Something engraved

Ever since I was a kid, I've liked graveyards.  Invariably, whenever people find this out about me the first thing they say is "WHY?", usually accompanied by a look of confusion on their face and incredulity in their voice. Now, of course this reaction makes sense. After all, the first thing most people would think of with a place where one buries the dead is...death.   Ooooh, isn't that an uneasy topic! Psychological studies have shown that death the #2 biggest common fear for people, only beaten by a fear of public speaking. My statement about liking graveyards has the side effect of plunging people into unintended mental proximity to one of the scariest things in life! *insert evil cackles here* And, if it's not death that gets them rattled, then it's ... ghosts.  You know, that thing that people say they don't really believe in, but actually kind of do in a spirituality-adjacent-but-creepy way.

Occasionally, however, following my declaration of graveyard love, the response I get back surprises me.  "I get it!" or "me too!"  There's something about these kind of responses that conjures a warm sense of fuzziness all the way from my heart to my toes. 

Look at this graveyard in the spring!

The people who get it usually understand this simple fact: graveyards are peaceful. There is the separation that occurs within a graveyard from the hubbub of society, and simultaneously with this separation comes a return to nature.  There is stone, grass, trees and quiet, calm. If this was the one redeeming quality of graveyards they would still be very lovable, but to borrow the words of the world's most infamous infomercials: wait, there's more! 

Beyond the space to think and breath within a busy life, there is also an incredible sacred dimension to graveyards.  In my graveyard wanderings I've found myself drawn into the story of life and death - of the circle of life.  I've become aware that I am part of that circle, part of the loop of common humanity.  I am not alone in my humanness.  The people who are buried around me are people who lived, laughed, loved, suffered, cried, felt trauma, failed, succeeded.... they weren't perfect but they did come before me and they paved the way for me to be here, now as I am.  Drawn into this story I feel an incredible sense of connectedness that transcends time even while including time. 

In memory of that time I sat on the kindness bench

Part of me is very aware at how long this preamble has been, but I felt like it was necessary to provide some context before I start posting pictures of random tombstones on my blog.  You see, this morning I decided to go for a walk and ended up in the nearby graveyard.  Once there I started with an activity I would recommend people try: reading tombstones.  And by "reading" I don't mean just look at the words - rather, take in their meaning, figure out what story they are telling.

 For example, take this gravestone family story:

From what I can piece together, we have John and Elizabeth, who were married (she was three years older than he was) and their daughter Christina who lived to a ripe old age of 92. It's hard to place Frederick - there's no age - but one would assume there is at least a 20 year age gap between him and Christina, judging by the dates of death and from what we know about normal life expectancy. So, I'm guessing Frederick is a grandson to John & Elizabeth, perhaps Christina's son??  If that is true though, why is he the one who gets to go on the tombstone over any other grandchild? Were there no other grandchildren?  The fact that Christina has her maiden name and no listed husband makes me wonder more - did she have this child out of wedlock?  Where is the father?  Was she a single mother and Frederick was her only child?  Are you not as fascinated as I am that we have stumbled into this mystery with only names, ages and dates?!

But I'm not done yet, there's more to the story this tombstone tells.  There's another name on the list, Alida, and she stands out because of the footnote that came only moments before.  She is not called the "wife of" Frederick, but he is called her husband.  If you study enough gravestones you'll realize how rare this is.  Women are often treated like belonging to the man rather than the other way around.  There is a subtle sense of hierarchy in this presentation, that when repeated indefinitely across hundreds or thousands of tombstones diminishes the value of women in general.  And yet here, I immediately felt the sense of respect in these words towards this woman who even though she is not related by blood to this lineage seems to be granted this place of esteem. He was her husband too, she was not just his wife.  

~

On my way home I found myself reflecting on some of the most common engravings to be seen on gravestones: "in loving memory", "loving wife", "loving husband", "I am the resurrection and the life" .... one of these things is not like the others.  There is so much that can be said in a few a words that adds context to the whole story. And yet, some phrases are used so often they have almost lost their meaning, they're basically platitudes.  So, I was wondering, what it might be like if we started including in these few words a story about the person that was a little less conventional?  Something like:

    "kicked ass in life"
    "epic level friend"
    "beloved by her cats and husband"   or
    "Canadian to the core"  

What do you think?  What story would you want people to read about you, if a random stranger was seeking your story on a gravestone and you only had a few words to tell it in?

Something intentional

Despite having less than an hour until my first client of the day the sunny blue sky and relatively balmy temperature of -6 degrees celcius had called to me to bask in the brightness of the morning.   

 

 

 "It's such a beautiful day," I thought to myself as I stepped out of the office.  "It would be a shame to not enjoy it." I step onto the sidewalk that is covered in glistening sheet frozen ice heralding the potential impact of butt on concrete and immediately retract my statement.  "On second thought, maybe this isn't the best time for a walk."  I immediately shake off the doubts like dandruff, and choose instead to stick to my old mantra: a little bit is better than nothing.  I don't have to walk far or fast, but a little bit of exposure to a glorious morning would be good for my soul.

As I walk through the frozen streets of downtown, the bright light of day obscured by obnoxious multi-story buildings, my mind turns to reflect on my day.  It is a five client day.  The sense of anxiety spikes a bit in me with that thought.  Five clients is my maximum client load for the day.  Working as a psychotherapist I have found the formula for energy output is as follows: three clients feels like a brisk walk - you feel the exercise but it is refreshing, four clients is like the walk plus the weight lifting in an hour-long workout - you are tired but satisfied with what you have accomplished, and five clients is like adding an extra 5k jog onto the end of aforesaid workout - you barely manage to drag your lifeless corpse back home so you can make your best face-down pancake impression onto the foot of your bed.  Reflecting on this, a part of me inwardly groaned.  I already knew how the day would go: I would feel anxious before seeing clients knowing of the strain that the day would bring, I would struggle to write my notes because my brain would go on strike in an effort to preserve energy, I would be exhausted when I got home and spend the rest of my night watching youtube mindlessly in my room, probably having popcorn for dinner because it's popcorn (💘).  Sadly, despite the promise of popcorn, it did not sound like an appealing day.  In fact, it was a crime against beautiful weather that my day might end up so aimless.

What kind of person do you want to be today? The thought drifted into my mind like a gentle six-sided snowflake.

"I want to be someone who goes to the gym after work today." I responded out loud, impulsively, impishly. "And who doesn't get anxious about seeing clients."  

Wait. If I wanted to be those things, why couldn't I actually do them?  Maybe I could go to the gym after work; after all I keep my gym bag in my car for those moments when the all-to-fleeting willingness to subject myself to the germ pool that is public workout equipment presents itself.  And maybe, at least for today, I could be a person who doesn't get anxious when seeing clients; after all, I'm a therapist - I have skills for that! Skills like mentally reframing who I want to be and believing I can do it (!!!!).

With that thought, like magic, the anxiety towards seeing clients for the day faded and was replaced with a faint excitement. The excitement is infectious, spurring me onwards. What else did I want to be today? 

 "I want to be a person who reads and takes morning walks!"   The thought had barely materialized when I realized that I had actually already accomplished (or was in the process of accomplishing) those two items on my agenda that morning.  In fact, I was already beginning to resemble the person I wanted to be. Huh, go me!

"I want to be someone who completes her notes.  I want to be a person who eats salad for supper!"  Now I was really getting into the spirit of things.  Lettuce go big or go home (pun intended)!  I immediately took a sharp turn right so I could angle my walking path towards the grocery store where I could find a salad to eat after work before heading to the gym.

"I want - ..... I want...." Wait.... was that it?  I mentally reviewed my list of goals and felt the slow sink of disappointment. It was like getting housecleaning chemicals as a birthday present.  Sure, this list encapsulated well my daily goals that might inhabit any typical Saturday working day, but it lacked pizazz, spice, le joie de vivre.  After seeing my clients, eating my salad and working out, was that all I could really expect of my day? I want to be a person who has more than this to look forward to in a day.

"I want to be a person who blogs."  The words slip out of my mouth, under my breath before the thought has even fully formed. I blink and process what I just said. What?  Okay, full confession, blogging has made it onto the goal list in my birthday journal entries for the past two or three years, but the act has been stymied by a lack of inspiration, content and willpower.  But, today, on the freezing cold below-zero street of Ottawa none of that mattered.  Rather the question today was, if I decided to become a person who blogs, what would I need do to make that happen?  

Step one: because this is a blog that is called A Picture of Something, I would need to take a picture. 

    I pause to take a picture in that morning of the February morning street.

Success! Moment captured!

Step two: Since the picture usually informs the entry, what is this entry about?  Well... I guess the picture is about my decision to blog.  It's about a morning walk and the mental conversation that took place with it.  So meta of me, in a non-Facebook way.

Step three: Make time to write. Perhaps easier said than done, but I have thirty minutes before my first client, and since I decided that I'm not going to be a person who gets anxious today that frees up a bit of time, fifteen minutes at least, to get started on my post for the day.

 

But first.... salad!

 

Something not so imaginary

  

Imagination is a wonderful thing.  It makes real-life mundane situations way more exciting than they actually are.  Take the picture above, for example. The purpose of taking this picture was to tell a story that was not even happening.   The setting invokes a sense of desolation, isolation and danger.  My posture in the picture suggests that  I am being hunted  and am on the run, or am lost and confused, or was taking an innocent walk when a forest of dead trees suddenly surrounded me, invoked by the dread warlock Horrifus.  In this moment I must gather my resources and wits to secure my survival. I must choose between fight or flight - else all might be lost!

 

Alas, reality was not so interesting.

 

The truth is, I was taking an innocent walk, but with a group of people on the Cabot Trail in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.  We were on the Middlehead trail, taking in fantastic views of the Atlantic ocean when we came upon this forest of dead kindling along our path.  Our steps faltered for a moment as my friend spoke what was on all of our minds, "Now, this is spooky."  Inspired by his statement, I quickly set up my camera, shoved it into his hands and told him to take a picture of me in the trees.  Voila!  Setting captured, story told!

 

Sometimes it makes me sad that reality is not as exciting as our imaginations can be.  That walk we took along Middlehead trail was very pleasant and enjoyable, but nothing as stimulating as being attacked by the dread warlock Horrifus happened on that journey.  Then again, I should be grateful that is the case.  This past week the people of Paris, France went through a situation that I am sure they wish was imaginary - the fodder for action-adventure movies or evocative photographs telling a fictional story.  Seven coordinated terror attacks on French civilians in public places killing 129 people.  Suddenly what was always considered safe was no longer so.  The stories that had been read in news about other people in places like Syria, had suddenly become the people of France's own reality.  The imaginary had come to life.

 

The worst thing about the imaginary becoming real is that the sense of control we had when the event was solely confined to the imagination is lost.  No longer are we able to be fit and mould events into a narrative that leaves us as the heroes of the story.  When the imaginary becomes real, instead of being the heroes, we fall into the role of victims.  Worse, we no longer know what to define as reality, so we begin to accuse innocent people, who are trying to flee a similar terror, of being the same as the terrorists who attacked us.  We try to take control of the story by initiating a counter-attack, becoming aggressors in our own right.  This is not a video game though.  Here counter-attacking means the loss of real lives, sometimes innocent lives.  Even as we take up arms to be the heroes in our own eyes, we become the villans in others.  Reality is not as simple as the imagination and there is no game guide to get us through it. 

 

In our reality the fight or flight response is the natural human reaction to a situation like this.  It takes a lot more imagination to find a positive alternative for our historical narrative. What irony that it is when we can no longer separate the imaginary from reality that we need our collective imaginations more than ever!  This is the time when we all need to individually ask ourselves this question: how do we as a people take control and start shaping a narrative that is actually heroic, where aggression that breeds aggression is no longer a dominant theme in the world story we are telling? 

Something about the Canadian dream

"There is no Canadian dream." I read this statement yesterday in an article quoting Ben Carson as he praised American exceptionalism in his bid for Republican presidential nomination in the States.  I almost snorted out loud in the coffee shop where I was perusing my facebook page.  What ignorance!  Anyone who makes that sort of statement obviously does not know Canadians very well.  This sort of person makes the assumption that Canadians prefer mediocrity, when the fact is the Canadians just happen to value modesty as much as we also value our own awesomeness.  Canadians have a lot of pride and a lot of aspirations - we just don't talk about or flaunt them as the Americans do.  There is a Canadian dream, but it is not something advertised or blown out of proportion.  It is something lived and something that is an innate part of us.  Anyone who spends any time living with Canadians will begin to get the sense of how this dream permeates our society.

In fact, recently in a write-up for a women's conference that was discussing the different experiences a woman faces through the decades of her life, I took a moment to ponder the Canadian dream:

"When I was a teenager I put a lot of thought into my 20s. To me they were golden years of opportunity where I would be able to figure out the mysteries of life, the universe and everything. I would decide what I wanted to do as a career, get a college or university education then use that as the foundation to launch the rest of my life. I figured I would get into a serious relationship around the age of 21, maybe get married at 23 or 25. I would graduate from university in my early 20s, be set for life and start raising a family. It was the typical all-Canadian dream."

The thing that stands out for me in my summary of what the typical all-Canadian dream looks like, is that it focuses on education, on family and on finding a productive and meaningful place in society.  These focuses differ some from the American dream, and these differences become apparent when one starts to compare prevalent political ideologies between the two nations.  Proud socialists, Canadians value education - which is why we promote and fund our public schools and Colleges better than the States. We value family which is why we have universal health care, subsidies for parents with children, and paid maternity leave.  We value finding a productive and meaningful place in society, which is why topics like environment & climate change, science, and social justice have been such huge themes in our recent elections.  American politics, and consequently the American dream, focuses more on capitalism - the opportunity to gain wealth through free enterprise.  Canadians value this too, but possessions and financial success are often mere by-products of our larger dream.  And this approach has worked for us, as this article from 2014 bluntly states.

So, Mr. Carson, I am afraid you are dearly wrong.  Canadians have a dream.  It is a wonderful dream and it is a modest dream. It is a dynamic dream that we are not afraid to shape our society around.

Something to be remembered

Once when I was in my early 20s and my sister was still in her early teens she came to visit me in Calgary.  I had all sorts of exciting shenanigans planned for her visit, but knowing we couldn't possibly fit them all in I decided to give her the opportunity to choose an activity from among them.

"So, what would you rather do this weekend - ," I asked, "go to the museum or zoo?" Yeah, my shenanigans were that exciting. I had a secret wager with myself that she was going to pick the zoo, after all - cute, cuddly animals that you don't have the opportunity to see every day - how could you not?  In truth I really wanted to go to the museum but I seriously doubted how a feature exhibit on the building the trans-Pacific railway could possibly stimulate a 14 year old brain.  My sister surprised me though when she picked the museum, almost without a second thought.  Oh yeah, I remembered, we are sisters.  Strange things like preferring museums to zoos must run in the family.

When I was travelling in Eastern Canada I had the opportunity to visit my fair share of museums. In fact, at one point in Montreal I reached a point of museum overload when we visited the Place de Calliere, Planetarium, Biodome, Musee de Marguerite Bouregoys, Centre d'Histoire de Montreal, Bank of Montreal money museum, Chateau Ramezay and a few other places I have already forgotten all in the matter of a couple days!  My journal entry from October 1st reads, "Yesterday: too many museums."  That's it.  That's all the energy I had to write!  My brain was so fried that by the time we got to the Musee des Hospitaliares I was doing that thing where you read a sentence, get halfway through and realize you don't have any clue what it is saying so you start reading from the beginning again only to get 1/2 a dozen words in before you realize you can't even recall what they were, so you start again and the vicious cycle repeats itself.  I ended up giving up at that point.  Apparently there can be too much of a good thing.  The good news is: I recovered.  By Ottawa I was prepared to visit museums again, only no more than one a day this time.

The thing about going to so many museums is that you begin to see how they have a tendency to be all the same.  Take First Nations exhibits, for example.  By the end of my trip I was getting seriously annoyed with them.  I voice my frustrations in my journal:

"Canadians seem to think that this is our history, but the truth is that it is us trying to record the vestiges of a dying culture because our ancestors nearly stamped them out of existence.  How many museums have I entered that have told me what the First Nations did, what they wore, how they survived, but have never told me who they were? There is almost never a story of a person, of a soul that represents the soul of his or her people, and that is the real tragedy of these museum exhibits.  History remains a white man thing - with the remnants of the civilizations we have conquered displayed in our halls."

There were exhibits, however, that offered a fresh perspective that I really appreciated.  In the Canadian Museum of History I went through an exhibit entitled "1867: Rebellion and Confederation."  This exhibit told the story of the context surrounding Canada's confederation, about how the American revolution to the south had pushed up the British loyalists who had a superiority complex over the French Acadians and the only reason these two cultures completely at odds with each other came together was because they were worried about being annexed by the States. I found it extraordinarily amusing that the origin of Canadian identity was in the desire to NOT be American.  Despite our close ties to the US today, this one fact remains a pivotal expression of Canadian identity.

What I really pulled away from the 1867 exhibit, however, was the fact that when Canada became a nation, it was in fact not a nation.  People in Canada still thought about themselves as British subjects.  They still carried British Passports.  It wasn't until World War I, as I learned later at the Canadian War Museum, that Canada was recognized on an international stage as its own unique country.  It was because of World War I that Canadians decided to take over their own international affairs, that we began to take pride in saying that we were Canadian and began to seek out symbols of our cultural identity. 

A few days ago we celebrated November 11th, Remembrance Day here in Canada.  That day I had the opportunity to help my church serve coffee and hot chocolate to the hundreds of people who came to participate in the ceremonial process of remembrance and I did not hesitate to take a few pictures.  War is a tragedy.  It has a huge toll in the cost of life that it demands.  And yet, I feel so grateful for those soldiers and people who have represented Canada in war.  At the museums I visited on my trip I learned that the adversity of war is what helped birth our national identity.  We are not a warlike people; we have not sought conflict as the Americans have throughout their revolutionary history.  But it is through the fires of war that we have discovered who we are and what we believe in as a nation.  It is because of the sacrifices of these people that we can have pride in being Canadian.

For that, soldiers and veterans, I thank you.

Something beautiful

Once upon a time (about a year ago) I discovered that one of my core values is beauty.  And by beauty I am not talking about manufactured attractiveness - the "if I visit my hair stylist and wear makeup for the pictures then maybe I won't be embarrassed to show my driver's license to everyone" perception of beauty, or the "I don't care who I date as long as he has a six-pack (and I'm not talking about beer), yum, yum, yum" deluded manner of thinking.

 

 No. The beauty I am talking about is the beauty of creation as demonstrated by the sun dipping behind the mountains setting the world on fire with an almost other-worldly glow. 

 

 

It's the beauty of a person who finally finds his or her self-confidence and learns how to smile from the heart. It's the beauty of a community that unites together and supports one another through tough times.  It is found in the simple and spontaneous moments of life.  It's when you see or hear something that just takes your breath away and you think to yourself "Ah, that's beautiful."

 

Beauty is all about perspective; about seeing the world as God made it and realizing that it is good.  It seeks to find the value in everyone and everything.

 

 



Another core value for me is "sanctuary".  And no, before the question comes up, I am not talking about a television show, a wildlife reserve for birds, hippos or iguanas, or the sacred interior of a church building (although the word could apply to all three, and I have watched the television show).  The "sanctuary" I am discussing is found in the silence, the stillness, the solitude; there is beauty there too.  But sanctuary for me is not simply an absence of people and of noise.  It is a state of being: of being completely myself, of being completely whole.  It is when I come face to face with myself and with God and see myself in perspective to Him and realize that I am loved and complete in who I am – even if the person who I am is not perfect and does not always act in a way that is beautiful. 

 

 

Sanctuary is an inner space where I feel a sense of worship towards the divine.  It is where I surrender and release the need to be in control and turn my eyes to the El Shaddai and in the process of losing myself in Him, I rediscover who I am.

It might be the influence of the these two values that have helped pique my interest in photography.  That or it was all the hiking with my crazy friend where we kept finding amusing photographic opportunities like this:

 

Either way, the fact is that I have become addicted to the feeling of finding moments of beauty, sanctuary, and yes even humour and capturing them in that instant so I can share the same wonder that I feel with the rest of the world.  When you learn how to look at the world in a certain way it becomes all the more amazing.