Prolific Immigrant

Very often, women are pitted against one another, so many represented as not being “a girl’s girl.” You know these women, we all know at least one woman around whom we are uncomfortable when they get too drunk and start show-boating for male attention. The woman who would justify sleeping with the man on whom you are crushing because “it’s not like he was into her, and why shouldn’t I? If I avoided every man who every one of my friends liked…, there’d only be 30 billion more…”

You know her. And she turns your stomach. And you should pity her because usually, her self worth rests entirely in the realm of how men react to her. And woah is her when her looks shift.

Listen. I too need attention from men. When I don’t even know I need it, and I suddenly get it, I would be a lying liar who lies were I to lie: It doesn’t affect me, I don’t even notice it. And when it’s from a boy I actually like, even better. I am overrun with a hysteria that amounts to a mass email / text to all of my female friends, and where my phone is broken, I will send smoke signals that HE SMILED AND SAID HI AND DO YOU THINK MY OUTFIT IS OKAY, SMOKE SIGNAL LOOKS A LITTLE BLOATED, etc.

But for a normal healthy woman with her self-esteem recipe in good shape, this comes in measured doses. It is not a daily thing, but rather a once in a while thing. Our self-worth is composite of an awareness of what we bring to the human table, rather than what we bring to — specifically — the male table.

That girl mentioned above, contrary to what media keeps trying to shove into my head, is not the norm. Or maybe I have just been blessed with most of the women in my life. (And I hope that you are, too.) She is not the norm.

The norm is women who love one another deeply.
Women who love one another even when we want to punch the other one in her stupidity.
Women who support one another when there is nothing left to say, but only the deepest most heart stopping pain to manage.
Women who tell one another that they are better, that they deserve better, that they can do better, that they will do better, and that they don’t have to show their boobs to get there. But if they did, “then I’ll help you get the right bra, but I would just like to raise my hand and say that I don’t think you need to show your boobs to get this. Let’s go shopping! I love you.”

That is the norm; these women, are the norm.
And if you don’t know these women, then you need to seek them out, to learn from them, and to become one of them. Trust that they will enrich your life, as they do mine.

All of the above to say, please read this article by Emily Rapp, an ode to the beauty and power of female friendship, the love story that all too often goes unsung. A snippet: I was that desperate mother now; it was my baby who was going to die, and soon. It was already too late. I literally could not bear it. I asked for help and I got it. My friends stood with me in the middle of the scary, sky-howling road I was on, knowing they couldn’t take away the pain of the experience, but promising to be there when I emerged on the other side of the grief tunnel when my child would be gone. I feel them, every day, standing there as I stumble through the blissful, heart-breaking hours with my son whose brain and body fail him a little bit more each day. It is not an exaggeration to say that I would not have survived – that I will not survive — without my women friends.

Share it with the women you respect and hold dear. Share it with your daughters to lead by example, and to remind them that their strength is not in how men react to them, but also — if not more importantly — in how women who know them, are women who respect and love them.

Thank you for your friendship.

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**As balance to the earlier article about when to pull support from friends, this is a necessity.

I hold myself to an extreme standard of behaviour, and although I do my best to soften this where others are concerned (because who in the sh/t am I to hold anyone to any standard?), if I don’t check myself, I can be insufferably judgemental. (Even in my own head, I need to check my ass.) I have come up against some interesting scenarios over the last several years, where tested was my threshold of support, and identified was my level of comfort with the behaviour of friends.

Looking at the scenarios separately provides more clarity, because their core motivations differ.

When a friend behaves in a way I would not support in a stranger

There are certain and very few lines which even my friends can not transgress. Absolutely no one is immune to this. Usually, these are selfishly motivated behaviours, and once in a while we are all allowed to make such a completely and totally selfish choice. Just once in a while. (Because someone who behaves in this way repeatedly, is someone who lives by this code, is someone I would never engage in the first place. See? JUDGE-Y. But it’s simple, no? It’s not rocket science: don’t put out into the world what you would not wish to reap. If we all lived by this code, this world would be a much nicer place, God damn it.)

Right. So, I have learned that I must excuse myself immediately. The best way to do this is to actually let the friend know — with love — that I am tapping out of the conversation because I believe their behaviour is shit and I refuse to support it. Quite honestly, I’m not sure I say it much kinder than that, and where the conversation turns back to that scenario, I don’t pull any punches.

On this, I expect the exact same in return. Where I behave in self-involved possibly hurtful to others manner, my friends have called me on it, and I am a better woman for their gentle yelling.

When a friend repeatedly engages in self-destructive behaviour

This one is a trickier one because too much support becomes a form of enabling someone you love to emotional — if not worse — self-mutilation. And if you don’t support them, the fear is that their isolation will further push them into the situation from which they have asked you to help them leave. The only way to deal with this is to pay as close attention as you can to a friend, to love them unconditionally, and to be very clear with them at every step of the way. Usually, this happens because of a combination of environmental factors: childhood experience, abusive partner, and challenged self-worth.

Only twice have I had to tell someone I love that I am no longer engaging, because my engagement is enabling their behaviour. And because I tend to make everything about me, let me confirm that: I was devastated, because I was so very worried for them. Devastated to the point of physical nausea and the shakes, in fact, just like the quintessential drama queen. Blessed be, and in due time, both of these individuals who daily break my heart with their amazingness, were able to eventually self emancipate. Hurrah them!

Like I said, this scenario is the trickier of the two, and usually filled with more heartbreak. The two most important things here are that (1) you tell them you love them. You tell them how much you love them and that the reason you need to disengage is precisely because you love them; and, (2) you up the ante in all other dimensions of the friendship. Never ever cut them off, but rather no longer discuss the one (or several) items you no longer support. If you have a healthy friendship, you will have twenty topics to discuss on any given day; with one or a few less, you should still have about ten more things to engage.

Simply, and in both scenarios above, what we are essentially doing is loving and supporting our friends, but not loving and supporting one or a few of the choices which they have made. Also, displaying that we have enough respect for them to tell them the truth.

If a friendship can’t be sustained with differing opinions, then the foundation — which should be built of mutual respect — never had time to dry and set itself properly into place. Friendships aren’t just about fellating one another in order to make ourselves feel good; they are a means to growth for both of you, because as so beautifully stated by W. Somerset Maugham, “When you choose your friends, don’t be short-changed by choosing personality over character.” Character builds both itself and you, and we could all use a little character building, especially the judge-y bitches like me.

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Photo from SomeEcards, the absolute best ecard shoppe in the history of the internet.

Sometimes, I would really like to say:

“I un-friended you because your ego-driven behaviour is so very unfriendly.

I un-friended you because 9 out of 10 times, I believe you’re lying, and I have walked away from communicating with you feeling like shit.

I un-friended you because I don’t believe you’re as nice as you think you are.

I un-friended you is not passive aggressive, but rather hard-core extremely aggressive. (In case you were wondering.)”

New Year’s Resolution? No more ego-driven “friends” who behave in unfriendly manner.

I recommend you do the same.

‘Verily, the most honored of you in the sight of God is the one who is most righteous.’ (Quran 49:13)

Each one of us defines “righteous” in a variety of ways, right down to the simplest thing, like helping someone on the street, or taking care of a best friend. Some people will argue that people should fend for themselves, and if someone is on the street, it’s because they deserve to be on the street, and so to help them is not to behave in righteous manner, but rather it is to enable.

The people who would argue the above are definitively: assholes.

Do you remember when you were growing up and people asked you what you wanted to be when you were older, and you said: “living on the street” or perhaps “sleeping beneath a bridge”?

No? Me either.

What about when you answered: “being alone!”

Yeah. Me either.

My mum tends to travel over the holidays, and most of my friends are usually out of town or at family Christmas dinners drunk and working out their issues. Basically, I have always been — more often than not — alone over the Christmas holidays. Almost everything is closed and a girl can only read so much and see so many films over the course of a few days.

Thing is, even though we don’t celebrate Christmas, I do love all of its accoutrements. On some level, the holiday resonates with me, and so when I’m alone, that resonance turns into sadness a little bit. I still remember last year, no one was even on-line or on bbm or over text. And I am someone who is very comfortable being alone, so imagine how bad it had to be for me to actually feel like it was too much.

A couple of tips for the holidays, which you should carry with you throughout your year if you can. (And please note, I am not at all comparing being inside, safe and sound and warm but alone, with being on the street. I am merely trying to make a connection for those of us who would never see a connection between ourselves and those who too many of us ignore on the streets.)

First, it’s the easy one: don’t leave your single friends alone. Surely, you must have room for one more. Surely.

To clarify: Possess enough emotional fkn intelligence to note that if they’re there for you 360 days a year, now is not the time to leave them alone. Even a simple “thinking of you” text message is better than nothing. And unless your fingers are broken, you need to do this, you morons.

There’s something really sad and alienating about being left alone at a time of year that’s meant to be about family, love, peace, and forgiveness. There is a reason that the highest rate of suicide happens around this time of year. And this is the time of year you are meant to be thankful and loving — that doesn’t only hold true for your blood kin. Don’t forget about us who may not have family in the City, or who may not normally celebrate Christmas and so are de facto outside of the circle of Noel.

Go through your friend list in your head, and you will find at least one person who fits this description. Now, make a point of reaching out to them and engaging them. Trust me on this one. Please.

Second, it’s the harder one, the more important one of this article: if a regular everyday Maha with a full social schedule and a loving circle of friends can feel so alienated and sad over the holidays, imagine someone who lives on the street. Imagine someone who is already alienated and troubled. The majority of homeless have come from childhoods of abuse — more often than not, it is sexual. Another great majority has mental health issues.

Don’t ever kid yourself about this fact: No one wants to live on the street by choice.

Here’s something I came across recently, which is amazing, and what better way to teach your children about righteousness, than by leading by example? (Thank you, MJ.)

“Guerilla Giving,” started (and still happening) by a garbage man in Edmonton:

Each year his family & friends fill backpacks for individual homeless people
In each backpack they include:
A wallet with $25.00 cash (optional if you don’t have it).
A personalised Christmas card, signed by the family.
Christmas treats and snacks or granola bars & lipton soup.
Things like long-johns, gloves, hoodies, tea light candles, thermos, toiletries.
They target individuals, not those in groups.
They avoid churches and shelters, as they want to give with no pre-condition.
They always shake their hand, or hug them, and wish them well before they leave them to open their packages.”

You don’t need to do this at Christmas. In fact, you don’t need a reason to do this at all, except maybe the active choice to be thankful for your shelter. To be thankful for your food. To be thankful for your ability to have a Christmas tree, at the foot of which your family sits. To be thankful that you were not abused. To be thankful that you do not have a reason to be on the street. To be thankful that you can purchase a backpack and fill it.

And aren’t these reasons truly in the spirit of Christmas? More so than the twenty gifts beneath your tree?

You don’t need to do this at Christmas. But I am placing my bets on this time of year, when people are meant to live within the spirit of this holiday, and I am betting that you may be a little more open to the above suggestions today than you would be on a random day in April.

I guess this coming year, maybe our resolutions should be on a foundation of: I resolve to not look away.

Happy holidays dear readers. Thank you for sharing your stories and your hearts, for uplifting mine when it has been prostrate on the ground, confused by Heaven’s will. May your season be filled with love, light, and warmth. And may you have the generosity to share these things with those less fortunate.

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Photo from FinancialJesus(dot)com.

It’s the only guaranteed fact of life.

I have just learned that a woman with whom I went to high school has passed away due to cancer. We were acquaintances, not friends. I remember her smile, her gentleness and her crazy beautiful milk-coloured skin.

I am in some kind of shock, because she is the first of my graduating class to pass, and she is too young.
This is just. She is too fucking young. We are too young.
We are too young. We are too young. We are too young.

RIP, Barbara.

Due to certain circumstance, I have – in the last perhaps month – been having bouts of complete and total rage. Wicked anger the likes of which I have never before felt and hope I never feel again. Often, I am with mobile to ear with Naomi on the other end talking me down. Talking me down. Talking me down. For that, I would like to thank her publicly as apparently she has been quoting direct from my blog to her partner Jason. A big hello to Jason also.

The first time she did this we spent nearly three hours on the phone with me in the middle of a field next to Lulu at different times crying, being pissed off, being fair, being unfair, being ridiculous, being filled with resentment, being demented, and being completely on the mark.

When I’ve come off the phone with her and am calmed, I look into my mind’s mirror and demand a response to: “Now list all of the mistakes and stupidities you committed to find yourself in this situation. Also, place yourself in their shoes and try to see what they see and understand their hurt. Because you are not innocent in this.“, because the only way to deal with rage of this sort, I think, is to never allow it a scapegoat. To instead know that it takes several to tango and impart the reasons for that rage to all parties, including – and possibly before anyone else – yourself.

Otherwise, hate takes over our hearts and leaves no room for all of the other great emotions we’re capable of feeling. We become stuck like sad little turtles on our backs, waiting for a hero to save us.

Only, there are no heroes in this world outside of ourselves. If we will it, anger serves as an ugly corner in our minds and the longer we allow it to remain there, the more solidified the corners become. Then sooner, rather than later, they cease being corners and start becoming our very centres around which everything else is built, against which we measure everything and the points from which we begin every movement.

So. I refuse to be Angry Girl, and luckily she left some time last week and was replaced by Happy Girl w/ Crayons. My life is too good and my heart is too big and I will not shrink it for anything. Not a thing. In fact, I’m working to make it bigger. Stronger. Nicer. Kinder. Prettier. And give it more crayons. (I understand I sound as someone with water on the brain here, and that’s fine.)

I recommend you do the same. Only the weak of spirit and heart will shy away from this. A line’s been drawn and you have to decide on which side you stand; Your heart and mind are either courage filled or cowardice led. Choose.

It’s far easier to project and hate (insert item / television show / individual / colour scheme) rather than to face the facts. So consider this a dare. I dare you to: Sift through your mind and find the corners – or for some, cores – where hate lives. Then face that hate, wrestle it, understand the ‘why’ of it rather than the ‘who’, look at the actions you took to make the situation turn into one of rage and then squash it. Squash it whole. Refuse it’s poison into the rest of your body – most especially your heart – and search for the good instead. It will make you cry and stamp your feet and want to kick the sh*t out of something, but you need to stop your whinging and do it. DO IT. For the sake of you and everything about you, believe Nike (slave drivers for profit) and Just Do It (insert swoosh).

I’m not done just yet because this dare has a second part. As soon as you have completed the first dare, I then dare you to forgive as determinedly and as wholly as you did facing that anger and that hate.

Forgive the one who inflicted it, forgive your actions that facilitated the situation. Forgive completely. And then breathe in the enormous relief your heart feels when it instantly discovers the massive amounts of room you’ve just cleared out within it. In mine, I will soon be able to place a gigantic colouring table the size of which no one’s ever seen.

Now Go; You have dares to meet.

I love you all.
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07.09.05.
Photo courtesy of HuffPo’s Further Proof That Parents Like To Laugh At Their Offspring.

I’ve always believed that the reason Paradise is at the feet of mothers is because when they are gone, they take with them 99% of the love felt by their children. I am not yet a parent and so can not confirm whether becoming a parent shifts that 99%, but I can’t imagine it does; as a daughter, I know that kids can be severe pain-in-the-ass traumatic fk-jobs to their parents. Rare, however, that we hear of the opposite.

All weekend, I had been thinking of Hannah, thinking how I hadn’t heard from her in a couple of weeks. Unnerved by this quiet I had scribbled a note to ring her during the week.

She beat me to it, with first email message received this morning relaying the news of her mum’s passing.

The third parent this last month, her loss brings with it the greatest hurt. Both because I fell in love with her the moment I met her, but so too because she was the one who led me to Hannah.

In such circumstance, I am utterly useless via the spoken word. Witness when I rang Hannah and left the voice-mail: Hannah. It’s Maha. I’m just. I’m just. Just. Because. Just. I’m calling because I’m so sorry. (Insert a variety and flurry of sobbing, choking, and hiccuping sounds.) I love you, Hann.”

I had barely hung up when I started to have a really very ugly cry. Were I standing before Hannah, she would have had to console me; I am that pathetic. Charlie, who normally — with love — hides in the washroom, book in hand, when Hann’s upset? Would have been sent diving head-first into the tub.

That noted, where I am helpful is Action Items. Cooking meals, picking up groceries, cleaning an apartment…screening her calls, picking out her outfit, fixing her hair, holding her hand, tucking her in, and standing in front of her to take a rogue cotton-ball in the eye. Basically, situations wherein I am physically occupied.

Only, what I am good at, I can not do while I am not in London. Though we have emailed a couple of times today, I am sitting in Ottawa feeling utterly impotent.

Right now, I can not shoulder her grief, but only share in it.

I can also write, so here I am asking for your contribution.

If you have a moment to say a prayer for Hannah’s heart, please do so. And take with you…

Because I’ve lost my strength to stand
Without the prayer of your day
I’ve grown old…return the stars of childhood
So I can share with the sparrow chicks
The way back
To the nest of your waiting

Thank you.
Love you.

Headed for the Great Adventure is one of the warmest, gentlest and kindest women to ever let me into her home. She is responsible for bringing together myself and her daughter, now one of my most cherished and most beloved friends.

With a heavy heart: Thank you for giving me Hannah.

Your crystal blue-twinkled eyes and your perfectly bobbed hair will always be missed, mum.

Comments closed.

It was the first morning that Dianna and I awoke in Scotland. Since we were to travel overnight, we’d not made any plans for that first day, instead getting to know Glasgow at our leisure. We were at Mrs. Morrison’s Craigielea Guesthouse (highly recommended: 35 Westercraig’s Street) in one of the second floor’s largest rooms.

The floor of the entire B&B was covered in soft furry plaid carpet and there were at least 100 different pieces of artwork lining the walls from ceiling to floor, because Mr. Morrison is an artist.

With a stand up shower, sink, fireplace, dining table, two queen-sized beds pushed together, several dressers, a massive Chinese lantern hanging from the ceiling, two reading chairs, a television, 11 hung paintings, and different coloured walls, our room was confused as to its purpose.

And for this, we loved it.

Unless sleeping next to an open window, I become claustrophobic. During all times of the year, the window remains open. Mrs. Morrison’s window had no screen and was enormous, with a thin sheer white curtain beneath three heavier ones.

Having left the window open, we pulled aside all heavy curtains and left the sheer to roam. It was the sound of rain which woke me, but it was something else which kept me awake. Incredibly, our room had become filled in a mist so thick, I couldn’t see the wall across from me. I had never before, nor have I since seen anything like it.

I stayed in bed breathing very quietly, eyes wide open, and with very little movement as I didn’t wish to scare away the mist. Lush Scotland was giving us a warm hug hello with her most notorious character, and I have never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

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You may find Mrs. Morrison here; it appears that she has (sadly) redecorated.

Several years back, Alisa & Ryan were married at Lake Placid. Baby Jane and I stayed at the Trail Head’s Inn in the Bigelow Room, then owned and run by a young couple from Australia.

By circumstance, I ended up with our room all to myself. The room split into two areas, one side of which was the ‘Adirondack sleeping porch,’ once a balcony with an old, squeaky and washed out grey wood floor and a very thin steeply sloped wooden roof. The railing of the porch was a faded white painted wood, and all open areas of the balcony covered with a thin fine green mesh.

It held a queen-sized bed with white bed coverings & a duvet, a small old and worn rug purchased from a Moroccan market, one forest green reading chair, and a beautiful antique cherry wood night table.

This room sat on the opposite side of the entrance from where the family lived, and so was completely silent. Due to the height of the balcony, I couldn’t see anything but the forest’s tree tops as I sat on the bed.

It poured over the course of the night and into the next morning, leaving me drenched in the aroma of rain falling through trees. Nothing existed beyond that space, and I was immersed in overwhelming peace. There wasn’t a feeling beyond the rain, whose misted cool breeze seduced me beneath the duvet far into the early afternoon.

Eventually, I said a humble thanks to God for such a perfect morning, and tip-toed my way across the frozen porch and back into reality.