of American Thanksgiving (I know: I'm fiercely, proudly Canadian, but I have a lot of American friends, so I was very aware of their recent holiday) and of living with gratitude in general, I thought I'd share a recent thought. First, to give you the background:
Last week, I had a little "procedure" done to remove a chelazion (basically a cyst from a non-draining oil-gland) off my eyelid. The whole procedure took less than 10 minutes and was done right at the clinic I went to. Very very simple. All I had to do was ice it for the next two days, and put in ointment to help it heal.
So, there I was after the surgery, lying on my couch, trying to decide what to do with my sudden free time. I thought about watching tv, but it was super hard to do with an ice pack over one eye. Same with surfing the internet or reading a book. Even without the ice pack, my eye tired very easily and didn't want to do a lot of work. In the end, I napped and listened to the radio, but it got me thinking. I can see. and the fact that I can see gives me access to so many things I have come to rely on as basic in my life, things I didn't know what to do without for 48 hours. Take it one step further. Not only could I see, I had access to a computer and internet.
I'm not sure what percentage of the world's population has internet at home, but it can't be the majority of us - not even close. Some of us don't even have running water.
So yes, if you're reading this, you likely have running water, and access to medicine, and you can see. I have all three of these things and many many others that I take for granted. And for all of this, I am grateful.
Happy thanksgiving - or as my friend Jenny calls it - Happy Gratitude Day.
Monday, November 30, 2009
A modest request for the coffee shops
You know I'm a lover of sitting in your wonderful, relaxing atmospheres. You know there is little I enjoy more than kicking back with a latte and a book and just losing myself in the setting.
Of course, I can't drink milk, lactose free or otherwise, because of my allergies. and my solution has always been soy. Well, recently I've read some frightening things about soy (including the fact that 90% of the soy generated for North American consumption is genetically modified - if you haven't yet watched the future of food, you should!). As a result, I've switched to almond milk and stopped buying soy products. Now, this works at home, but in coffee shops, the only non-dairy alternative is soy. Timothy's, Second Cup, Starbucks, anyone who can make you a latte without milk can only make it with soy milk. Now, I'm not drinking these every week or anything, but it would be really really nice if someone started offering almond milk based drinks, or any nut milk for that matter.
So, I'm asking you, please oh coffee shop people, give me something I can drink while I'm reading a book other than herbal tea. Give me a latte without the bad stuff. Please?
Of course, I can't drink milk, lactose free or otherwise, because of my allergies. and my solution has always been soy. Well, recently I've read some frightening things about soy (including the fact that 90% of the soy generated for North American consumption is genetically modified - if you haven't yet watched the future of food, you should!). As a result, I've switched to almond milk and stopped buying soy products. Now, this works at home, but in coffee shops, the only non-dairy alternative is soy. Timothy's, Second Cup, Starbucks, anyone who can make you a latte without milk can only make it with soy milk. Now, I'm not drinking these every week or anything, but it would be really really nice if someone started offering almond milk based drinks, or any nut milk for that matter.
So, I'm asking you, please oh coffee shop people, give me something I can drink while I'm reading a book other than herbal tea. Give me a latte without the bad stuff. Please?
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
4 Umbrellas Later
I don't think I've mentioned here yet that I've started working out of the Montreal office more and more. I still go to Ottawa for work, but not as often, and since the Montreal office is so wonderfully close to our place, I actually walk to and from work now when I'm here.
Now, I love everything about this new arrangement except for one little detail:
I am notorious for forgetting my umbrella at home. No, scratch that. I bring my umbrella, I just bring it on the days it's not raining. I can carry it for a week to and from work and that week the clouds will not shed a drop. Then I'll forget it and before I head home that afternoon, I'll look out the window and it'll be pouring away. So, I'll go into the Pharmaprix in the plaza downstairs and buy an umbrella - and use it that day before the cycle begins again.
I don't dare get up and count the number of umbrellas M and I have at home, but my guess is that the number is around 7 or 8- and we're two (2!) people. And I'm pretty sure 4 of those were purchased in the last month. By me.
Case in point: yesterday I checked the weather - no rain expected on Monday, but rain expected today. No worries, I would take my brolly today.
And then today happened, and while I was packing my lunch, I remembered that I need the umbrella, but by the time I was done, I'd totally forgotten. and then it wasn't raining in the morning, so I didn't notice when I left the building.
Then, this afternoon as I was heading back from work, I left the office and it was dripping. I walked 100 feet, turned around and went back inside to the Pharmaprix to buy yet ANOTHER umbrella. And then I walked the rest of the way to my errand, did my errand, and walked home without needing it at all. The moment I had the umbrella, the rain stopped. Go figure.
Now, I love everything about this new arrangement except for one little detail:
I am notorious for forgetting my umbrella at home. No, scratch that. I bring my umbrella, I just bring it on the days it's not raining. I can carry it for a week to and from work and that week the clouds will not shed a drop. Then I'll forget it and before I head home that afternoon, I'll look out the window and it'll be pouring away. So, I'll go into the Pharmaprix in the plaza downstairs and buy an umbrella - and use it that day before the cycle begins again.
I don't dare get up and count the number of umbrellas M and I have at home, but my guess is that the number is around 7 or 8- and we're two (2!) people. And I'm pretty sure 4 of those were purchased in the last month. By me.
Case in point: yesterday I checked the weather - no rain expected on Monday, but rain expected today. No worries, I would take my brolly today.
And then today happened, and while I was packing my lunch, I remembered that I need the umbrella, but by the time I was done, I'd totally forgotten. and then it wasn't raining in the morning, so I didn't notice when I left the building.
Then, this afternoon as I was heading back from work, I left the office and it was dripping. I walked 100 feet, turned around and went back inside to the Pharmaprix to buy yet ANOTHER umbrella. And then I walked the rest of the way to my errand, did my errand, and walked home without needing it at all. The moment I had the umbrella, the rain stopped. Go figure.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Are you Muslim?
I was coming up in the elevator today on my way home, and there was a pizza delivery man there too. He looked at me a bit hesitantly and then asked me, "are you Muslim?"
I smiled and nodded. He said, "Assalaamu alaikum" (the Muslim greeting meaning "peace be upon you"), and I replied "wa alaikum assalaam" ("and peace be with you").
That was it. Simple exchange. Nothing fancy, but it made me wonder.
I wear a hijab, and I'm of Arab descent, so I assume, especially because of my hijab, that I'm a very obvious Muslim. And yet this isn't the first time I've been asked if I'm Muslim by a male Muslim before he says salaam.
With women it's very different. If we spot a fellow hijabi, we smile and say salaam right away. We don't ask. We don't need to. Why do they?
I'm not bothered, just curious. It seems unnecessary, no?
I smiled and nodded. He said, "Assalaamu alaikum" (the Muslim greeting meaning "peace be upon you"), and I replied "wa alaikum assalaam" ("and peace be with you").
That was it. Simple exchange. Nothing fancy, but it made me wonder.
I wear a hijab, and I'm of Arab descent, so I assume, especially because of my hijab, that I'm a very obvious Muslim. And yet this isn't the first time I've been asked if I'm Muslim by a male Muslim before he says salaam.
With women it's very different. If we spot a fellow hijabi, we smile and say salaam right away. We don't ask. We don't need to. Why do they?
I'm not bothered, just curious. It seems unnecessary, no?
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
I came across her writing
in a note on facebook, and though I hadn't seen her in a decade, though I couldn't quite place her location, her life, I felt I knew her essence again, could here her soft voice, her rising cadence, rushing forward, then retreating, as though each sentence was brought by the tide.
And I was transported to old coffee-houses during lit, to high school, to what was, oddly, my best writing time, the period in my life when I could, when I had the luxury, to bend over my notebook for seconds, turning into minutes, into hours, just to find the right word to fit the end of a line, a sentence, a feeling or thought.
I thought I was so tired then, so overworked, with my grade 11 lit and my algebra-geometry homework, with history and physics and world issues. I didn't know where I'd find the time to memorize Shakespeare and solve problems 3 a - i. I was overwhelmed.
It's almost laughable in hindsight, this emotion, this sense of purpose when I hadn't lived enough to have enough to write. And now, with something worth putting down, with my own stories, I am too afraid. If I share, will I be recognized? Do I want the recognition?
We are all afraid, have moments of defeat, of sadness or uncertainty, but we so rarely put them out there, so rarely want to use them as material.
I used to say, "I wrote this, but don't worry, I'm happy;" used to say, "don't worry, this isn't about me"; and usually it wasn't, but isn't life just a series of small joys and small disappointments building into larger moments? Isn't it normal in the day to have a moment where you don't have a clue, where you want to just stop? and then another where you could go and go and go to the ends of the round earth, where you would have to crash into a brick wall not to keep going?
She wrote about her life, and I could hear her in her words and I could see her brushing a wisp of straight black hair behind her ear as she read. I imagine one hand holding the paper, the other randomly reaching up to touch her head. Funny how we remember certain nervous habits, how her voice is still in my mind so many years later. How I can see her smile.
I told myself I wouldn't write for a living. I told myself I would write for life.
And I was transported to old coffee-houses during lit, to high school, to what was, oddly, my best writing time, the period in my life when I could, when I had the luxury, to bend over my notebook for seconds, turning into minutes, into hours, just to find the right word to fit the end of a line, a sentence, a feeling or thought.
I thought I was so tired then, so overworked, with my grade 11 lit and my algebra-geometry homework, with history and physics and world issues. I didn't know where I'd find the time to memorize Shakespeare and solve problems 3 a - i. I was overwhelmed.
It's almost laughable in hindsight, this emotion, this sense of purpose when I hadn't lived enough to have enough to write. And now, with something worth putting down, with my own stories, I am too afraid. If I share, will I be recognized? Do I want the recognition?
We are all afraid, have moments of defeat, of sadness or uncertainty, but we so rarely put them out there, so rarely want to use them as material.
I used to say, "I wrote this, but don't worry, I'm happy;" used to say, "don't worry, this isn't about me"; and usually it wasn't, but isn't life just a series of small joys and small disappointments building into larger moments? Isn't it normal in the day to have a moment where you don't have a clue, where you want to just stop? and then another where you could go and go and go to the ends of the round earth, where you would have to crash into a brick wall not to keep going?
She wrote about her life, and I could hear her in her words and I could see her brushing a wisp of straight black hair behind her ear as she read. I imagine one hand holding the paper, the other randomly reaching up to touch her head. Funny how we remember certain nervous habits, how her voice is still in my mind so many years later. How I can see her smile.
I told myself I wouldn't write for a living. I told myself I would write for life.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Zen and the Art of Sitting Still
Okay, so the truth is that this post has nothing to do with Zen, but I can't think of a sentence that includes "the art of" and not start it with "Zen". It's the tail end of flu season here in the wonderful Ontario/Quebec region of Toronto/Ottawa/Montreal. I include all three areas because M and I were in TO for a fabulous long weekend last week hanging out with my awesomely extended family, but towards the end of the weekend, I caught some sort of lovely bug. At first, I couldn't figure out what I had, but as Sunday rolled into Monday (and Tuesday, and Wednesday), I felt like I was running the slightest fever, followed by general icky-ness, sore-throatedness, congestion, headaches, you name it.
Everything was unpleasant enough to make me a general grouch, but not enough to keep me at home sick. By Thursday afternoon, I thought I was back on the upswing, and had high hopes for a long bike ride in Montreal on Friday after work. Not so: Friday, I crashed and burned. My body had had enough. Sleep! it screamed at me. Sit still. and so I did, for basically the whole day. and then M came home from work and made me a cup of peppermint tea and we watched a movie and then I slept more.
I got up this morning at 10 a.m. feeling like a new person. Energy? For reals? and I was so pleased with it. So pleased I felt I needed to load the dishwasher, and pull out the dustbuster, and gather a few other things that were here and there and needed doing. And then M asked me, ever so thoughtfully to please.just.sit.still.
Hmmmm, good point. The man is on to something. See, I'm obsessed with multi-tasking. I can't just ever be watching the hockey game or writing a blog post. I do both at the same time (like, right now... the Habs are down 2-0. Not pleased. Trying to stay on topic). I can't cook one meal at a time. I usually put 3 things on the stove together, or I cook while I'm on the phone. Read and/or write and/or eat on the commuter bus. Same for the OC transpo bus when I'm in Ottawa. Even at work, I rarely have one window open at a time. I like to switch between 3 or 4 tasks so I don't get bored. I find I get more done this way, except....
Except when I'm sick. Then I'm supposed to sit still. Right? Right. It actually took about 3 hours yesterday to settle back down and get into bed. I kept not being able to stay still long enough to go to sleep, even though my body was exhausted and my eyes were drooping. And today, the second the energy was back, it was like I couldn't possibly read a book or watch something.
Productivity is good, but I think I need to settle down and read my body's signals. Relax. I sat still to write this post for the last 30 minutes, so there's improvement there, right?
Oh, and the score is still 2-0.
Everything was unpleasant enough to make me a general grouch, but not enough to keep me at home sick. By Thursday afternoon, I thought I was back on the upswing, and had high hopes for a long bike ride in Montreal on Friday after work. Not so: Friday, I crashed and burned. My body had had enough. Sleep! it screamed at me. Sit still. and so I did, for basically the whole day. and then M came home from work and made me a cup of peppermint tea and we watched a movie and then I slept more.
I got up this morning at 10 a.m. feeling like a new person. Energy? For reals? and I was so pleased with it. So pleased I felt I needed to load the dishwasher, and pull out the dustbuster, and gather a few other things that were here and there and needed doing. And then M asked me, ever so thoughtfully to please.just.sit.still.
Hmmmm, good point. The man is on to something. See, I'm obsessed with multi-tasking. I can't just ever be watching the hockey game or writing a blog post. I do both at the same time (like, right now... the Habs are down 2-0. Not pleased. Trying to stay on topic). I can't cook one meal at a time. I usually put 3 things on the stove together, or I cook while I'm on the phone. Read and/or write and/or eat on the commuter bus. Same for the OC transpo bus when I'm in Ottawa. Even at work, I rarely have one window open at a time. I like to switch between 3 or 4 tasks so I don't get bored. I find I get more done this way, except....
Except when I'm sick. Then I'm supposed to sit still. Right? Right. It actually took about 3 hours yesterday to settle back down and get into bed. I kept not being able to stay still long enough to go to sleep, even though my body was exhausted and my eyes were drooping. And today, the second the energy was back, it was like I couldn't possibly read a book or watch something.
Productivity is good, but I think I need to settle down and read my body's signals. Relax. I sat still to write this post for the last 30 minutes, so there's improvement there, right?
Oh, and the score is still 2-0.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Tales of Geekdom from the Unapologetic
This is the post where I come clean about my true identity, and finally say loud and clear that I am, indeed, a geek. Now, you may have already figured it out from my "100 things about Noha" post, where I admitted to being a grammar obsessed comma queen, and loving the parentheses (especially the nested ones), or corny jokes, or run-on sentences (see the sentence you're reading right now for evidence - no, proof!), but maybe you thought all my geek-characteristics were purely linguistic. Well, I'm here to tell you otherwise.
This week, it really dawned on me that I'm a geek on sooooooooooo many other levels than just my linguistic quirks, starting primarily with my academic geekiness. While I constantly tell myself that I could never do grad school (unlike my PhD-pursuing hubby), and while I shuddered one time when he actually asked me if I remembered what the sine of e-squared (or something like that) was, I will admit to loving (LOVING!) my third year logic and discrete mathematics course.
Deductive logic was honestly, truly a thing of beauty, a marvel to me. I would sit there in the front row (yes, by choice), hanging on to the professors every word as he showed us one incredible proof after another, scrawling formulas down the page until at the bottom - bang! - everything just balanced. I remember how he would turn before writing the last line on the board and wink at us, and say "nothing up my sleeve" and some of the students would role their eyes. Not me, I was entranced. To me, that line where everything balanced, where the right side of the equals-sign and the left side of the equals-sign suddenly fell into perfect synergy was like the part in a book with 10 pages left where you suddenly get exactly how it's going to end, and yet you have to read on just to respect the author's genius, or that last scene of the sixth sense when the twist becomes evident and you're shaking your head in shock (and yet delighted!), and you're telling yourself "Oh my God! I didn't see that coming! Did I see that coming?" and then you replay the whole thing in your head trying to figure out exactly when you started to figure it out...
And this is how I feel about deductive logic, ergo, I am a geek.
I did the same thing when I started comparing my programming and design logic to the philosophy notes my sister (a psychology major) took. And-Or constructs in programming where just another way of talking about necessary and sufficient conditions in philosophy. Philosophy and math were the same thing, and to me, this discovery was another little miracle.
I love finding connections. It's hard to describe beyond that, but I think that all disciplines in science and art are very intertwined and it's just for us to delight in finding the links....
Today, I stood in my boss's office for about 5 minutes at mid-morning, staring at her marker-covered whiteboard and shaking my head with a similar level of satisfaction. We were both doing it, looking at the board, happily, and telling each other how beautiful it was... "beautiful" one of us would say. "It's beautiful, just beautiful. It all fits together" the other would respond. We've been working on a problem for a few weeks and it started off as a huge mess of seemingly random information, and now we've found a little box for each piece of the 'random' information and the pieces fit in the boxes, and there are links. It was beautiful, and we couldn't stop repeating it. So the highlight of my day was seeing the pieces click together on the beginnings of a process model that has been hurting my head and running me ragged for the last little while. and after 5 minutes of being pleased, we laughed at ourselves and realized that the process model wasn't going to implement itself, (in fact, was still in the early stages of development), and I walked out to make phone calls and fill out spreadsheets of information... But happily. Maybe the geeks out there will understand?
P.S. My food challenge is still going. I haven't eaten any dairy, wheat, or sugar-products for 5 days (with the exeption of a few drops of milk in my coffee...)
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