Not Entitled

"Male privilege and entitlement are dying a very painful death; no one gives up power without a struggle." - Gloria Allred

All the way around, yesterday was a lousy day.  Another visit to my cardiologist came with no good news.  He doubled up the medication he gave me two weeks ago, added an additional medication, is scheduling an angiogram for September and expects I will need additional pacemaker surgery in a few months.  Needless to say, I'm disappointed.  All this in the same week I had unscheduled dental surgery and a consultation with an endodontist to schedule the root canal I will be having next week. 

Setting all that aside, it's been a bad week in the world.  Seven months into Donald Trump's presidency, we are are facing the first threat of nuclear war. Two childish dictators in a pissing contest can take the whole world down.  It's too terrifying to contemplate.  But there isn't even a need to go so far from home to get up close to hatred and mayhem.  A trip to Charlottesville, Virginia would do the job.

Yesterday's neo-nazi, white supremacist  march in Charlottesville and the violence that erupted with counterprotesters ended with a 20-year-old white man deliberately driving his car into the counterprotesters resulting in the death of a young woman and injury to many others.  As if that wasn't bad enough, Donald Trump made a weak, pathetic statement that fell far short of condemnation of the neo-nazi groups.    For the rest of the day and night, CNN was filled with outraged pundits both in rebuke of Donald Trump's statement and in defense of it.  Several times I heard pundits on both sides refer not to just the rights of everyone to free speech but also to the right of everyone to their own opinion.  I take exception with that.

You can differ with me politically - I'm okay with that.  I may lean slightly left of center and you may lean a little right.  There is room for us both to hold our views.  But I will not defend or even support your right to hold an opinion that is rooted in hate and fear.  You do not have a right to believe you are superior because of the colour of your skin.  You do not have the right to believe you are superior because of the shape of your genitals.  You do not have the right to believe you are superior because of where you happened to be born.  You do not have a right to turn your back on desperate people because you are afraid that one in a million of them may hurt you. Refugees are not Skittles.  You do not have a right to hate.  So no.  If any of those things describe you - you do not have a right to your opinion.  Crawl back under your rock and stay there.  You will turn into fossil fuel soon enough.

Of Teeth and Tickers

"A woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets." - Gloria Stuart

I could say I've had a tough couple of weeks but that would be like saying Noah got caught up in a slight overflow.  A couple of weeks ago, I went for all the tests my doctor routinely orders after my annual check up.  I had put them off for a few weeks because I've been really busy but I finally got around  to scheduling the big ones - mammogram, breast ultra-sound and cardiac echo.  No good results in any of them but more of a "six month follow-up" on the breast scans recommended.  The cardiac echo was an entirely different story.  A panicked technician spent an inordinate amount of time conducting the echo.  She was so alarmed by what she saw that I went home hooked up to a 48 hour Holter monitor.  A couple of days later, I saw a new cardiologist as it was deemed unsafe to wait for my own cardiologist to return from his vacation.  A couple of days after that I spent three and a half hours in a nuclear perfusion stress test - perhaps the most brutal test I've had to date.  It would appear that my heart doesn't like being paced and as a result I have developed both A Fib and heart muscle dysfunction.  The pacemaker that I got last year fixed one big problem and created a couple more.  So once again, I'm staring my mortality in the eye, trying not to panic, dealing with the side-effects of the new drugs I've been given to deal with the A Fib and hoping against all hope that there will be some new and effective treatments available by the time the current drug options have run out.  Of all the health issues I've dealt with over the years, I still find the heart stuff to be the scariest.

In the midst of all this heart drama, I went to my dentist for my regular hygiene appointment.  She noticed that one of my crowns seemed to be separating though I've been experiencing no discomfort.  She ordered a set of x-rays and informed me a couple of days later that I needed two crowns replaced as well as another root canal which will also need to be crowned.  Ugh. I spent four hours last Thursday getting one new crown followed by an endodontistry consult yesterday.  The root canal will be next Friday.  Today I went to have the second crown replaced.  It took all of five minutes before my dentist declared that the tooth couldn't be saved so a crown replacement became an extraction and a bone graft with a plan for a tooth implant in six months.  It's been a painful day.

I keep wondering what the universe is trying to tell me.   I can't seem to catch a break these days.  My back is extremely sore, my sciatic nerve is screaming and both my shoulders are shot.  I don't want to whine.  I'm tired, stressed and scared and trying to carry on without showing that I'm tired, stressed and scared.  I've been thinking about the advice I've been given in other tough times.  Though it pretty much annoyed me when my friend David said it to me years ago, it's probably the best way to go.  "Suck it up, princess".  Okay.  I'll try.

Perfectly Imperfect

"We wish nothing more, but we will accept nothing less.  Masters in our own house we must be, but our house is the whole of Canada.” – Pierre Trudeau

We wish nothing more, but we will accept nothing less. Masters in our own house we must be, but our house is the whole of Canada. Pierre Trudeau
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/canada.html

With our birthdays just one day apart, I’ve always felt a particular affinity with Canada Day celebrations.  I was a day from turning twelve years old when we had our centennial celebration.  There has been a whole lot of discussion about what this year’s celebration means and in my social media universe, many have expressed their reasons for not celebrating the 150th anniversary of Confederation.  I respect their choice.  But it is not my choice.  More than ever, I want to shout from the rooftops this year of my love and gratitude for this country.    

I realize that our nation is far from perfect.  I understand why our indigenous peoples don’t want to celebrate the anniversary of their colonization.  We have treated them shamefully.  We stole their land, their cultures and all too often their lives.  For more than three centuries, we abused our indigenous people and regretfully, we are still failing them in far too many ways.  But even God can’t change history.  What has happened, has happened.  What we can do is to move forward to try and make things right.  We can work toward reconciliation.  We can admit our failures and our wrongdoings.  We can apologize.  Perhaps we are not moving fast enough to do these things, but I think we are moving forward.  More of us than ever before, seem aware of the need for reconciliation.  Our federal government has taken steps and made promises to do more to make things right.  I, for one, am choosing to believe them and I will work my hardest to hold them accountable to keep the promises they’ve made.

Apart from those who were here when the first Europeans came, you don’t have to scratch very deep to find that the rest of us come from somewhere else.  On my mom’s side, my ancestors were part of those first groups of French settlers.  But my dad was a first generation Canadian. His parents came to Canada from Lebanon, his father emigrating first to the U.S. as a young boy before coming to Canada and then his mother coming to Canada many years later to follow her brother and marry my grandfather.  They made their lives here.  While my mom and dad shared a common religion (they met in the church bowling league), their cultural backgrounds were certainly different.  Baklava and butter tarts are quite a combination.  In the community where my sisters and I grew up, there weren’t a lot of others who shared our Middle-Eastern roots but it is far different from that now.  I inherited my dad’s Middle-Eastern looks and carry his name.  Admittedly, it hasn’t always been easy to have the name and discrimination has reared its ugly head from time-to-time.  My dad encouraged me to take my husband’s English name when we married, believing things would be easier for me, but I did not.  I told him that don’t have the nose to pull off an English name.  In truth, I wouldn’t dream of changing my name to try and hide the truth of who I am.  I’m proud of my Lebanese heritage as I am proud of my French Canadian heritage and of my Mohawk heritage which I learned of in adulthood.

Welcoming immigrants to Canada is truly one of the best parts of us.  We know that everyone brings something to the table.  We are a huge country.  We have lots of room for everyone, on our land and in our hearts.  In many ways, I believe it is the harshness of our climate that made us the socially responsible society that we have become.  Our nation builders would not have survived had they not had the help of our indigenous people and also taken care of one another.  Many years ago, I attended a lecture by the late Pierre Burton.  He told us that he believed one of the reasons we Canadians didn’t develop the rugged individualist wild-west philosophy that developed south of the border, is that it’s just too cold here.  Gunslingers wouldn’t be able to get their mittens off fast enough to have a shoot out at high noon in Saskatoon.

We still understand the need to take care of one another.  We need welfare programs, universal healthcare, good public education and sound infrastructure systems.  I rarely hear anyone gripe about paying taxes to support these things. We seem to know that we all benefit from a sound social structure.  And no, it is not perfect, but we’re working on it.

I’ve had the privilege of traveling a little bit in Canada.  There are still a few gaps in my exploration but I’m not done yet.  I still haven’t been to Saskatchewan, Manitoba or New Brunswick and I haven’t made it to the Northwest Territories.  But I’ve spent time exploring the rest of the country and each time I venture to a new destination, I am awed by the majesty of our land from the breathtaking coastal views of British Columbia, to the rugged cliffs of Newfoundland, from the icy crystal waters of northern Ontario to the red sand beaches of PEI.  I am convinced I live in the most beautiful land on Earth.  

So on Saturday, I will wear my red and white clothes.  I will drink Canadian wine and Canadian beer.  I will enjoy a butter tart or two and yes, even a piece of baklava.  I will sing the unofficial, gender-neutral version of ‘O Canada’ because the legislation to change the official version has just been blocked in the Senate and while I had hoped we would have fixed it by now, we have not.  In my heart of hearts though, I believe we will get there.

On Sunday, I will turn 62 and as I do I will note another thing I have in common with my country.  I too am a work in progress, perfectly imperfect and striving to be better.

Happy 150^th Birthday Canada, my true north, strong and free!

Shrinking

"Your playing small doesn't serve the world.  There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.  We are all meant to shine, as children do." - Marianne Williamson

I had my annual check-up this week, an event which ends with being weighed and measured.  I've put a few pounds on since Jacob moved out of the house.  That came as no surprise and sooner or later, I will pull myself together and get my eating habits back under control.  Normally, getting weighed is the  most traumatic part of the weighing and measuring process, but not this year.  The worst part was being measured.  I've never been a particularly tall person but I did reach 5 feet, 2 and 3/4 inches.  With the four inch heels I wore in younger days, most people didn't realize that I am short.  Chemo was hard on my bones and I lost 3/4 of an inch in the months of my treatment.  At least I still had the 5'2" part, but not anymore.  This past year has deducted another 1/2 inch so I'm coming in now at just 5 feet, 1 and 1/2 inches.  That would explain why my pants are too long even though I buy them in the petite department and I can't reach anything in the kitchen cupboards.

My shoes are all flat these days.  My view is an ant's eye view and it is evident to everyone that I'm short - very short.  I don't so much care anymore what others see but I don't like shrinking.  It feels like a metaphor for my life.  I'm aging out of work, aging out of mothering, aging out of new adventures.  My body is shrinking and my world is shrinking. The adventures I yearned to have in my younger days, interest me no more.  I longed for exotic travel.  Now, I don't long to even leave Canadian airspace.  I used to love walking around downtown, absorbing the energy of the city.  Now I only go downtown if I have to.  I can barely stand the chaos and the noise.  It is unlikely I will ever again go para-sailing or zip-lining.  There won't be any more 60k walks or rain forest hikes or ocean kayaking, no dancing the night away.

There is not an inch of me that doesn't hurt these days and when I told my doctor that, he smiled and said, "Aging really sucks".  I keep reminding myself that it is better than the alternative.

Favors

"We secure our friends not by accepting favors but by doing them." -  Thucydides

I am almost always happy to do a favor for a friend.  I cannot remember the last time, if ever, that someone has asked me for my help and I've said "no".   But I've been inundated with some pretty onerous requests lately and I suspect I'm getting close to that first "I'm afraid not" response.  In the past few days, I've been asked to coach a friend's child's boyfriend in his job search, to recommend a P.R. firm to advocate for a group of insurance lawyers, to advise a friend's grown daughter on educational opportunities, to testify at a hearing about a legal fee matter that I have no involvement in and to speak to another pacemaker wearer about my personal experience as a pacemaker wearer.  Mostly that's all okay.  But there are some limits.  The thirty minutes I agreed to give the boyfriend to help him figure out his search, became three hours.  I had already written his resume, coached him through a crisis at his previous employer and written him a guide for his job search.  Apparently, that wasn't quite enough.  He hadn't followed any of the advice I had already given him and hadn't even contacted the companies I advised him to check out.  Instead, he railed at the injustice of not being offered the one entry level position to which he had applied.  I am more than happy to speak to my friend's daughter about school but she is young and can do the research on programs much more easily than I can.  She wants to understand what programs in her field of study are available as distance education.  I presume that she can put that question into Google search as easily as I can.    

I spent Saturday at my first ever sale of my jewellery and painted creations which was being very graciously hosted by my friend Cathy at her home two hours north of Toronto.  I've been busy getting ready for the sale for weeks.  I decided to give myself all of Sunday to recuperate.  But on my way north on Saturday morning I had a note from a rather panicked former client asking that I give him feedback on a new employment offer.  I really couldn't do it Saturday and he was working against the clock so I agreed to a Sunday afternoon meeting.  That meeting turned into a series of emails, the last of which I sent at one o'clock this morning.  Then came a text from a friend telling me he had been in a car accident and asking me for advice on the legal action he should be taking. I didn't think, "How in the Hell should I know" was a great response in the circumstances but it was what I wanted to say.  And it was the same thing I wanted to say about the P.R. firm recommendation.  I suppose it is a step up from the request I got from another young friend to touch up her resume for her, preferably by the end of the day.  That one came on Good Friday when I was single-handedly preparing dinner for ten.  I didn't hear my cell phone ring and didn't pick up the message until nearly eleven that night.  She had somehow managed to figure it out in the meantime which tells me she could have figured it out in the first place.

This morning I attended the funeral of a friend's mother-in-law.  I turned off my phone as I entered the church and turned it on a few minutes after I left.  Within a minute I had a message from a friend requesting that I call him urgently.  He needed a favor.  I'm afraid I almost ripped his head off which was an unfair response to his question.  I will apologize.  I'm a bit spent these days and realizing as I've been told many times from a friend that while it is great to nourish everyone, it is impossible to pour from an empty teapot.  This teapot is running dry.  I still have a number of commitments this week - a meeting with a friend's sister to help her navigate her journey through breast cancer and another fundraising sale at my mom's nursing home among the items on my agenda.  I think though I'm just going to schedule a day the following week when I'm going to turn off my phone and my computer. I don't plan to advise anyone, to cook for anyone or to meet with anyone.  I'll just take out my paints or my beads and play, all day.  Maybe I will declare it Favor Free Friday.  Time to refill the teapot.