lemondrop

My Mom is a high school music teacher (and a great one at that). She returned home beaming late last night from her Christmas Concert, but not because the kids rocked it out on the trombones and clarinets, but because of an e-mail she later received from a proud parent. The e-mail was a very simple thank you for all the hard work she had put into the program, and the patience she had with the kids - it a was a short, thoughtful e-mail… but it made my Mom’s night. 

So, here’s where I propose a resolution. I don’t really make New Years resolutions, because quite frankly, I rarely follow through with the gusto I had in the beginning and that frustrates me. But, this year - here is my resolution - the one I’m starting today, on December 21, 2011, that doesn’t end in a year, or two years, or twenty years: Be the person who sends the e-mail. Be the person who takes an extra 2 minutes to make sure that somebody feels appreciated for their hard work. Just be that person. 

Happy Holidays, everyone. I appreciate you & I wish I could give you all hugs. Keep it up  & smile extra. 

<image via: Doug Aitken.>

A excerpt from my notes of the most memorable lecture of my University career. A passion-infused discussion on how to defend ourselves when people ask “Humanities? What are you going to do with that degree?”

Humanities as my major is what I will become. $80K, maybe not, but a well rounded dreamer? Certainly. There is a relationship between the humanities, and being a critically informed citizen. We are not simply our job! We are citizens with responsibilities! The exact years in which we have grown up have showed the most elemental changes to our world & it’s structures… ever. As humanities majors, we slow things down, and make people think! We make them think “why?”

We, in humanities are DREAMERS. 

Tuition well spent.

So, you already listen to This American Life, but now you’re all: “Okay, I love Ira Glass so much that I want him more than once a week.” You’re at a crossroads. Do you look for love in someone else’s sultry radio voice, or do you live with the weekly hour of pleasure you already receive? A tough one, I know.  

I’ll tell you what I did. 

I looked around. 

First, in secret. God forbid Ira hear that I had been looking for love in other podcasts! But then, I met him. Enter: Jonathan Goldstein. We were already acquaintances from the work he had done with This American Life, but to this depth, we were not introduced. Jonathan’s CBC podcast WireTap has boosted my love life to a whopping new 1.5 hours a week, plus all the extra archived episodes I have to catch up on.. I’ve even come home on my lunch break just to listen if I so desire! 

This week’s episode, Girls Gone Wild, made me smile uncontrollably to the point of awkward passenger stares on the city bus this morning. 

I think I know what you’ll be doing tonight ;)

I write a lot of letters to people. Most of them actually never get mailed, but some do. These letters, all piled up in a box that sits on a shelf, have become an anthology of love and life. Of my love and my life. But most of them will never get mailed. 

I experienced a really strange moment while standing in line at the grocery store. It was yesterday, the day after my twenty-first birthday. I was telling my roommate about the details of my day, and how I received a really nice phone call from an unexpected friend to wish me a happy birthday. It made my day, truly. My one and only birthday phone call of the year.

I grew up in a house where we would gather around the piano, and rehearse our song before dialing the cousin/aunt/grandparent/friend who was celebrating their birthday. We would stand around the phone, waiting for the cue that the right person had picked up, and then we’d start singing. “Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday dear ______, Happy Birthday to you!” It was just one of those things that we did, and we never thought anything of it. Some years, we’d try different ways of singing it - in funny accents, each person saying the next word in the sequence of song (which was the funniest, because with 4 people singing.. you are always the same word - HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!) - but every year, without doubt, those calls were made.

But then two things happened, and I can’t decide which to blame. Facebook happened, and growing up happened. 

Is the reason I only received one birthday call this year because I’m 21 now?  Too old for such a childish song? Or is it because technology has made it be just easier to send a text with extra !!!!’s, or a facebook wall post with a :) at the end. 

I don’t feel any less loved, and I don’t want to at all scrutinize people who chose to take the route of technology. I do it too. But I do feel disappointed that this is where our digital culture has taken us. Has it taken us so far that we feel it’s equally appropriate to type a “Happy Birthday!” instead of picking up the telephone and dialing a number to say it out loud? I want my someday children to grow up in a house that gathers around the piano, giggling with butterflies in their stomachs as they wait to sing that joyous song to somebody that they love. I want them to expect that all calls made to the house on their special day will be from somebody looking for them, with a song waiting to be sung on the other end. I want them to feel that same excitement about birthdays that I used to when I was little. Facebook just isn’t the same. Growing up, just isn’t the same. 

How do you guys feel about this? Would you rather have 75 typed “Happy Birthday!” messages on facebook, or a couple of meaningful phonecalls? 

*I should note that if you sent me a facebook message or a text on my birthday - I still love you! It’s just really sort of sad to reflect on how much our culture has changed since technology has stepped in. 

When I entered grade seven, I had officially been potty trained for 12 years.

I was walking home from school one day, quoting Shrek or whatever with my friends  (“And then in the morning? I’m making waffles!” …Roars of laughter filled the sidewalks! Younger children chanted “again! say it again!” barely breathing because they were choking on their own happiness! Cameras would flash! “The seventh graders, here they come, Lynne is doing an impeccable impression of Lord Farquad as she trudges down Ellis Crescent!”)…

ANYWAYS.

I was walking home from school one day, and I had this urge to pee. And like, I probably should have went before leaving school, but there was no way I was going to miss my after-school hug with my love-interest, Paul. So I found my group of friends who I usually walked home with, and we carried on along our 25 minute path. When you’re 12 years old, your bladder is like the size of a peach pit and I had definitely drank an entire gallon of Sunny D that day.. and like I said, I had only been potty trained for 12 years.

ANYWAYS.

There was no way I was going to run home and ditch my friends who were obviously really deep into intelligent conversations about Popular Culture, and also I was carrying my backback which had, like, 26 tamagachis & bonne bell’s attached to the zippers, making it very difficult to travel at quick speeds.

SO,

I just held it. But as soon as I turned the corner onto my street, the urge intensified and I started walking with my legs all twizzler’d up, but also sort of hopping? (Question mark because why would I hop? I do not know.)

FINALLY,

I got to my driveway and I was all “ohmygodokayiwilljustseeyoutomorrowokay?!” as I ran towards my front door, fishing out my house key so that I’d make it on time. Okay, I’ll be honest - it was already a little bit too late.

I unlocked the front door, threw my backpack to the ground, and ran to the toilet. I yanked down my rhinestone-encrusted bell bottoms, sat down - and - relief!

BUT WAIT.

It was a Wednesday, and on Wednesdays, the cleaning lady comes. The cleaning lady always leaves the house very neat & tidy - all the beds made, all the rugs perfectly straight, all the counters polished, ALL THE TOILET SEATS DOWN.

Yeah, relief my ass!

I peed everywhere. On myself, on the toilet, all trickled down onto the floor - it’s not like I could just stop it all mid performance - but oh my goodness, do I ever wish that were the case! IT WAS LIKE, SO EMBARRASSING!

…And I’ll just leave that right there.

I ducked into the driver’s seat of the car, turned on the ignition, and cranked the air conditioning up as high as it could go. “Max A/C” I demanded - the colder the better. 

I’m not one for the cold, and I’ve never like artificial air, especially the kind that rushes out of the car vents smelling like coolant and asphalt. But when I sat in the front seat of that tiny red car, I needed to feel something - if all I had was bottled air, then let it cover every inch of my body until my pupils dry up. It blew forcefully right onto my face, and I blinked. And then I blinked again, and again. But I wasn’t just blinking in the regular way that we do to hydrate our eyes - I was feeling each eyelash meet it’s lower counterpart, and scaling the level of darkness in percentages as my top lid fell closer to my nose. 

I drove to the bookstore. I held the door for a Mennonite family - one mother, and four daughters - and I continued towards the section that I always visit first. 

Self-help.

The self-help section in the bookstore that I visit takes up four tall shelves in one aisle. And I’ve always felt embarassed visiting this section. At such a ripe age, why should I need a book like that? I’m not suffering from a loss or separation, I’m not facing any sort of  illness or disease, and I’d like to think that I’m actually living my life pretty close to the fullest. In fact, I often browse these books thinking “I could write a book like this one day”. I like to see the self-help section as less of exactly that, but rather, as an aisle of pages that guide lost and negative souls to finding positive and wonderful things. I read the back covers of those books as a reminder to myself that I don’t need those books. It’s a positive personal affirmation. 

Travel.

It’s the perfect subsequent to the self-help section because I am always in front of the “European Travel” shelf feeling extra positive & optimistic. I flip through the pages of several different country’s travel guides - India, Thailand, Italy, Greece, Ireland, Tanzania - and try to pick up a few words of each native language. These words never stick, but I read them anyways, mouthing them to the book in front of me, as if it’s going to say “Yes! Very good! Again!”. As soon as I begin thinking about how I will fund my “upcoming trip” in this aisle, I decide it’s time to move on. 

For the remainder of my visit, I read the names of the all the authors. I rarely see titles, but the names, I love. I read the backs of a handful of novels - usually the ones with a gold sticker on the front - these, I’ve learned, really are the best ones. I look at people who meander through the aisles, paperbacks tucked in close to the chest to prevent thievery. What have they picked up? What section did they visit first? 

On this particular visit, I retrieved three books while browsing, and I paid for them with cash. Then, I returned to the car, and drove home. 

I don’t know if it was the cold air that woke me up, or if it was the reinforcement I read on covers about finding happiness, or if it was the moment of excitement I allowed myself to have while letting the words “Ci vediamo!” roll off my tongue.

But I felt.

Better.

Fishing has always been a part of my growing-up. My Dad, obsessed and passionate about the wonders of nature, has always made sure that my brother and I had an appreciation for the outdoors – never to say the words “gross”, “yuck” or “ew” regarding anything we found crawling in the dirt. I used to ache for the long drives to and from the cottage, where my Dad would share stories of his backpacking trips through British Columbia, and give us vivid images of crystal clear streams that ran filled with freshwater Salmon. And as we grew up, these stories turned from being entertaining anecdotes, into lessons that would someday help to guide us along our own paths. He had his signature phrases that found their way into each story, like “Well, you know, that’s why they call it fishing and not catching”.

Now, at the age of 20, I’m really learning to understand and appreciate all the wonders of the world. Nature is amazing. It’s miraculous how a seed can become a tree – and that with water and sunlight, it will continue to grow. It’s miraculous how the instincts of an animal are about survival and reproduction, and that humans have to do nothing to keep them on track. It’s miraculous that the world continues to turn a little bit every moment, despite the changes that are happening on it’s surface.

Basically, today… I am in awe of my surroundings, and in awe of the man who taught me to notice them.

Recently, someone said to me: “Lynnie, you could be a writer.”

And I sat there and thought, “Hmm.. you’re probably right.”

And then someone else said to me “Have you ever thought about becoming a writer?”

And then I thought “Okay. That’s two people. Maybe I could be!”

How many people have to read your stuff before you can claim yourself to be writer? 2? 10? 5000? What am I supposed to write about? I haven’t suffered any crazy mental or physical disability and lived to see only the bright side. I haven’t done anything to change the world, or traveled to every continent. What’s book-worthy? Is my life interesting enough to be published? Probably not. However, there may be aspects of my life that are.

And, being this planner that we all know I am… I’ve made it a point in my five year plan.

• Write a book.

And just like that, it’s in the works.