Tag Archives: lessons learned

Travelling in Troubling Times

Fires near Kelowna BC. Photo Credit: The Canadian Press.

British Columbia, the province in which I live, has just issued fire-zone travel bans in response to unprecedented wildfires. Evacuations are underway. Non-emergency vehicles are not needed on the roads while people try to escape to somewhere else.

I wonder: how long will any of us be travelling anymore?

I am disinclined to fly anywhere anymore. At least not for pleasure. (But seriously, the pleasure of flying ended a long time ago. Cramped, uncomfortable seats, intolerable security lines, unexplained delays, and so much more have made flying an experience to get through rather than one to enjoy.) For me, the end of masking made flying dangerous to my health. It’s a grand opportunity to catch SARS-CoV-2. A recent study found over 80% of US flights had Omicron RNA in the wastewater, and the number of people coughing or otherwise visibly ill on the two flights I have taken since the start of the pandemic easily convinced me that flying is a bad idea for me unless absolutely necessary.

I took those two flights wearing a respirator and carrying a personal air purifier.

Me, waiting for a flight in November 2022. Funny/Not funny story. I was in the Air Canada Lounge and this woman not 15 feet away from me was having her snack and complaining to her friend that she didn’t even know why she was eating because she couldn’t taste anything. She said, ”Isn’t that weird?” No. Not so much weird as it is SARS-C0V-2. I moved to the other side of the lounge, where, likely, someone else had it too.

By 2019 standards, I looked ridiculous. By pandemic standards, I look just fine, at least to me. (Although I also look disastrously tired in this photo. It had been a long and difficult trip. And I can tell you, people stared.)

But what has really landed me in my own personal no-fly zone is the climate crisis. One of the half dozen or so truly impactful things I can do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to stop flying, or at least stop flying except when absolutely necessary.

What constitutes absolutely necessary? For me, the two air travel trips I have taken since the start of the pandemic were to prevent looming family crises. The thing is, we’ve come of age at a time when it is typical to live far away from family, and I do. Air travel made it possible to live like this and still be involved. Sometimes, I will have to travel by air if we want to be in touch on vital family matters. For me, I have decided this is necessary.

If I’m going, if I’m going to burn up all that carbon, I’ll make the absolute most of it. I combined the first trip with a book tour. To be clear, I would not have taken the book tour to Toronto if there also hadn’t been important family matters to attend to.

A vacation with air travel is a whole other thing. I can’t justify it anymore.

This summer, my partner and I drove our hybrid vehicle on our vacation as we camped and visited friends. Nothing is perfect, you know? Driving is better than flying. But it’s not great. There’s no holier than thou going on here. (One of my new favourite expressions is ”granolier than thou.”) I am by no means the person who lives an exemplary life. Like all of us, I’m struggling to learn how to live in our new pandemicene era. I’m just sharing one of my own personal decisions, a judgement I made for myself—not for others.

It’s a privilege to travel in so many ways, one which I acknowledge and am grateful to have had. I am giving up a privilege. I’m not giving up clean water. But it’s also not like giving up turnips, which I do not like. That would be easy to do. I’m giving up possibility. I’m giving up something with positive associations. It’s been a long journey to first recognize and then deal with the new negative associations. And the airline industry hasn’t helped. I would get daily offers from Air Canada and Aeroplan in my inbox. I finally unsubscribed.

And what about driving? Some of the areas of BC that we travelled through by car this summer are now, just a few weeks later, ablaze. Our road trip did not help. I’m grappling with that. Earlier this summer, I read a news story about planes full of tourists continuing to land in Greece even though the country was in a state of emergency because of wildfires. A sister of a friend is flying to Maui in September. It just feels bad to me. It feels bad for me. It is not something I would do. Again, I make that judgement for myself. I’m not saying no one should ever go to Maui or Greece again. They depend on tourism. Or at least they have until now.

Now it seems they need their resources for themselves. Last November, we drove through the region where Lytton is, and there were signs asking people not to visit. Of course, we did not go there. I get it. No one needs a bunch of lookie-loos. People need to grieve, to regroup, to kick the ashes. And they don’t need me trying to buy a sandwich while they do it.

So, for now, rather than travelling in troubling times, I’ll be staying close to home. I’ll be revelling in the joys of the here and now, in the small pleasures of my glorious neighbourhood. That’s not anything to be upset about.

Finding Joy Even Though Winter is Coming

Submissions

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It’s been so long since I have posted on my site that I forgot how to get into it. Obviously, I solved that problem. Now for the rest.

Recovering from my concussion has been a long, terrible process that I don’t want to talk about. Now, I have to reclaim my life as a writer. Will I be able to? I’m not sure.

You may recall that when my regular programming was interrupted, I was part way through a novel. More than part way. Almost finished. That was April 2016, a very long time ago now. I’ve tried to keep at it. What would have been done in about two months prior to my concussion has taken me two years instead. And honestly, there is something in the voice that is altered. I can’t put my finger on it. If I could, I would fix it. As a very wise writer I know advised, I have done the best job I can do as the writer I am today.

I came to the point where I needed feedback. I invited readers into the world I have lived in, mostly alone, for ten years. Oh, what a relief! Finally, I could talk about my characters with other people, real people. It was like I was introducing my friends to a secret group of friends from another part of my life. My worlds collided and it was glorious. And the things they said about my characters! It was a delight to get all of this reaction, to know that my intention was carried through my words. Lovely news for any writer. To everyone who did me the honour of reading my book, I thank you.

I know the fundamentals of the book are solid. I have had lots of encouragement. I was told again and again it is ready to submit.

The word “submission” is not one I like to have to close to me. To submit is to put my fate entirely in the hands of another. Or is it? It is to put my book in the hands of another. It is not me. My success is sealed. In spite of everything, I finished. I feel good about that. I will always feel good about that.

I started submitting to agents, not because I think I’m so fancy that I need an agent, but because my concentration is still pretty limited and I would love for someone else to do the business end of this work and to keep track of the things that are still awfully hard for me to track. But it seems it is not to be. I will have to do this myself, like most writers do, at least most of the writers I know. But you can’t blame a gal for trying. Nevertheless, thanks to all the agents who have read it, especially those who offered feedback and encouragement. Who knows? One might still get back to me with a positive response.

But I am moving on to publishers now. I will use this space as a place where I describe this terrifying process, so replete with rejection and self-doubt. Follow along, if you like. The working title of my novel is “Patterson House,” a perfectly respectable title, although honestly, I always wanted to call it “Constance,” after one of the two main characters. I still might.

As a form of public accountability, I vow to have this MS sent to ten publishers by January 15. That’s an awfully generous time-frame, you might say, but it’s the holiday season and whatnot. I don’t want to over-promise. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Recovery, Reframing, and Gratitude for 2018

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Happy New Year. 2018 will be the year I recover from this concussion. I know, I know. I said the same in 2017, and that came and went in a concussed fog. Don’t make promises you can’t keep, says someone in the back of my rattled brain. I’m ignoring that person, choosing optimism and saying this will be the year.

When this happened, way back in 2016, I couldn’t have imagined the time between then and now. My former GP told me dismissively that I would recover in three weeks. So I pretended I was fine and tried to carry on. I pushed and pushed until I couldn’t anymore. I remember thinking, “What is wrong with me?” and going into a blind panic amid the clangour.

What does recovery even mean? It’s a process, not a destination. I know now that it does not mean I will be like I was. There’s no going back. Time only moves forward, and so must I. But I will be something else, somebody closer to normal (whatever that is), somebody who doesn’t worry about falling sideways in the supermarket. I hope I’m somebody who can read quickly and deeply again, who can assimilate information, who can remember, who can write creatively, who can think creatively, who can understand a metaphor, who can ride a bike. I hope I am all of those things. And more. I hope I sleep soundly again.

I have been negative about 2017. The lost year, I call it. But it is time for a reframing. I accomplished something. I pursued my recovery. I followed up every lead on practitioners and treatment and completed every treatment plan given to me. I did puzzles and mazes and built with blocks meant for six-year-olds. I memorized patterns and tested my memory in thirty second intervals and two minute intervals and now a little longer than even two minutes. I filled in the pages of cognitive treatment work books. I budgeted my energy, learning over and over from my mistakes. I wore special glasses and eye patches and learned to see again and to focus and refocus close up and in the distance and every point in between. I regained my lost peripheral vision. And I read, doggedly, even when I couldn’t read, even when I had to use a ruler to follow the lines, even when the words swam on the page and pretended to be words they were not. I read something (anything) every day because I knew that to get my life back, I had to be able to read. And I wrote, little bits, tiny posts on social media, or here on my website. They took forever, but I tried to keep my hand in it any way I could. I launched a book, which I could not have done without Elaine (dear Elaine) but it got done. And then after my brain learned to understand my eyes again, I went to driver rehabilitation and got the go-ahead to drive. I still have huge anxiety in the car, but being told that I have the cognitive capacity to drive is a big step forward.

Creative writing is still elusive. The novel, almost finished in January 2016, remains where it was. Novels are big, you know? There’s so much to remember. So much logic and sequencing and so many words, words, words. Reading remains the second-most difficult task I have. To write, I have to be able to read. They are inseparable tasks. I acknowledge that there is improvement. I don’t need a ruler anymore. The words don’t jump around. I can read for twenty minutes or more most days without getting a headache. I still mix up meanings sometimes. I’m still extremely literal. But it is so much better than it was. Now I’m concentrating on concentrating, trying to build my capacity again.

I had (and continue to have) help. Lots of it. I heap special praise upon my neuro-optometrist, who really, truly, listened to what I was experiencing and didn’t look at me like I was crazy. She had seen this before. It was real. I was so grateful. I have a wonderful new GP, who, although she sees a thousand patients, is always able to make me feel like she has time for me. And I don’t want to forget the massage therapists and physiotherapists, a naturopath, a neuro-psychologist, an occupational therapist and a lawyer who helped me navigate the insurance and the crap I need to do to pay for it all. I thank them all.

I spent too much of my time in 2016 and early 2017 pretending I was fine. I wasn’t honest about how difficult it was to see friends or go on a simple outing. Some friends, close friends, knew and understood. They saw me cry, saw me fall apart, saw me have to disappear for a sleep like a cranky toddler. Thank you. People I know who face chronic illness gave me words and insight that helped. I can’t remember the past twenty months closely enough to give you all proper attribution. You know who you are and I am so grateful to you.

I am so grateful for my husband, whose life has also been curtailed by my brain injury. He has been patient and kind and encouraging. My daughter has too. She also had a big injury in 2016 and she was my recovery buddy for a long time. She’s all better now. She visited for the holidays and one day when I was out with these two cherished souls, I completely lost my equilibrium. My world slid down and to the right where I could not make sense of it. It lasted a long time. Too long. It’s a worry. But there they were, unconcerned about abandoning our plans and ready to take me home instead. It’s good to have people in your life who are with you, no matter what.

And I’m grateful for social media too and the friends I connect with there. Last January was a terrible time for me. I was standing at the edge of the abyss. I fought it back. I cannot overstate the value of social media in helping me back away from the darkness. It allowed me to connect with people without actually having to deal with, well, people, and noise and light. It kept me tethered to the world. To all of you who have sent along an encouraging word, thank you.

So here’s to reframing, to 2018, to health, to family, and to friends.

For the record, I started this post January 1 and it is now January 3. Good God. How can it take this long? Oh yes. Reframing. What matters is I could do it at all. I’m grateful.

On Sticking With It

On Downsizing Books

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For much of my life, getting rid of a book was blasphemy. Books have always been sacred to me. As a young person, I was deeply affected by an image of books being burned by Nazis. Piles of books up in smoke. In my personal Ten Commandments, One Must Not Destroy Books. We all know where that can lead.

There is a scene in the wonderfully cheesy disaster movie, The Day After Tomorrow, in which having taken shelter from a world-destroying storm in the New York Public Library, the characters begin to collect books they will burn to stay warm. One of the group objects and clings to a Gutenberg Bible, determined to save civilization until another quips that there can be no harm in burning the multiple volumes of the tax code. The point is well made. Not all books have equal value.

Three years too late, I have come across this sensible and well-written piece about downsizing books by Summer Brennan called “On the Heartbreaking Difficulty of Getting Rid of Books.” It is based on Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. (Aside: I like to imagine Kondo’s books gathering dust on shelves everywhere, but that reveals something perverse in my nature.) What Brennan has done is apply Kondo’s now iconic zeal to her own life in a way that makes sense to her.

Brennan captures what’s wrong with any “one size fits all” approach to book culling. She writes, “It occurred to me that part of the reason why tackling the ‘books’ stage of the Full Kondo seems so daunting is that to many of us our books don’t really belong in the category she has assigned. They are not impersonal units of knowledge, interchangeable and replaceable, but rather receptacles for the moments of our lives, whose pages have sopped up morning hopes and late-night sorrows, carried in honeymoon suitcases or clutched to broken hearts.” Yes, that is it. The piece is well worth reading if you are about to embark on a book cull. If you need further inspiration (and another book) go to the source material. Marie Kondo’s work has been much praised and mocked (a sure sign she is on to something) but I find there is something deeply consoling in her simple rule that one’s things should bring one joy.

Joy was the last thing on my mind when I moved from Calgary to Boston three years ago and faced the daunting task and considerable cost of moving fifty years of accumulated books. I cut my personal library in half. I never wanted to count how many books went. Too heartbreaking. I did it according to the space they took up. Each shelf was halved. I was methodical. For the most part, the Canadiana and hard to find books were boxed and went with me. Treasured gifts stayed. Books that brought me back to a specific time and place stayed. In short, books that had woven their way into the fabric of my life could not be given away. I worked hard to give my discards the possibility of a second life and keep them out of the landfill. If nothing else, I owed it to the trees.

Many of my Women’s Studies and feminist books went to two local women’s centres. That felt good. Except the ones I had to keep. Again, they were too much a part of me. I don’t even want to admit which books I ditched and which I kept for fear it will say too much about me. If I owned multiple books by one author, I would tell myself to keep only my very favourites. It was relatively easy to keep only two Dickens but then I kept every Carol Shields book. These were far too precious. I gave away Middlemarch, still unread since a Victorian Lit course in the 1980s.

Oh dear. I have revealed too much.

Of all the books I gave away three years (and two moves) ago, I have re-acquired only two. Oddly, one was Anne of Green Gables. Actually, I didn’t even have to buy it. A good friend, also moving, gave me one of her three copies. In the mean time, I have spared myself the cost of moving hundreds of books around (twice) and the cost of keeping a space to store them. Trust me, I still have a lot of books. For some reason, I feel it absolutely necessary to have six dictionaries.

Hard as it is to admit, you can have too much of a good thing. Even books.

Jane Cawthorne

Writer and Editor