Tag Archives: Art

Confessions of a Facebook “Creeper”

04 Wednesday Jan 2017

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I admit it. I search for people all the time who aren’t my friends on Facebook. Usually, this happens during bouts of nostalgia when I find myself thinking about the people with whom I grew-up and wondering where they are, what they are doing, what they look like and how happy they appear.

I want to compare where I am, what I’m doing, what I look like and how happy I am with my childhood friends. I am always relieved and slightly joyous when I see that there has been weight gain, wrinkles, weariness…good. It’s not just me.

There are many people with whom I wish I had kept more regular contact. People with whom I am no longer “friends” – not even on Facebook. Sometimes I creep these people to see what life is like for them. I did this yesterday and spent a considerable amount of time looking at a few childhood friends and I was genuinely glad to see how happy they appeared. I was pleased that they had experienced adventures, travel, fun, love and beauty.

I considered sending a few friend requests, but got lost in thoughts of how it would be perceived by these people. I suffered from depression for most of my time in high school. This was before depression was really understood, talked about or treated. But, the biggest casualty of my depression was my social life. I withdrew from all of my friends and lost most of those relationships. One of the biggest hangers-on of this time period is embarrassment. I feel embarrassed all the time about how I was and I assume that people remember me in a negative light.

I was moody, judgmental, shy, confused, lonely and lost.

During these years my FB posts would have be the kind that you just get tired of seeing so you block the person so you don’t get the constant drone of negative status updates in your feed.

When I think about these years I am always overwhelmed with sadness for the many memories I have about stupid things I did as a result of my state of mind. I’ve been working on forgiving myself, and giving that girl a chance to heal and find acceptance; strangely, creeping on Facebook kind of helps with this. I’ve managed to ‘rekindle’ a few of these lost relationships and they have been extremely meaningful to me. Every time I send a request to a long, lost, friend and then we message back and forth a bit, and eventually just start to share life through the regular news feed, it helps normalize what feels like an extremely polarizing time for me.

I wish I could sit down with all of my old friends and have an open discussion about those years, explain what was going on in my world, express my regret for how I may have treated them, share my sorrow for all the lost time and then make-up for some of that time and move-forward as friends again.

My mind is full of many happy memories with them. I remember hours and hours of time spent together, laughing, talking about boys, playing stupid games, sleepovers, doing makeup, playing sports, passing notes in school…I see snapshots in my mind of us together on hammocks, acting cool at school dances, playing flag football, flirting and silly things like stuffing our shirts with balloons. The memories are full and rich.

But, then there are years where the memories are filled with pictures of school dances, football games, pep rallies and lunches filled with all these faces growing and enjoying life—but mine is not with them. These memories haunt me like shadows. Life was happening all around me, but I wasn’t in it.

So, I creep on facebook. I try to fill-in some of the gaps. I reach-out. I rekindle. I make progress.

I am so thankful for those friends with whom I’ve managed to reconnect because, the truth is, the folks with whom I grew-up really do mean a lot to me. They were the people that helped shape me into who I am today. They were my original cheerleaders, challengers and role-models. They were my squad, my family, my community. They exist in my memory as a deep and vast resource of life, joy, sorrow, lessons-learned, new experiences, comfort and friendship and I am so thankful for the ability to creep into their lives now and get a little piece of what once was.

The Lost Girl

04 Wednesday May 2016

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The other day I was in the bathroom washing my hands and when I looked-up at myself in the mirror I got a surprise. I looked like myself again.

For years now I have looked in a mirror, searching for me and failing to find the person that once looked back at me. I would see someone with a puffy, tired, drawn face looking back at me like I was a stranger and I would say to her ‘who are you?’

I would stare at this person, intently, gazing into her eyes, trying to find the person I used to know.

Then, all of a sudden, she just showed-up.

The person looking back at me had the mischievous twinkle in her eye that was so familiar. She looked happy, refreshed and full of life.

I didn’t realize how much I had been missing her until she showed up again.

She took my breath away.

There was great relief to find that she still existed. I had been feeling as though she would be lost forever.

This girl and I were close once. We used to explore, create, love, laugh and live a wondrous life full of energy. She was brave and enjoyed exploring and trying new things.

I guess I first started losing touch with her when I was pregnant-the first time. After the miscarriage, she began to distance herself a little bit more. After moving country and finding herself more alone than ever, she would disappear for weeks at a time. She was never really the same after that.

After she gave birth to her little boy she disappeared, almost, entirely. There were brief moments of pure joy when she would show her face, but for the most part, she was lost.

I couldn’t find her. I would call out to her ‘where are you?’ and hear nothing in response. I missed the excitement she brought to the world, I missed the energy, the love for life, the hunger for experience.

I missed the love of art, the desire to create music and write thoughts, the joy that she would have when she watched a breeze rustling the leaves of a tree.

And, all of a sudden, here she was. A cheeky grin on her face, her eyes glowing like an andalusite gem, ready to take on the world.

Like Bastian in “The Neverending Story”, I have traversed through sadness, fear, loss, overcome great obstacles and battled “the Nothing” only to discover that I was the one all along.

The rediscovery of this girl has been a huge part of this journey that I call “seeking life now”. It hasn’t happened by accident. I have had to work at it. My lost self didn’t just appear of her own volition, I have been working on creating a safe space for her so that she felt confident in returning.

And, although she’s not 100%, fully back, the glimpse I have seen of her has given me new hope and renewed energy to keep working on the things I have been doing so that she has space to thrive once again.

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Art is what happens to you…

29 Friday Apr 2016

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Art- it’s exciting when a piece of art surprises you by impacting you in a way you never thought it would.

My husband and I took a half vacation day to explore the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario). We had wanted to do this on Leap Day (Feb. 29, 2016) but it fell on a Monday and the Gallery is not open on Mondays.

So, we decided to do it yesterday.

We took the elevator to the top floor and found a volunteer leading a tour who invited us to join. Usually, I would want to just explore these things on my own, but today I was feeling like I could use a little extra input into what it was we were going to be seeing, so we joined in.

I’m so glad we did.

The very first installation we saw was one created by Micah Lexier. It was “a work of art in the form of a quantity of coins equal to the number of months of the statistical life expectancy of a child born January 6, 1995.”

Normally, I would look at something like this and think: “Huh…ok. Kind of interesting, I guess.” And not give it very much thought beyond that.

But, as we looked at it our volunteer tour guide said:

“Notice how the coins in the first box are neatly ordered and purposefully placed. This is the expectation of what life will bring-the hopes. This is how we all start out. Now look at the coins in the second box. It always reminds me of a line of a famous John Lennon song: ‘life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans’.”

And then the tears came.

First of all, the installation reflected things I’ve been having about my own life for some time. For years now I have been trying to teach myself how to be present in the moment and realize that this is life.

There was a period of time when I felt I was constantly waiting for my life to begin. And then, all of a sudden, I looked and I saw a box, much like this chaotic box of coins, and I realized that this was my life. Life was here in all this mess, disorganisation and the many unplanned events and bends in the road.

I had been expecting to look at my life and see it as the first box: Ordered, dreams fulfilled, everything in its place, looking exactly as I had imagined it would. But, I have recently come to realize and accept my life as being beautiful, despite the fact that it looks so different to what I had originally envisioned.

Just as the neatly organized coins have their beauty, so do the scattered. And, as I looked at the 2 boxes the one thing remained the same, despite how the coins were placed, they were all in “my box”. And, that’s really what is important. Whether the coins are neat, or scattered, they are mine. They are my memories, experiences, struggles, victories, joys, sorrow – my life. And that’s beautiful.

Secondly, I sing that song to my son all the time. And, as I looked at these coins, I saw my neatly organized hopes and dreams for what his life will be in the first box and the reality of what it will actually be in the 2nd. I realized that his life, just like mine, is going to be what it’s going to be. I can’t control it and I won’t be able to keep it neatly organized for him. He’s going to experience pain, sorrow, frustration, disappointment, confusion and chaos. But, there will also be joy, love, freedom, hope, comfort and adventure.

There will come a time when the 2 coins that are currently in his box will be at the bottom of this heap of messy coins, almost forgotten. Except, the image of how they are now in their near perfection, will always remain in my heart. At some point, there will have to be a letting-go.

As I stood there contemplating all of this I made a promise to myself to help teach my son how to not miss life because he’s trying to keep his coins in order. I want to teach him to embrace the chaos that is life and to see the beauty in it while it is happening.

Out on the ocean sailing away
I can hardly wait
To see you come of age
But I guess we’ll bot just have to be patient
‘Cause it’s a long way to go
A hard row to hoe
Yes, it’s a long way to go
But in the meantime

-John Lennon-

 

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265 (Apr. 27) 267.3 (Apr. 28) Pizza, Art and Fran’s

28 Thursday Apr 2016

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I had pizza for dinner on Tuesday night from Papa John’s. Grilled Chicken, bacon, roma tomatoes and five-cheese. It was so delicious and I had 4 slices.

I stepped on the scale on Wednesday morning and was surprised to see 265-My goal weight!

However, I knew that the pizza hadn’t quite caught up with me, so kept my excitement at bay. Also, I knew that I had planned on having lunch with my husband before heading to the AGO to check-out some art.

We went to Fran’s, one of our favourite joints for lunch. If you live in Toronto, you will probably know about Fran’s. I ordered a “Big Breakfast” knowing that I had pizza last night and probably should have been “taking it easy” on the food-front…sausage, bacon, eggs, toast, home fries and pancakes! [sarcasm]

I ate 2 sausages, 1 bacon, a few bites of toast and eggs, all the home fries and both pancakes. I really love their home fries.

We spent the entire afternoon walking, but I guess fairly low-key, as my steps and calories didn’t seem to burn-out that quickly, despite the fact that I did.

Looking at art is amazing, but it’s actually very tiring as well. When I first arrived I was very teary and everything was making me cry. By the end, everything just started to look the same. This is when I knew it was time to leave, but not before finding the Renoir. I love Renoir. He is my favourite artist of all time.

When we finally made it home, after picking-up our son, I was utterly exhausted. Physically, mentally and emotionally. I warmed-up 2 leftover pieces of pizza for dinner and shared them with my son.

This morning when I stepped on the scale, my weight was back up to 267.3. Damn.

The temptation to feel disappointed in myself and go on a bender looms overhead. But, I know better now. There is no need for me to be disappointed. I am doing an incredible job and, I’m just going to keep going.

An important change of thinking for me is to not look at these meals as “mistakes” or with the mentality that I now have to “starve” or “be good” to make up for it, but to just treat them as any other meal. Like a normal person. I don’t have to feel guilty about choosing to have pizza one night instead of eggs and toast.

This is life. I made good choices in the midst of it all. I could have eaten more pizza than I did, but I stopped myself. I could have kept all the pizza for myself, but I shared it with my husband and child and I could have eaten my entire “big breakfast” despite feeling full/satisfied instead of stopping when I felt I had eaten enough.

265 is within reach and I will get there again. More important than that number, I tried some of my “summer” clothes on that I couldn’t fit a couple of months ago, and they fit comfortably now. And, even more important than the clothes, I am feeling good. I feel my body and I can tell there have been positive changes.

I’m still inspired to keep working on these life-long changes and am determined to work on things in little increments so that the changes will be long-lasting and truly transform my approach to food, health, weight loss and nutrition.

Creativity

24 Wednesday Feb 2016

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While creativity can be something that you either have, or you don’t, it also doesn’t mean that you can just turn it on and off like a faucet.

For me, the most important thing to allow my creativity to flow is the ability to quiet the outside world. This means more than turning off the tv or avoiding checking-in on my smart phone.

For me, it requires a quieting of the world that, even after these external resources have been powered down, exists in the mind.

I can quickly overwhelm myself with thoughts, expectations and pressure to live up to a certain standard, be a certain way and to create a masterpiece.

With this pressure screaming at me loudly, banging its fists, stomping its feet and demanding that I perform, I will, inevitably, clam up and produce nothing.

I become like a flower under extreme heat. I wilt and lose my luster.

Many years ago I had the privilege of sitting in a small group of people and free writing. The guy leading the group was an editor for a non-profit magazine at the time. He instructed us to just write for 1 minute, 5 minutes and then 10 minutes without stopping or going back to correct or edit while we were writing.

This was an incredibly valuable experience for me. It is difficult to allow yourself just to write without allowing the drive to self-edit take over. When we start to edit ourselves our thoughts change direction and we can lose something really beautiful, honest, vulnerable and powerful that was about to come out because we have choked freedom in exchange for perfection.

This little lesson was only a couple of hours long, one evening, 7 or so years ago, but I am amazed at how many times, when I’m sitting down to write, I close my eyes and bring myself right back to that room. I picture the tables set-up in rows, the others in the group sitting around me, the darkness in the sky outside the window, the pen and paper in front of me, and this person standing before us telling us to write.

I keep my eyes closed and I can hear a clock ticking, ‘tick, tick, tick’, counting down the 60 seconds for the first minute to be finished and as I allow the gentle ‘tick, tick, tick’ to clear my mind of all other thoughts, I suddenly find myself writing. Freely, unedited, messy, jumbled, inspiring, terrifying and beautiful.

To the person who changed my life so many years ago, thank you. I know it was just a blip in time and may have felt fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but for me it has been a lesson that has held priceless value as it continues to help me be able to freely express myself time and time again.

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