Somewhere, I don’t where and I don’t know when, I heard that one day you just realize that you’re happy. That no one wakes up thinking that they’re happy, but at some point during a day, you just know that you’re happy. I can buy that. I’ve had those sudden realizations, but I also wonder if such profound realizations can be brought about by mindful consideration. We are taught to think about how our actions and words affect those around us.  We are taught to get up everyday and make our bed, wash our face, brush our teeth and get dressed. We put forward our best selves as we start and go about our day. Can we be as thoughtful and deliberate about our state of mind?

Research says that our minds can’t feel the difference between a fake smile and a real one. That if we smile, our brain reacts the same way if that smile is real or not. Now, before I go any further, let me say that I’m not talking here about fake smiling our way out of depression or anxiety or anything like that. I’m just talking about being aware of how we can shape our perceptions and affect our feelings. We work daily on our physical health. We try to get in at least a minimum amount of exercise. We try to get the right amount of sleep. We eat superfoods and limit refined foods. Shouldn’t we give our emotional health the same attention? Research has shown that walking in the woods is therapeutic. I know being by the sea, hearing the waves and letting the wind blow through my hair, helps me. Music can transform our moods and just the simple act of getting up and walking helps; dancing does the same thing on a larger scale.

I am a generally happy person. I wasn’t always that way. I remember going though a stage where I was negative about most things, and I was pretty miserable. I’m not sure why I was that way but I was. And then one day I heard about gratitude. Maybe it was on an Oprah show. I can’t remember but I heard it when I was ready to hear it and I started practicing gratitude. I bought a pretty journal and every day I wrote something down. Some days I really had to dig deep but it didn’t take too long before I realized how blessed I really was. I had a great deal more than a lot of people. Soon gratitude became an inherent part of my life and my life changed. Well, really it was the same life, I changed. When something annoying or frustrating happened, I was able to see it as a temporary event. I didn’t let it overwhelm me. If someone else was involved in the situation, I tried to see it from their point of view. I approached things more calmly than I might have in the past. Often that totally defused the situation.

I know I’ve written about this before. But there have been things that have happened in the last little while that have made me re-visit these thoughts and feelings. The news out of the US daily tests my resolve as there hasn’t been much that’s happened there in the last year or so that can be considered positive. But then a group of well-spoken, determined teens gives me hope. And I watch a talk show host who fights back with humour and I know there are people who will resist, who will fight back. And for every crappy thing that happens something good happens. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction – science.

I know you’re probably thinking it’s easy for someone like me to be happy. And you’re right, as I said, I am blessed and I do have a lot. However, no one gets through life without wounds and scars. No one has a completely charmed life. We all have challenges, we all have worries and concerns. I’m no different. Most of my career was during the 20 year systematic defunding and dismantling of public education. The stress of that job almost broke me. But then I started my journal. I bought tea making supplies for my room and every afternoon, after the kids left, I made tea and drank it alone while soothing music played. After a half an hour or so of conscious de-stressing, I got on with my work. I don’t have that stress any more but like everyone else, I have things I have to deal with. And I deal with them. And I look for positive things to balance out the not-so positive things. I sit in the sunshine. I visit with friends. I write. I sing. I act. I go for walks. I read. I bake. I nap. I interact with store clerks. I play Candy Crush and do sudokus and play Scrabble against the computer and against Dale. I’m about 50% successful against the former and about 98% successful against the latter.

As the wise Charlotte from “Sex and the City” said in the first movie, and I’m paraphrasing here, although I did find the script online and I could quote the line exactly, however the conversation was about relationships and that doesn’t really fit my premise, but I digress. She said she felt happiness every day, not all day every day, but every day. As I said at the outset, we live our lives and happiness finds us, in those small moments when we aren’t overwhelmed. Here’s to finding those daily moments.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but l may be a food-centric person. I wake up in the morning wondering what to make for dinner. I scour websites looking for new and interesting recipes. The interweb is a wonderful place to find things. Sometimes I plug in staples that I have on hand – black beans, chicken, cheese. Bingo bongo, recipes appear. I was out shopping the other day and I realized something, I look forward to food items that aren’t available all year. I get excited when they finally appear.

January is a barren month food-wise. Fruit is available but only oranges and grapefruit taste like themselves. It’s the time of year for stews and soups and amazing, hearty bread. February brings cinnamon hearts and Hershey kisses, not really food but hey, they’re delicious. The Lunar New Year falls somewhere in here and we usually try to get out to a Chinese restaurant and eat something new. March brings hot cross buns and Cadbury creme eggs. April is when the first spring veggies arrive and I start heading to the local farm markets to check them out; asparagus, radishes, rhubarb and salad greens. I start to rely less and less on my pantry and I start shopping every other day to keep fresh food in the house. The local Farmers’ Market starts up just a block from where I live and I head there every Thursday with my trusty “Shop Local” reuseable bags. May brings peas and the first new potatoes. We eat fresh, raw peas in green salads, potato salads and coleslaws. We eat them until they disappear. June really explodes with food items – local strawberries, cherries, blueberries and if we’re lucky, tomatoes. I live for fresh, local tomatoes. While hothouse tomatoes are available all year, they often don’t taste like tomatoes. July brings nectarines, peaches, peppers, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries. I make a killer fresh fruit trifle and everyone loves my fruit-covered mini pavlovas. We gorge on each new item as it becomes available. Corn makes its appearance in July too. Our suppers consist of something barbecued and a big salad full of local veggies and fruit and corn. I love to make little hand pies with the fresh fruit, a regular pie is too big for just the two of us. We go to a local gelato place to get seasonal flavours to pair with the fruit. Heaven! And watermelon finally tastes like watermelon in July. Everything continues through August and September, although the berries trail off. But then the new crop apples arrive. When we were in Nova Scotia we discovered Cortland apples – big, juicy, crisp and not too sweet. They aren’t available here but we love Pink Lady (Kripp’s Pink) and Honeycrisp apples. The first Spartans and Macs are delicious too, but their crispness and tartness don’t last. October brings brussel sprouts and fresh, organic free-range turkey for Thanksgiving. November is Halloween candy, those mini chocolate bars are irresistible! December brings all the Christmas cookies and treats, as well as the best mandarin oranges. All year we try to buy local. Our bread, milk and eggs come from local organic companies. We frequent a couple of local butchers.

When travelling we try to eat local food in small restaurants. We avoid large national chains, although no trip to the southern US is complete without a breakfast at Cracker Barrel. In those small restaurants you get local food cooked with local flavour. You also get the chance to talk to people who live in the area. The best tips for outings come from them. But no matter where we are, if duck is on the menu I order it. I never cook it but I eat it whenever I can. Cooking, or baking, for family or friends is my favourite thing to do.  And when I cook for others, I only have to taste it to see that it’s good, I don’t have to eat it all.

I can’t buy into the premise that we should eat to live not live to eat. People who eat to live lack passion. They have no sense of community or exploration. I feel sorry for them. They might be thinner than me but I know damn well they aren’t happier than me.

I’m not a morning person. I can do mornings, and I did do mornings for years and years and years. Having children and working for a living means you have to be a morning person, or at least fake being a morning person. I wake up quickly and I’m happy and wide awake. I can carry on conversations and get things done from the second my eyes open. I know some people, and I’m not naming names but I might be married to one, who need some time to transition from asleep to awake, who don’t want to see or talk to anyone, who just need some time to be alone and wake up. I often wake up with a song in my head and I could easily break out into that song as soon as my eyes open. I could be a morning person, if I wanted to, but I don’t.

They may be urban legends but I’ve heard stories of people who get up and go for walks, or even more unbelievable runs, early in the morning. Some people get up to meditate or read or sew or bake early in the morning. They see the sunrise and they like it! They enjoy dew on the grass and birdsong. I don’t. I’ve walked in dewy grass, heard morning birds and seen sunrises. They are overrated. And you can still walk in dewy grass at 9 am if you find a sheltered corner of the garden, you can hear birdsong while still abed through open windows and sunsets are just as beautiful and inspiring as sunrises. When we had a boat we used to get up early, and I mean early, to go fishing. We would be on the water before sunrise. And guess what? We never caught fish then, seems they prefer 9:00 am starts too.

Now that I’m not working I have a wonderful morning routine. I wake up around 7:00 am, check the clock, dismiss it and go back to sleep until after 8:00. When I wake up the second time, I stretch and enjoy the fact that I don’t have to get up. After a few minutes I get up, put on comfortable clothing and go downstairs. I work slowly through my version of a yoga routine. My knees are so bad now I can’t do many poses but I’ve seen gentle routines where some poses are done sitting or lying down. Then I make a pot of tea, check Facebook, Twitter and the news (what did Trump do now?). An hour or so later I get up off the couch and go back upstairs. I get dressed, do my hair and make-up, make the bed, maybe do some laundry and once I’m back downstairs my day really begins. I get started on whatever is on my agenda for the day – strata business, housework, shopping, baking, script study and so on.

As I live with someone who is still working for a living, as he constantly reminds me, my evenings usually end around 10 or 11. However some nights I just can’t get to sleep. Sometimes I get up and watch  late night TV but most of the time I sit in the dark on the window seat and look outside. Let me just say that the quiet of the night is every bit as wonderful as the quiet of the morning. The summertime night is velvety. We live in an area with a lot of older people. There are always lights on in the buildings around us. I sit and wonder what they are up to. Sometimes ambulances arrive silently, with their lights flashing, nothing to wonder about there. Sometimes there are people out walking little dogs. Sometimes urban coyotes stroll along the pathway. People get off the late night buses and make their way home. It’s quiet and peaceful. After a while I’m relaxed enough to try to sleep again.

In a perfect world, my mornings would remain the same. However, my evenings would stretch longer into the night. Perhaps once my significant other stops working that might happen. But he is an early riser. He likes the quiet of no one around. He’s a “don’t talk to me for the first hour that I’m up” person. Let me tell you, that makes early morning trips to the airport interesting. Once I’m up I want to chat and make pancakes and discuss the news. The only way he can avoid that is to get up before me, which makes him ready for bed at night before me. Sigh… this may be a perpetuating problem.

It’s been a joy watching our little grandson grow up. We’ve been there for many of the milestones of his young life, and if we weren’t there, we got a text. Some of those moments were captured in photos or videos that we can look at over and over again. You know, at some point in our lives we stop celebrating all those important firsts, however, they don’t stop happening. We just roll them into the fabric of our lives and move on. I think we should revisit milestones so here are some things I think we should celebrate after the age of 50.

The first time you:

• realize you don’t give a flying fig what anyone else thinks
• buy the good ice cream because the house is free of never-satiated teens who can demolish a bucket of ice cream in one sitting
• wear comfortable, but flattering and attractive, clothing and shoes to an important event because you know wearing uncomfortable clothing and shoes just because they look good is stupid
• take advantage of an age-related discount or perk. (Extra celebration points if they didn’t believe you and you had to show ID to prove you’re old enough)
• eat whatever the hell you want for dinner, not worrying about whether it’s a nutritionally balanced meal
• understand, really understand, that forgiveness isn’t for the other person, it’s for you
• accept a seat that a young person has offered
• give up doing something that you were doing because it was expected of you, but it didn’t bring you joy
• said no without explaining
• realized saying nothing was far more powerful and effective than speaking in anger or frustration
• spoke up against bigotry, ignorance or hatred because you know silence is tacit agreement
• accepted that the person’s body is just the packaging, that the person inside is the real gift (Extra celebration points if that first acceptance was of your own body)
• used something to make your life better, even though you know it aged you – reading glasses, a cane, whatever (Extra celebration points if whatever it was had sparkles or was brightly coloured)
• eschewed anti-aging skin products for healthy skin products because you’re not anti-age but you are pro- healthy
• embraced your laugh lines because it means you’ve had a happy life

Things to celebrate every time they happen:

• All the above statements
• Getting up from sitting or lying on the floor without help from anyone
• Not feeling guilty when you spend the whole day doing nothing
• Having another cookie or doughnut or piece of cake, or whatever, because you feel like it and you realize the world won’t end if you do and you can just not eat one tomorrow
• Putting someone in their place so adroitly that they don’t realize what you’ve done because you’ve honed your “dealing with assholes” skills from years of practice
• Falling asleep quickly and staying asleep for more than four hours
• Finding the perfect weight sweater that keeps you warm enough but not too warm
• Doing something new
• Getting recognition for your talents, skillls, abilities and positive attributes
• Being able to do what you want, when you want because you have both the means and the time

Of course, this list is not complete. I’m sure when I turn 60 I will be able to add to both of the categories. All of my friends are clear that things change at 50, then they change more at 60 and even more at 70. While that can seem daunting and maybe even scary, I’m looking forward to all of it. As Bette Davis once said, old age is no place for sissies; but it is a privilege not afforded to everyone. Now go out there and celebrate!

A friend of mine on Facebook posted the photo above. It’s of a newspaper article that redefines age. In case it’s too hard to read, let me tell you what it says. The World Health Organization has set forth the following categories based on average health quality and life expectancy:

• 0-17 years old: underage
• 18-65 years old: youth or young people
• 66-79 years old: middle aged
• 80-99 years old : elderly or senior
•  100+ years old : long-lived elderly

Well, well. This is definitely food for thought. And it does validate some things. For example, I have a lot of friends still working, many full-time, well into their sixties. They are running marathons and their grandkids find it hard to keep up with them. I have no idea how old anyone is. Hair dye and more disposable income to buy trendy, flattering clothing has allowed people to maintain a youthful appearance. Gone are the grammas of my youth; white haired old ladies wearing baggy house dresses, support hose and sensible shoes. Their lives were so much harder than our mothers’ lives were, and our mothers’ lives were much harder than ours. Of course their life experiences shaped them. And the culture of their lives shaped them too. Few women diverged from the roles society placed on them. Grammas sat in rocking chairs with grandbabies or great-grandbabies in their laps. They cooked and knitted and stayed close to home. Nowadays, grandmothers and great-grandmothers travel the world or go on road trips in their new model convertibles. They wear designer clothes, organize and attend demonstrations and drink and dance the nights away. They may still hold babies in their laps and they may sit in rocking chairs while they’re doing that, but when the babies and their parents go home, those grammas get up and go to the office where they run corporations. Life is different now, times are different and women are empowered to be who they want to be. And for many of us in our fifties and beyond, we have the health and the wealth we need to live the kinds of lives we want to live.

So, I think the article is right, to an extent. I’m 58 and have been told I look younger but I don’t feel “young”. Some days I feel every minute of those 58 years; when my knees force me to go slowly and awkwardly up and down the stairs, when my left arm aches from carrying my grandson around or when a day of travelling reduces me to a snivelling sack of exhausted nerves.  And don’t even get me started on the dangers of sneezing, coughing or laughing suddenly, before I have the time to cross my legs. I have a young outlook on life in many ways but I also feel those 58 years have given me some measure of wisdom and insight that young people lack. Of course, there are some pretty mature “youngsters” and some pretty close-minded, offensive “oldsters” out there. I am, of necessity, speaking in generalizations.

I would be happy to be called “middle-aged”, after all, the odds are not in my favour that I will live past 100 so technically I’m past middle age. I have made peace with my life expectancy. I’ve lived a good life so far. I have a good marriage. I have loved well and been well loved. I helped raised two children who successfully went out into the world to live their own lives, and who occasionally call or come to visit. I had a career that allowed me to make a positive difference in people’s lives, and some of them have reached out to tell me that. I have old friends and new friends and I look forward to spending time with them. I’ve travelled to some amazing places and have plans to visit more. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not ready for my life to end, but if it did, I’d be okay with that. Of course I would do whatever I could to fill my remaining days with as much as possible given, of course, that I had notice.  I’m not sure that’s how a young person would feel. That’s why I don’t feel young, that and the sneezing stuff.

Compared to our previous generations, we boomers have had it pretty good. And now as we enter the last phase of our lives, we are reaping the benefits of the times we lived in. Most of us are relatively healthy and have the means to continue our lifestyles well into our later years. Of course, we’ll be living in ranchers, not three storey townhouses. We will have to make concessions but the quality of our lives makes us seem younger than our parents were at our age. However, I would like to ask clerks to stop calling me “miss” or “young lady”, that just feels ridiculous to me. I am clearly not young and those sobriquets feel condescending. I feel I’ve earned the respect of “ma’am”. Getting old isn’t something to avoid. Sure there are things about aging that aren’t all that great, but not getting older is worse.

There have been many discussions in the media about the importance of being connected, of feeling like you’re a part of something. Of course every discussion mentions how our cellphones and social media apps are making us more disconnected that ever. Maybe, but there have been times in my life when the opposite has been true.

We’ve moved a lot in our married life. In fact, we haven’t lived in any house more than three years; we’re coming up on three in our current home, oops, I hope I didn’t jinx anything! Sometimes we moved within a neighbourhood or within a city, but sometimes those moves took us someplace new and far away. In the eighties we tried to keep in touch with friends via letters, phone calls and visits. Sometimes that worked, but more often it didn’t. We have maintained some wonderful friendships from that time in our lives, and we have reconnected with some but most fell by the wayside.

Today I had a surprise visit from a dear friend, the realtor we worked with when we moved here. She was in the neighbourhood and so she rang our bell, hoping I was home. We had a lovely little visit, catching up on each other’s lives. She remarked how much she loved my Facebook posts, that it made her feel like she was still in our lives because she was sharing in our experiences, albeit from a distance. That really resonated with me. I feel exactly the same way.

When my Facebook friends post pictures or updates, I feel connected to them. Sometimes I respond, sometimes I don’t, but every time I feel something. Some of these friends are a long way from me. I may not ever see them again, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be happy for them when they accomplish something, or that I won’t offer up positive thoughts into the universe when they struggle. I love hearing about their escapades and their travels. I love looking at their photos, knowing that they represent things that are important to them. I love their political or spiritual posts, even though I may not always agree with them. Those posts just help to round out their personalities. We don’t all have to like or believe the same things to get along, we just have to be respectful.

I know people hate Facebook. The app targets us, sending us ads and posts that their research says we will like. “They” collect information about us and “they” may know more about me than I know myself. Some of that is creepy and there may be even some nefarious purposes at play. But when I can catch up with a childhood friend, touch base with a person I worked with at the beginning of my career or message someone I met in a theatre group in one of the small towns we moved to, I feel connected. And I can put up with some ads and suck up my paranoia about identity theft to get that connection.

Sometimes technology does separate us. I’ve been in a skytrain car, standing with my cane while a younger, fitter person was sitting, hiding behind her phone so she wouldn’t have to see me, get up and give me her seat. I’ve avoided someone by taking my time responding to emails. But I can talk to my mom without long distance charges on my cellphone, something that she sometimes forgets, chiding me for spending so much money calling her. I can help my son, his fiancée and her family with wedding plans via group messages. Group emails can make short work of any job.

Having said all this, nothing is better than a surprise visit from a friend. I love going for coffee or lunch with friends, or on shopping trips with them. I thrive on my theatre connections, hanging out before rehearsals and winding down together after shows. I don’t want to ever give up travelling to spend time with someone important in my life. A face to face connection is always better than an internet connection, but in our busy, far apart lives, I’ll take what I can get.

Facebook may have once been the purview of the young, but us boomers have taken to it like arthritic ducks to warm water. With our phones, tablets or outdated desktop computers, we can send each other jokes about getting older and tips to deal with sleepless nights. We can share recipes to help us lose weight and memes that wax nostalgic about our childhoods. But mostly we can use the current technology to maintain or build relationships. If somehow, someday we don’t live just minutes from our grandson, I know that technology will allow us to still be a big part of his life. Hey, maybe some day we can use a transporter beam to visit, after all, many of the technological advances dreamed up in the original Star Trek have come to pass. Beam us up (and then across the country) Scottie, Mimi and Poppy need to see Ari!

The iconic rainbow crosswalk across Davies Street in the West End. Hard to believe it was only made permanent in 2013.

We started going to Pride parades about 10 years ago. At the first one I was moved to tears by the older participants who were fully expressing their true selves. How sad it is that people have had to, and still do in many cases, deny who they are. While we all, to some extent, put filters on our true selves in public, I have never had to pretend to be something other than a white, heterosexual female. My inside matches my outside, although my inside is younger, fitter, thinner, prettier and more accomplished than my outside. I also remember seeing the family members marching for their gay sons, daughters, fathers, mothers and being incredibly moved by them too. So many people don’t have that support. Going to Pride parades is a small way for us to support this community.

Firework lights, strung in the trees along Bute Street in the West End. I took this photo last year, I don’t know if they are still there.

We’ve had some interesting experiences at Pride parades. At one of them we were sitting on the curb and it was hot! I was wearing a black wrap-around dress, which I opened to almost flash the guy on a float with a water cannon. He laughed and obliged me by aiming a spray directly at my cleavage. Another time we met two older women who were at their first Pride parade. Their husbands wouldn’t come. They were quite giddy and were particularly pleased to see penises, having been married so long and presumably only seeing that one penis for many, many years. Yet another time we were sitting on the curb in front of a hotel restaurant patio. There was a group of gay women with babies having breakfast. They were talking about what any other couples with babies would talk about, except… One couple told the others their conception story. They had done it the “old-fashioned” way. I leaned back to hear better. A male friend came over to their apartment, left a sample and then they used it. Yup, that’s the old-fashioned way to make babies.

One year we were near the end of the parade and had a great spot. When the parade came into sight, an elderly Asian woman pushed her way in front of us and set up her lawn chair. No problem, we were standing and could see over her. But we were pushed back a ways, and had to lean if we wanted to see past her. Another year we were near the beginning of the parade. We were sitting but so many people came to stand in front of us that we had to get up and even then we had a hard time seeing anything. Last year we went to a venue that over promised and under delivered. The day was saved by a friend who flouted the rules and got us a good viewing site.

We saw two Pride parades in Edmonton, when we were living in Leduc. They were smaller and more sedate, well as sedate as a Pride parade can be, no penises. I remember seeing the NDP contingent, Dale calls them “my people”. It was about 30 people. I joked that they were all the people who voted NDP in the province. The guy beside me laughed and agreed. However, I had the last laugh as the NDP later formed the government.

This year we got very lucky. We found a great parking spot and so I didn’t have far to walk. Good thing because the day before we had walked over 7 km, from our hotel to downtown, downtown to the fireworks and then back to our hotel. I found a great shaded spot on the curb. We set out our blanket and passed the time playing Scrabble on our iPads. As the start of the parade grew closer, people came to stand behind us, but they were polite and didn’t push. When the parade got to us, two little girls squeezed in to sit on the curb beside us. They were careful not to infringe on our space, and were so polite. They sat quietly and only got candy and other items when the parade participants came to give stuff to them. They put everything into their small ziplock bags, often looking up at their dad with big smiles. Later two older girls, in their tweens, pushed in and sat on the street just off to our left. They effectively blocked the little girls from getting anything; they were bigger and louder and more pushy. So we started getting things for the little girls, and soon the little one was leaning comfortably against me. I guess our message got through, because the older girls didn’t stay long.

We’ve seen inspiring things, interesting things and unusual things at the parades. We’ve seen politicians and political parties, but we never once saw our old premier. Last year we saw our Prime Minister, who walked pushing his youngest child in a stroller. A large vehicle with muscled men carrying weapons followed him. This year we saw our new premier. We’ve seen the Queen, or her facsimile. We’ve seen regular queens, fairies, radio station floats, hordes of bank employees and naked people roller-blading and biking. Every parade was joyful and peaceful and celebratory.

Liberal MP Hedy Fry; she’s been in every Vancouver Pride we’ve been to, rocking incredible costumes and high heels!

I once heard someone ask when heterosexual week was, since the “gays” had their Pride week. I looked at him in amazement. I replied that every week is heterosexual week. Then I asked: was he ever afraid to hold hands with his wife in public, has he ever had to try to blend in, not to appear different? He shook his head. And that is why we have Pride week. So that for one week everyone can express and celebrate their true selves, and so that soon they can do that every day, without fear or shame. We are getting closer to that. When we lived in the West End it was clear everyone felt safe there. Now let’s work on making sure everyone – without consideration of gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, age, size, style of dress, or whatever – feels safe and valued all the time everywhere.

The rainbow light show at the end of Elton John’s concert. It was so beautiful.

Okay, I’m starting to develop a complex. I’m a fairly well-adjusted human being. I have the usual family-related issues, being a middle child and all, and I do have a small bird phobia. Oh, not a phobia of small birds, but a much reduced dislike and disdain for birds around the size of crows or pigeons, because pigeons are stupid and will fly at you because they don’t know any better and because crows are smart and they know exactly how to scare you. I don’t like being stopped in traffic on bridges because of earthquakes  and I do at least triple check to see that the garage door is closed but that’s just because I’m so conscientious after having been robbed a time or two. So as you can see from what I’ve told you, I’m fairly well adjusted. Except when it comes to smoke detectors.

I had another experience with our smoke detectors today. I was trying to nap before our Bard on the Bandstand show. I was cuddled up on the couch with a small blanket when the smoke detector located right above my head chirped. We had replaced the batteries in it just a while ago so I wasn’t expecting it. I sat up, thinking maybe it was a sound on the TV or from something outside, or even just something I had imagined in my semi-asleep state. Nope. It was chirping. I got up and checked the house just in case there was a reason for the noise. When I came downstairs again, I could smell smoke. I went down to the front door and opened it. The outside air was very smoky, almost acrid. I couldn’t see any smoke but I could feel it on the back of my throat. So, if it was the outside air the nasty smoke detector was reacting to, then I could control that. I closed all the windows and turned on all the fans. Nope. Still chirping. I texted Dale in explicit language. He suggested that I vacuum the detector. The pollen count has been high and there is construction all around us. The front windows have been open for weeks so the filter on the detector could have been full of particulates, especially if the air was smoky. So, I got the shop vac, attached the extension and a small brush, leaned on the couch and vacuumed the detector. Success.

However, the anxiety about the flipping detector remained. I could feel my shoulders tighten as I waited for the next chirp. As time passed my shoulders relaxed a little. I didn’t open any windows nor did I turn off any fans. I also didn’t make my lunch. I figured I’d pick something up on my way to the show. What I did do was think about how in the past three years I’ve had more than my share of negative experiences with smoke detectors. How is it that in three years I’ve been more traumatized by smoke detectors than I have in the previous 50+? Well, I guess the first twenty years are easily explained, I don’t think we had smoke detectors in our house when we were growing up. I can’t remember them in the first houses we owned but they may have been there. I do remember waving tea towels at poorly placed smoke detectors in some of our kitchens when the kids burned toast but those experiences didn’t affect me like they do now. Now when the detector chirps my heart rate goes up and my whole body tenses. I jump every time it makes a sound. Lord help me if it really goes off. I’ll probably have a heart attack. Are smoke detectors more sensitive now, or am I? It could be both statements are true.

So, I’m sitting here with tight shoulders, fans blowing on me as I tap the keyboard writing this blog. I am expecting a chirp any time now. The shop vac is standing at the ready. I am thinking that I should leave early for the show. We have a 5:00 call, it’s 3:30 now. It’ll take at least half an hour to get there. If I stop someplace to get a sandwich that’ll take time too. Yup. That’s the ticket. I’ll leave. But the question still remains: if a smoke detector chirps when I’m not in the room, will it still freak me out?

I’ve been involved in community theatre for over 20 years. I once directed a youth production that involved various selected scenes from several of Shakespeare’s plays but I’ve never been in a Shakespearean production, until this year. Last year I got involved with Emerald Pig Theatrical Society in Maple Ridge. Their summer production is always one of Shakespeare’s plays. As they perform on the bandstand in the park near the Leisure Centre in Maple Ridge, among other places, they call this part of their group “Bard on the Bandstand”. Well, this year I had the time to commit to it, so I screwed up my courage and auditioned. As this was the twelfth year of presenting their work, they were doing Twelfth Night.

I had prepared a short monologue from “The Merry Wives of Windsor”. The internet is an amazing resource! It was saucy and irreverent and I thought I could do it justice. I wasn’t able to memorize it as I was involved with learning my lines for another play, but I became very familiar with it. As I worked it, I realized that although the syntax was different, the language was clear. It made sense! With that knowledge giving me confidence, I worked on my character and went to the audition. There were familiar faces behind the table and after some friendly conversation, I delivered the monologue. It went well. Then the director asked me to read a part from the play.

I had read the play and done some research on it, so I was surprised when I was asked to read a monologue delivered by the pirate Antonio. I hadn’t really paid much attention to him as I was reading so I wasn’t too familiar with his parts. I quickly scanned the page and asked a few questions to buy myself a few minutes. Then, rolling my r’s in classic pirate form and standing with my feet firmly planted, I read the monologue. It made sense and I thought I had done it justice. I returned the page to the table, thanked everyone and went home.

A while later I got a call, offering me the part of Antonia. They had changed the part to a female pirate captain, who is in love with a young man she has rescued from a shipwreck. Well, well. That’s a part I could play, in fact, I believe I have had to play “nice” with several wonderful young-er men on stage. At the first read-through I was incredibly impressed with the cast. When Shakespeare is read properly it makes perfect sense. As I said earlier the syntax is different and some of the words are out of use now, but when you read it like a story, paying attention to the punctuation, it makes perfect sense. When you add in the acting, the body movement and the facial expressions, well, it’s magical.

As the rehearsals went in, I became more pirate-y. With my bad knee it was easy to limp like I had a peg leg. I started using a basic Irish accent, with dramatic rolled r’s. I often stood with my feet planted strongly and my hands on my hips. I was blatantly physical with the delightful young man who played my reluctant love interest. The director kept telling me to play bigger and do more and soon I was swaggering, with my curved blade drawn, across the stage.

My biggest worry about doing Shakespeare was what I would do it I drew a blank on stage. It sometimes happens. Your mind wanders and suddenly you have no idea what you’re supposed to say next. In a “regular” play, you know the purpose of the scene and you know your character so you can make something up until you get back on track. But how do you improvise Shakespeare? Well, not surprisingly, it’s exactly the same. Sure the Bard used phrases like “by my troth” and “forsooth my lady” but a lot of his language is very similar to how we speak today. And getting into the rhythm of his writing becomes almost natural as you rehearse. So when you, or your cast mates, draw a blank on stage during one of Shakespeare’s play, you get out of it the same way you’d get out of it in any other play.

My admiration and respect for my cast mates grew as we worked the play. I’ve said this before, but I have constantly been impressed with the talent shown in community theatre. Sure there’s been the occasional actor who has more enthusiasm than ability, and sometimes the only reason someone is on stage is because they showed up and there was no one else to cast, but for the most part, community theatre actors are great. We work day jobs to pay our bills but our passion is theatre and given half a chance most of us would jump at the chance to make a living doing it. This cast gelled and we delivered amazing performances every night. Of course we made mistakes but we covered for each other and moved on. And since every director edits Shakespeare’s words differently, no one watching could say we’d missed something; it just might have been cut.

I’m not sure if I’ll do another summer Shakespearean show but at least now I can say I have done it, and that’s more than a lot of people can say.

I am a pretty positive person. I have one tattoo reminding me to “find the joy” and another one encouraging me to be in the moment, not to dwell in the past or to worry about the future. I am not often drawn into negative situations; I have many skills in my toolbox to defuse contentious moments, I easily find compromises and I know how to build consensus. However, and it’s a huge however, there are some people who I find it virtually impossible to deal with, and wouldn’t you know it, there’s someone like that in my life now. This person (and rather than repeat that over and over again, I’m going to use the non-gender specific pronouns they, them and their) has to be the most negative, controlling person I’ve ever dealt with. They feel their opinion is the only one that matters, their way of doing things is the only way to do it and they are smarter, have higher standards and care more about everything than anybody else. Their voice is the loudest in every room and sometimes their fake condescending laugh rings out to punctuate the passive-aggressive approach they sometimes employ.

Now, my problem isn’t with this person, although I would be fully justified in having a problem with them, my problem is with myself. I have allowed this person to occupy way too much of my time. I have had lengthy conversations with them in my head, sometimes long into the night when I should be sleeping. I have let them goad me into reacting and then I beat myself up for not being strong enough to resist. And, worse of all, I’ve started to question my own skills and abilities. I have given my power away to this person and this blog serves notice that I’m not going to do that any more.

My life is pretty darn good. I am blessed in so many ways. My world is populated with smart, talented, creative, loving and amazing people. One a$$h@£e doesn’t have the right, rather I don’t have the right to allow this one a$$h@£e, to override the influence of all of those wonderful people. I will not allow their negativity to darken my world, I will require of myself that I allow the positivity of everyone else to add the colours of love and joy to my world. So, I ceremoniously expel this person and their toxicity out of my life.

BEGONE YOU BRINGER OF ANGST! Begone you who lives under a dark cloud and is not happy until that cloud extends over everyone. Begone you person who must always have the last word. Begone you mean-spirited, petty, toxic-spewing creature. With my wand of positive ions I cast a circle around me and those close to me. I sprinkle fairy dust and create rainbows to dispel the heaviness of your personality. And lastly, I send waves of goodwill your way. May your life become better so that you don’t feel the need to make other lives bad to somehow improve yours. May you someday see that you don’t need to compete with every person you meet. It must be hard to carry your negativity with you all the time and I’m not going to add to your load.  May you someday find the joy that is clearly missing from your life, but in the meantime you can’t have mine.

Wow, that felt good. Now I will not give this person one more moment of my time. When I have to interact with them, and that will happen, I will envision my wand and fairy dust and rainbows. And just so you know I’m not saintly, I will take pleasure in knowing that reaction will probably bug the shit out of them! And that people is what is known as a win-win.