Monday 16 December 2013

Self-Awareness Wears Little Pants!


So I am midway through my latest novel (which means that, because I never write linear, I am crafting the end of my novel) and have hit the most climactic scene of the book—where my hero experiences his moment of self-discovery. It rocks him like a gut punch. Forces him to sit in an excruciating, yet utterly authentic, truth.  A deeply emotional scene, it is the culmination of a character arc which sees a sardonic yet thoroughly sensitive man navigate his way through an internal journey of agony. In crafting it I have had to pull tricks out of both my writing bag and my counselling bag, needing to consider  how any of us feel when we face those moments when all the masks come off and we’re looking at our most unworthy traits.

It truly sucks, doesn’t it? 

I’ve been there.  A few weeks ago I was rummaging through my closet and—“Whoa! Where did these come from?”  There were a pair of pants. Jeans, to be specific; a great cut, a nice wash….really cute and for the life of me I could not remember buying them. It made their discovery a whole lot like finding 20 bucks in your pocket—except better because these were the whole pants, not just a pocket! Score, Bonnie!

I tried ’em on with no hesitation and they fit like the proverbial glove. They were even the perfect length—a truly awesome bonus because the whole inseam issue of pants has always been a little vexing for me.

That should have been my first clue.

Of course it was not.  I was too busy rocking those Found Pants. Paired ’em with a sleek sweater, a few pieces of funky jewellery….did I not look like a million bucks? Without question, I most certainly did.

Then came Laundry Day (caps intended). 

A creature of habit, I always take the clean clothes upstairs to my bedroom, fold them on the bed, then deposit everyone’s stack in their corresponding bedroom (we will discuss my Type A traits in a later post. Or maybe never, even better).  Out come the clean Found Pants and, with their waist in my hand, I snapped ’em into submission, preparing to fold them in half with a proper crease and hang ’em up for the next time I wanted to look awesome.

But fate is a fickle friend, my dears.

In the act of snapping the pants their hem met the floor and I stared. Kissing the floor as it was, the hem was precisely where it would be if the pants were on my person. Ooo-kay. That in and of itself was not the problem. It was the position of the waist that ripped my eyes so big that I’m still surprised my eye sockets didn’t somehow swallow the room.

How—how—could the waist of the pants be lower than the mattress on my bed?! I looked at the pants. Looked at myself. Is my ass that close to the floor? Surely to God my ass is not that close to the floor! I snapped the pants a few more times. Perhaps I expected them to grow.

They did not.

So I employed a crude sort of hand measurement, comparing the height of my waist, (and the pants), with the bed.  This did nothing other than frustrate me with (hoped for) inaccuracy and (more likely) confirmation of what was now staring me in the face.

But I ain’t no quitter.

I got out the tape measure. ’Cause this had to be the weirdest optical illusion ever, right? I am a regular sized person, am I not? (Incidentally, and in case it is not already painfully obvious,  in the counselling world we call this ‘Denial’).

The tape measure was a huge mistake.  So was finding my ten year old’s jeans and lying them over Found Pants only to see that the difference in length was negligible.

As I stood there gaping, denial flooded out and an old, familiar rush of body image scars flooded in. I threw the Found Pants on the bed and blinked my eyes, now smarting.

Who had I been fooling? I had not looked awesome in the Found Pants. Hell, I hadn’t even looked good. More accurately, what I’d probably looked like was an aged child with a too-thick middle and (now horribly obvious) stumpy legs.

The clarity of vision was an instant and paralytic Pandora’s box of embarrassment, humiliation, and resentment.  

Authentic self awareness can be like that.

Backed into a corner with nowhere to run that doesn’t look like the truth, we travel through the five stages of grief, forced to let go of what we believed and instead hold in our laps what is.

There is shock. Denial. Bargaining. Anger, and then….

A lifetime ago I took a creative writing course and had the privilege to craft tales alongside a Native woman, Mildred, who, in her quiet way, wore every pair of pants in her closet. A recovering alcoholic with ink dark hair to the waist and a rhythmic accent, she penned stories of self discovery which she called “The Beauty of a Struggle”. She blessed me with the knowledge that the deeper the truth, the deeper the story, and the harder the fight before the truth is embraced, the wiser, more loving, and ultimately more peaceful the character becomes. In short, what Mildred taught me was essentially the skeleton of what makes a satisfying tale—that this Beauty of a Struggle, our life’s journey toward all our truths, comes with a promise of peace at the end of the pain.

Or, in counselling-speak, it comes with the final stage of grief: Acceptance.

The character in my novel is now at the last crossroads of his journey and, because I love him, it kills me to run him through the wringer of pain he has always managed to avoid by keeping his eyes wide shut—and trust me, he’s fought me every step of the way. He tells lies. He sabotages relationships. He even hides evidence that proves he’s not a killer. Still, I am making him wear the pants, and while they fit, they also hurt. They make him feel exposed. Vulnerable. They place him in the crosshairs of judgment.  They make him feel afraid.

And yet….the pants also make him feel a hell of a lot more comfortable than anything he’s ever worn before. ’Cause whether he likes them or not, the pants are honesty. And honesty is just another word for freedom.

Freedom. Happy-ever-after. It’s his—or any of ours—for the taking. All we need to do is experience the Beauty of our Struggles. All we need to do is wear the pants.

 

Postscript:  Years after I left university I learned that Mildred, who had achieved the B.Ed. she’d been working toward, and was teaching out on the Blood Reserve, was hit and killed by a drunk driver. The irony of that truth remains something I have yet to accept with authentic peace—yet I’ve little doubt that Mildred herself is completely at terms with it.  I imagine her, sometimes, alongside The Great Spirit in whom she deeply believed. I like to think they walk together daily, enjoying the profound conversations she was so deftly capable of.

b.r. December, 2013

Sunday 8 December 2013

Ho-Ho-Hold it: ‘War on Christmas’? What About When Christmas Wages War?


This week I was asked to develop an article for a local weekly. The topic?  Surviving Stress During The Holidays. I happily obliged—I am always game to write pretty much anything—and, putting pen to paper, I coughed out many sage suggestions: Don’t spend more than you can afford.  Limit the number of events you attend. Sleep, Dear. Eat properly, Dear. Don’t drink too much alcohol, Dear (and for God’s sake call a cab to take you home if you do, Dear) All very upbeat. All very trite. Precisely what I had been asked to contrive, and I would have absolutely rounded the article off in this vein, except…the counselling sessions I’d had all week were nagging me, and the more superficial tips I cranked out, the more the echoes of these sessions resonated.

Like over-played Christmas carols which always seem to hit the radio earlier every year, the refrains from clients who’d come to see me shared similar chords: Anxiety at having to face impending family functions. Knots of dread in bellies. Frightened tears. “Families can be soul-crushing places”, a wise spiritual leader once told me and the folks in my counselling chair were the reflections of this sentiment. Their countdowns were not to the Big Day itself but rather to when it would just All.Be. Over.  

It was in the shadow of these sessions that I pushed my spritely little article aside, examined my own banal definition of stress—and watched it become pale. Shameful. Sitting in the imagined feelings of my clients, I considered ‘stress’ through their lens and saw that my happy little ‘Top-Ten List’ article completely invalidated what the season of Christmas entails versus what so very many are capable of.

So. Surviving Stress at Christmas.

What might that really be like?

How do you mend the hollow ache within the widower whose favourite season has always been Christmas? He used to start preparing months in advance, but...he buried his wife of fifty years this past summer and now has to face his first holiday alone.

What solace do you offer the child whose parents finally split last spring? This is the first holiday where she’ll not wake Christmas morning and have them both under one roof. She’s sick inside, having to be with one and not the other. She loves them both and her secret Christmas wish is that they’ll get back together, a Santa request that will not, and likely should not, come true. 

There’s the addict who has burned every bridge and alienated everyone. Her Christmas means queuing up at a shelter for a dinner decked out by strangers in Santa hats who ladle precise portions onto the anonymous plates drifting by. She thinks of her father who in turn wishes his other kids would re-open their hearts, invite her back to their own celebrations….but he understands why they won’t.

For the chronically, clinically depressed single mother whose internal life has no lustre yet whose children expect, and legitimately want, a happy day filled with the baking, the glitter, the red bows and crackling fires they see on TV.

The child who dresses himself for his Christmas concert and watches, up on stage, his classmates find the faces of their families in the audience—but knows no one has come to see him.

How do they Survive Stress At Christmas?

I can assure you they do not manage it by reading my bouncy little Top Ten List. Or any other, for that matter. Their stress is such that there is no way to solve it, heal it, or make it even remotely better. They will endure this holiday season like a strand of lights with one colour burned out (you know the ones—you were going to replace them during an after-Christmas sale last year but never did and now here they are again). They hang on the tree like they are supposed to, but don’t shine in the way they once could.

North America has become singularly belligerent about Christmas: “There is a war on Christmas!” some cry and there ensues a demand to say “Merry Christmas!” instead of shaking it up with a “Happy Holidays” or a “Season’s Greetings” (implying, incidentally, that someone or some group along the way has suggested we shouldn’t say ‘Merry Christmas’—yet poll individuals you know, and get back to me please, if you encounter anyone who has actually had someone tell them, to their face, that they cannot say ‘Merry Christmas’. Find one—just one— and I personally will pour you a rum-n-eggnog). In short, there is a massive contingent of people who believe we’ve somehow “beaten up” Christmas. It is ironic that only a shadowy margin of this same number will reflect on how this holiday, the way we have allowed it to morph as though it were its own pious and perfect entity, beats up the bereft.  How every commercial, every storefront, every display in even a supermarket, and, yes, every greeting—Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays—tosses acid in a weeping wound.

Because the real ‘wars’ at Christmas are fought on an internal landscape that few ever see and not many want to think about.

With that in mind I reworked my little article on Stress Survival, massaged in a few gentle reminders that not all folks crank up Jingle Bells at this time of the year and nor do they slide on their slippers and watch It’s a Wonderful Life. Oh, I kept the trite stuff too, not to worry. It is important, after all, to remember that there’s not a single thing wrong with having too many invitations to manage at Christmas, or with having too much food and a never-ending diet (I’m so there), or a gift list that doesn’t remotely connect with the ol’ bank balance. (Been to that movie too).  In fact none of what I have said should in any way make anyone feel like they cannot be happy during the holidays. On the contrary; as a counsellor I believe we actually have a duty to ourselves to be authentic in whatever we are feeling—and that absolutely includes joy and gladness. 

But that also means we have the right to feel dread instead of anticipation. Heartache as opposed to happiness. Let tears fall instead of having laughter ring. 

We have the right to say “Help me.” “Hold me.” “Listen to me.”

In other words, we have the right to whatever our own definition of ‘stress’ is.

And with that, we in turn have the right to eschew the banalities that embrace this season.  Myself, I don’t necessarily know who are the lonely, the bereft, the grieving, or the lost. The shunned or the exiled. They are mostly invisible. So with my more robust—and infinitely more uncomfortable—definition of ‘stress’ in mind, when I see folks this season, in stores, on the streets, or in my counselling room, I will be warm. I will smile. Very often I grasp the hands of people when I greet them and I will continue to do this too. But I think I won’t offer tidings of the season. Not first, at any rate. And when or if said tidings are offered to me, I believe I will respond, merely, with “Peace.”

And may peace embrace you.

br
 

Sunday 1 December 2013

Does Your Daughter Have a Boyfriend?


It totally figures that the launch topic of this blog will be the (so-called) occasional rant referred to in the title. (Get to know me and this will surprise you less and less).

Let’s pull you up to speed on a teensy bit of back-story first, though.  Many months ago my 16 year old daughter began insisting, due to the robust discussions that occur on my facebook page, that I craft a blog.  I was hugely resistant: “Seriously,” I said, “who wants to hear the thoughts of a nondescript woman who, when she’s not in her counselling chair doing treatment work with addicts, is at home crafting tales about the imaginary friends in her head?”

Yet my daughter insisted, and, after much consideration, it’s ironic that it is the occurrence of several conversations regarding her that finally prompted this blog and the reflection you’re about to read: a commentary about girls and women and what being noticed and valued should mean—versus what they sometimes do.

So here goes:

“Does your daughter have a boyfriend?”  I get this question all the time; in the grocery store, on the street, at community events, even (although thankfully more rarely) at work.  We live in a small town. Our family is reasonably well-known (sometimes more than I’d like) and my daughter is active in many venues.  Now, one would think this question, “Does your daughter have a boyfriend?” would come from the ‘suspected sources’: eager young suitors wanting to date my lovely oldest.  Nope.  “Does your daughter have a boyfriend?” is almost always asked by <drumroll>… other women. And the question increases, with depressing frequency, as my daughter gets older.

It always confounds me.

“Does your daughter have a boyfriend?”

Why is this relevant?  I have to bite my tongue (I have a deplorable habit of sometimes being too caustic), yet I always want to reply with what’s knee-jerk:  “Does my daughter have a boyfriend?  No. But let me tell you what she does have.  My daughter has a ballbreaking over-all academic average in Grade Eleven pure (that would be baccalaureate) courses. My daughter has a part time job she is faithful to, one she frequently picks up extra shifts for and is wily about a willingness to work statutory holidays for because those days “pay double-time, Mom!”.  My daughter also, currently, has one of the lead roles in her high school’s theatrical production—the small-town equivalent of a Big Hairy Deal—and as such my daughter also often has 16 hour work days between attending school and participating in rehearsal for drama. 

My daughter clearly has one hell of a work ethic.

My daughter has kick-ass time management skills.

My daughter has ambition and drive and plans for her academic future.

My daughter has, due to hard work and intellect, written her own ticket in terms of being able to apply for virtually any faculty that may interest her as she prepares to launch into post-secondary education.

My daughter, however, does not have a boyfriend and yet this is the question on the lips of most women when they ask after my oldest.

Why?

What on earth makes this—or any of the reasons for it, ’cause believe me, those too are probed: (“Well why doesn’t she have a boyfriend? Isn’t she interested? Aren’t any boys interested…?”)—remotely important?  Why not ask me about any of the other aforementioned facts about her, information which truly does illustrate her as a compelling, impressive, and frankly remarkable human being?

Nope, again. All I get asked is about a damn boyfriend and that caustic part of me (the one whose tongue needs a leash) wants to challenge the askers of this question to please, the next time they put it forth to me or any other parent, play it all the way through in their minds. Ask: why you want to know?   Are you truly measuring the worth of a young woman based on whether or not a member of the opposite sex (or the same sex, depending)  has decided to afford her some time and affection? Really? That’s the only component of her you feel has value?  

Or maybe you’re asking “Does your daughter have a boyfriend?” because you want to know who /what / when / where the young woman is spending time. (Which, incidentally, is a very kind way of saying you want to gossip about her).  If this is the case let me sum up every single teenage love affair for you so that you need gossip and ponder over it no more: In one simple sentence, these relationships suck. They suck because kids are…well, they’re kids. They’re still developing and as such are dreadfully unskilled in connections of a romantic and /or sexual nature because—here’s a newsflash—relationships are hard to navigate even for adults with the luxury of experience. In short, if this question—“Does your daughter have a boyfriend?”—is indeed cocktail fodder for you and your cohorts then I implore you to seek a different hobby (hey, have one of mine! I can’t contend with the multitude of them!) for there is nothing new under the sun here. Buy a YA novel if you’re truly intent on analyzing the relationships of kids (and I can assure you, most of those relationships suck too. Pathos makes for great fiction) or, even better, invest in book on child development. It will be your authority on everything misadventurous about kids’ relationships and never put you in the awkward position of sincerely offending a parent by asking “Does your daughter have a boyfriend?”

Gestalt Therapy contends that ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’ and as a clinical social worker for twenty-odd years I can certainly attest that this is true. So in turn this must mean that a person’s relationship status (or lack thereof)  is only one mere shade of pale upon a spectrum coloured by far more compelling virtues and pursuits—right?  If you are a woman reading this then I challenge you, in particular, to accept that we, as females, are especially charged to stop trivializing each other and to assess one another in a far less linear and much more robust fashion than a question like “Does your daughter have a boyfriend?” does.  Aren’t we, after all, worth so much more than any arm charm that might dangle from someone’s crooked elbow? Does our desirability to a potential suitor really need to define us, illustrate us, make us somehow more ‘worthy’?

I challenge you too to start asking different questions: “What’s your daughter’s favourite school subject?” “How does your daughter balance her busy days?”  “Which extra curricular activity lights your daughter up the most?” The potential for discussion—and to truly exemplify how we value our world’s young women—is endless. As for me? I don’t think I’m going to answer “Does your daughter have a boyfriend?” politely anymore.

 

br / December 01, 2013

 

Bonnie Randall is a Canadian writer who lives between her two favourite places—  the Jasper Rocky Mountains and the City of Champions: Edmonton, Alberta.  A clinical counsellor who scribbles fiction in notebooks whenever her day job allows, Bonnie is fascinated by the relationships people develop—or covet— with both the known and unknown, the romantic and the arcane. 

 

Divinity & The Python, a paranormal romantic thriller, was inspired by a cold day in Edmonton when the exhaust rising in the downtown core appeared to be the buildings, releasing their souls. It is Bonnie’s first novel.  http://www.amazon.com/Divinity-Python-Bonnie-Randall/dp/1940581990/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385933076&sr=8-1&keywords=divinity+and+the+python