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October 19th, 2011

The Normal Heart

He was practically sputtering, he was so frustrated. I looked at his tear-filled eyes with confusion. With stupid, naive confusion. He wasn’t talking to me, and I didn’t know him. We were a group of strangers exiting the warm, transcending world of the theatre before departing on our own separate ways.

But I heard him. And I thought he was wrong. That he was transposing his own experience as a young gay man in the 1980s to that of today’s teenagers. That today’s youth have it so much better. That the world is so much more aware, more accepting, and less closeted.

After all, when I grew up in the 1980s, you’d be forgiven for thinking that there was not a single gay person in the entire high school. (Which, of course there were. These young people were not just in the closet, they were forced there and kept behind doors with lock and key.) Whereas when my younger siblings were in high school a decade later, there were openly gay students and an LGBT group that regularly met at school.

And the theatre piece we’d just seen, the Tony-award winning play The Normal Heart, was about a time even before mine. It told of a tight-knit group of friends working to refuse to let doctors, politicians and the press bury the truth of the then unspoken AIDS epidemic, more than a quarter of a century ago.

This man was speaking to his friend, an older woman, and he was seething. He said, “Things haven’t changed. After all this, after everything we’ve been through, things still haven’t changed.”

I hadn’t really thought about this man since I saw that performance, many months ago. But today, I have. And I’ve been thinking that he’s right.

How else can we explain the death of Jamie Hubley, a 15-year-old Canadian boy who lived in my city, and who committed suicide after public taunting at school for being gay and unsuccessful treatment for depression? It seems that “difference” is still not considered “normal.”

Of course, even in my school days, difference was taunted. Whether it was the colour of your skin, the way you talked, the freckles on your face, or the clothes you wore, if you were different, you could get eaten alive at school. Conformity was everywhere. It protected you, kept you under the radar. I blended in. I got along okay. But I remember the others who didn’t. It wasn’t pretty. Like Rick Mercer says in this video, school was a prison for these kids.

But why are children in groups so vicious? And what makes us this way? It seems that bullying has existed in school since the beginning of time. Literature from all time periods notes this kind of behaviour among children.

How can we consider ourselves evolved as a species when our young people are tearing each other apart like animals? Think I’m exaggerating? Jamie Hubley had batteries stuffed down his throat by a gang of fellow students who didn’t like his choice to figure skate rather than play hockey. How does this make any sense? What does it matter to them what type of skating he wants to do.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I’m raising more questions than answers. When am I going to wrap this up with a nice closing and some calls for action that will make a difference?

But I can’t. I’m now that man outside the theatre, seething with frustration, with tears in my eyes. How can we make sure that there are no more families like the Hubleys, left only with questions rather than their much-loved child.

There’s no such things as normal hearts. Just hearts. And they all hurt just the same when they’re clawed at.

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October 11th, 2011

A Thank-You for a Random Act of Kindness

Every now and then on twitter, you’ll see someone post a little something with the hashtag #bekind. The most recent one I saw was a photo of someone putting extra money in a parking meter for a stranger to save them from a ticket. There is something about these acts that really warms my heart. They are not monumental, but they’re within my reach to do. And apparently to receive as well.

*******

Last night, I was driving to the movie theatre to catch a show with my two brothers. One lives in town, one doesn’t. So it was a happy occasion to get to have time with both of them together. As I was about two minutes away from my destination, a noticed movement from the corner of my eye. I looked out my left car window and saw a woman waving frantically at me. But she looked friendly, like she was trying to get my attention to say hello or something. For a split second, I thought it was Andrea, she had long hair like her … but, I wasn’t in Westboro (and — giveaway! — this woman was in an SUV). So I rolled down my window to the stranger who told me quickly before the lights were turning: “You have a pair of shoes on the back of your car! One is still there, but the other fell off a few intersections ago!”

Hubby had used my car earlier in the day for rock-climbing and must have left a pair of shoes on the back when unloading it because just as the woman had said, there was one shoe on the ledge above the bumper. It was sitting there nicely. I grabbed it and put it in the car, but I didn’t have time to drive back to check on the other one before the movie was going to start.

After the movie, I was driving my brother Adam home and told him he was in charge of looking for a stray shoe. I explained the scenario, to which he immediately quipped, “I can’t believe she recognized them as a pair of shoes and didn’t shout ‘Hey, you left some paddles on the back of your truck!’” Nice one. (Hubby wears a size 13 shoe.)

But, believe it or not, we have both shoes back at the house now. Safe and sound. We found the missing one, sitting patiently in the middle of the intersection the woman in the SUV had told me about. (Adam made the heroic shoe rescue by sprinting out to get it when no traffic was coming.)

All in all, I’m pretty darn happy about this. Not just because it’s so hard (and expensive) to get Hubby shoes in his size. But because of the kindness of a stranger. She could have simply shrugged and gone on her merry way, but instead she took the time and energy and let me know about the ~~paddles~~ shoes that had been left on the back of the car.

Thanks mystery lady! You and your kindness rock.

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October 8th, 2011

Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Don’t Drink the Pink Kool-Aid

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This is not something that I have to remember — the pink products everywhere tell me that it is. Cancer is a terrible disease, and I’ve always thought pink was a terrible colour, so I guess the two things go together.

Like most women my age, I have friends, family, colleagues, and acquaintances who’ve had to face this diagnosis and live through it the best way they can. Some have been more fortunate than others. And I am so grateful for those who still stand beside me and have been able to resume a life a of mothering, and working, and living all that regular life entails when you are not sick.

I also know it’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month because my email box tied to this blog is filling up with “pitches” for me to help raise awareness. But it’s not a request to create awareness around how to do a self breast-exam, or how research dollars are making a difference, or even how fundraising dollars are helping women of low-income families to receive treatments in countries that don’t have socialized health care. These pitches are to raise awareness about the company’s particular cause marketing campaign related to Breast Cancer Awareness Month — i.e. we have a pink-coloured product, that when purchased will result in a donation of $X to X charity.

When I receive charitable requests, I always consider them. They certainly pull my strings more than any other kind of request. But in reading a few of these, I didn’t quite feel “right.”

What’s wrong with pink marketing?

In theory, if I needed to buy a particular product and it also happened to result in a donation if I buy the product, it’s a win-win, right? But the more products that are turning pink, the more I start to think that this must be a profitable endeavour. Just like selling a “green-ified” product is au courant, so it seems is the “pink-ified” product.

Yet, we all know that not all “green” products are actually doing much for the environment. Rather the term “green” is simply a way to help sell more product. Thus the term “green-washing.” And, in turn, a new term “pink-washing” is being used by a number of organizations.

Breast Cancer Action, in particular, is a strong voice on this issue of “pink-washing.” This organization has produced a list of critical questions to ask yourself before buying pink. These five questions are:

1. How much money from your purchase actually goes towards breast cancer?
2. What is the maximum amount that will be donated?
3. How are the funds being raised?
4. To what breast cancer organization does the money go, and what types of programs does it support?
5. What is the company doing to assure that its products are not actually contributing to the breast cancer epidemic?

To learn more about the rationale and concerns that lay behind these questions, click over to the Think Before You Pink site. While I cannot refute the fact that pink marketing has raises millions of dollars over the years, I still think these questions are important to ask before pulling out your wallet.

To learn more about why so many cancer activists are concerned about pink marketing, consider the following:

In “Welcome to Cancerland,” Barbara Ehrenreich resents the infantilizing of cancer with pink teddybears
In “Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Now a Word about the Sponsors,” Barbara A. Brenner is appalled that Breast Cancer Awareness Month’s focus is so narrow — on early detection through mammograms — rather than on the larger issues of why breast cancer rates are rising and what new treatment options can be developed.
And here is a recent national newspaper article featuring two local (Ottawa) women who are fighting the use of pink for profit.

So what’s a girl to do?

Like most things, I don’t think there’s any easy answer. But this is what I’ve decided to do:

I’m going to remind you what the symptoms for breast cancer are so that you can look out for them:

lump or swelling in the armpit
changes in breast size or shape
dimpling or puckering of the skin – thickening and dimpling skin is sometimes called orange peel
redness, swelling and increased warmth in the affected breast
inverted nipple – nipple turns inwards
crusting or scaling on the nipple

I’m going to encourage you to have a full physical examination with your family doctor once a year that includes a breast exam as well as a discussion around whether a mammogram is right for you.

I’m not sure what else I can do, but if you are currently going through cancer treatment and find the blogosphere to be a friendly place to hang out (like I do), I can suggest the following blogs: We Can Rebuild Her, Not Just About Cancer, and Journeying Beyond Cancer.

We need to do something about cancer. I’m just not sure it has to do with shopping.

9 Comments »

September 22nd, 2011

“Month of Me” post #02: Celebrating with my Mom

The “Month of Me” project that I first told you about here is coming together mighty nicely! On October 5th, I will be toasting a happy birthday to my mother in New York City … here’s a little more on the that …

On this day 40 years ago, a young woman was seven days overdue to give birth to her first child. Due on September 15^th, there was no doubt in her mind that this baby was conceived during her husband’s short break during army boot camp training. They had only been wed for just over a year, but they’d been high school sweethearts and were ready to start a family. If only this baby would make its entrance ….

I often wish I’d known this petite, feisty young woman. For she is certainly not the same woman that I know now as my mother. There is no way that this young woman, raised in a small town in Ontario, could now be the same person after having travelled the world; tucked undergraduate, master and doctoral degrees under her belt; and learned how to navigate not only a hospital but a boardroom. But I’d venture that giving birth had been the most transformative of her life experiences. This young woman couldn’t have known forty years ago that she would go on to birth four more children after her first, and that she would know not only the joyful relief of a baby being put into her arms but also the excruciating pain of grief.

The woman my mother is now, in many ways, is still as much of a mystery as the woman she was back then, with me comfortably curled in her womb. And she might say the same for me. We’ve never been similar, we’ve always had our own ways of doing things … ways that likely make no sense to each other.

And yet, as time goes on, our physical appearances become more and more similar. I look in the mirror, and I see her. It is a strange sensation. As I age, the woman in the reflection sometimes feels like a stranger to me; she bears so little resemblance to the young woman who used to look back at me. But the eyes – they are my mother’s eyes, and they comfort me. They tell me that it will all be okay; that aging, while it may have stripped me of former physical joys, will bring its own rewards.

I love and admire that young woman who birthed me, just as much as the one who now acts as my counsel and friend.

And I am growing to love this newly emerging woman in my mirror. The one with wrinkles and sunspots. With hair that’s gone thin, and a face that is starting to fall. Forty years is a long time to know someone, but life is long and I plan for this face to keep looking back at me for many years to come.

If I’m lucky, I’ll still be looking at this face when my own daughter turns 40. And Stella, who is now aged nine, will ping me off a note asking me to come with her to New York City to celebrate my birthday. That, I think, will be a very sweet moment.

And that is precisely the kind of sweet moment I hope my mother felt when I did the same to her. That’s right, my mother is going to fly into New York (which is might cool of her, don’t you think?) to join me on her birthday, which is so close to mine. Because a “Month of Me” just wouldn’t be the same without her.

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September 5th, 2011

The Back-to-School Outfit

Back-to-school is here! As usual, summer has whizzed right by and we’re back into the busy fall season (both at work and at home). This summer was a milestone for us — we moved houses for the first time in 14 years and we enjoyed a special visit from overseas relatives. But we’re ready for routines again, I think. That’s one bonus of school-aged children; it helps the whole family get into consistent routines.

Not to be outdone by Valentine’s Day or other commercially created and flogged-to-death occasions to spend money, the back-to-school ads have been incessant. Not only do you *need* a new wardrobe, but also brand-new stationery, and the latest and greatest technology gadgets.

Now, don’t get me wrong …. when I was a kid, I loved — loved! — back to school. I loved the fall weather, the classroom, reconnecting with friends and the back-to-shopping trip my mother would always treat me too. Looking back, I have no idea how my parents managed to afford it with four children, but somehow I was always kitted out with new clothes and goodies for the pencil case.

But for us, the back-to-school shopping event is turning out to be more of a non-event. Stella has no interest in fashion and hey, who says you actually need a brand-new outfit for the first day of school? The advertisements do, that’s who. So, we are taking Stella’s lead and adopting a far more simpler and less stress-inducing approach.

Here is the outfit she would like to wear for tomorrow’s first day:

I’m not sure if it will be shorts weather or jeans weather, so both are out and ready. The shorts and jeans are regular features in her closet — both from The Children’s Place, which has a line of jeans that is perfect for Stella’s slim body type, as well as shorts that I consider “nice” and not “short-shorts.” We have the shorts in pretty much every colour and about five pairs of the jeans since Stella, like her father, prefers jeans over any other kind of pant. The shoes are a New Balance pair that we picked up late last school season when she outgrew her other pair of “indoor” shoes. I’m a big believer that the indoor shoes the school requests should be shoes designed for exercise with good cushioning and support, since the kids wear these shoes for gym class. Out of all the clothing elements a child has, I think shoes are the best investment for a growing body. These ones still fit perfectly and are in good condition, so it would be wasteful to toss them simply because they’re not pure white any more.

So, did you add all that up? Yep, a total of $0.00.

But wait, there is one brand new item. A never-worn-before item kept aside specifically for the new school season. And it’s this t-shirt:

Ontario Parks has created a number of nice lines of clothing for toddlers, kids, and adults. This one is from the Species at Risk line, and features the Eastern Wolf. We picked it up on our recent camping trip to Achray, but you can also buy them online (cost is $16.95).

In addition to this Eastern Wolf shirt, we picked up one with a butterfly on it. And during the summer, Stella and I happened upon some great Chinese dragon (a fave creature) shirts that were on sale for $3 each somewhere. So, in total, there are about 4 new shirts for the season.

All up, then, the back-to-school wardrobe this season totalled less than $40.00.

How did you make it through the season? Is your bank account still suffering? What were your top picks or most favourite finds?