Month: December 2011

New Year’s Resolultions Now, Then and Totally Irrelevant

/ Lauren / Leave a comment

Every year I make New Year’s resolutions, and almost every year I break them. Likely because mine are always so broad and vague that I don’t have a concrete way to keep track of whether I’m sticking to them or not. Apparently it’s easier to keep resolutions when they are clearly defined goals, and more easy to accomplish. This is also supposed to be better for my self-esteem, or something, because apparently not meeting goals makes us feel bad.

Eff that. I don’t see any point in making resolutions that are easy. The easy ones won’t be of  use to me. So here are my resolutions for the year 2012:

  1. Try not to be so grumpy so often. This is a resolution I’ve made a few times, because I know I have a bad habit of letting little things (like being late) get me down, and then letting my swearing and banging around of household utensils rain down on any innocent bystander who is unlucky enough to be in my path. Great stress relief for me, uncool for the people around me.
  2. Drink more water. Eugh. I never drink water. And then I get headaches. The simple solution is obviously to drink water BEFORE I get a headache but I hate drinking water because water is BORING. This may just be something I’ll have to put up with.
  3. Make my friends a priority.  When I get busy I live at the mercy of whatever I wrote on my calendar, and sometimes that means going weeks without seeing my closest and dearest friends, the ones who are always here for me when everything else I’m doing ends, winds down, or disappears. And that sucks, because I love my friends, and generally speaking they’re more fun than the obligations on my calendar.
  4. Finish what I start. Lately I’ve been feeling a little smug that some of my 2011 plans actually came to fruition, like my European Adventure and the fact that I’ve kept up with this blog. In reality, I am a procrastinator, a lazy-bones, and a scaredy-cat, and most of my plans and ideas barely make it past their inception. Which is a shame because whether they be writing, art, or home improvement projects, some of my ideas are actually good ones and I’d probably enjoy seeing them through.
  5. Be nicer.  This is a big vague goal and probably goes along with not being as grumpy, but when my TC and I were talking about resolutions this is one of the ones I came up with almost immediately. I think I am a nice person, but I also think that part of being a nice person is not resting on your laurels. To really be a nice person means making a continuous effort to have empathy, to maybe not share that retort that’s on the tip of your tongue, to donate what time/money/resources you can spare to make someone else’s life better, and basically to try to comport yourself in a way that does as little harm as possible to the people around you and your planet. And it’s not easy! When I have a shitty day there’s a part of me that wants to make it the world’s problem, that justifies my snappy remarks and occasional lack of charity, patience, or understanding. Which isn’t nice. And that part of me will always be there, making life interesting, but I am determined to soldier on nonetheless.

Because I am currently back at my parents’ house with my boxes of old diaries and journals at hand, I thought it might be fun to see if I’d written down any resolutions in junior high. And I did. On December 31, 1998, at the age of 12, I made the following resolutions:

  1. train more for skiing
  2. work harder in school + extracurricular
  3. get all the social life stuff worked out
  4. stop being such a grump
  5. try new things and try my best
  6. be healthier + nicer

I’m actually quite surprised at how many of my resolutions were the same as they are now, though I did make a couple resolutions that are no longer relevant. With regards to getting my “social life stuff worked out” I think I was referring to a friend at school who had found a new group of friends that I didn’t get along with and I was having some problems with the new pecking order in the class. I also had a mad crazy crush on a cute little Grade 7 boy who in turn had a crush on the new best friend of my old friend. Sigh. Grade 7 was complicated.

To my credit, since being 12 I have been doing better at trying new things and at being healthy. Success!

Since I found some resolutions in my Grade 7 diary I assumed I would also find some written around the new year in Grade 6. Alas, James Cameron’s seafaring masterpiece got in the way of making New Year’s resolutions. In the interests of reflection and exposition, I am posting my first entry of the year 1998, written when I was 11 years old:

Jan. 8, 1998

Dear Diary,

I watched Titanic this holiday and, omigod! I’m going crazy for Leonardo DiCaprio again. Only this time it’s worse. Almost everything reminds me that he died at the end of the movie. Somehow, it’s way worse than Romeo + Juliet. At the end, the girl he was in love with is 100 or something, and she dies and goes back to the Titanic and she’s young and with him again. It’s so sad. Someday, I want to get Leo’s address and write him a letter. That would be neat.

Lauren

And then, inexplicably, I stuck a sticker from a glycerin soap bought at the SoapBerry Shop into the diary at the end of the post. Three months later I devoted an entire page of my diary to little pictures of “Leo” that I cut out of magazines but if writing Leonardo DiCaprio a fan letter was my resolution for the year 1998, I never did do it.

Huh. I wonder if “finishing what I start” means I ought to write a letter to him now….

I’ll think about it. In the meantime, I wish you all a very happy New Year, and I hope the year 2012 brings great things and good changes to your lives. Get excited! I know I am. I mean, omigod!

Omigod what a dreamboat.

Christmas is a Feeling

/ Lauren / 2 Comments

Saskatchewan, December 2010. Photo credit: Daina Zilans

CHRISTMAS IS COMING, and it’s coming soon. Holy smokes.

Given the utter lack of snow outside and lack of anything resembling a winter solstice (besides the dark) or Canadian wintery-ness in Vancouver, it’s hard to believe the Yuletide season is once again upon us. In these past few years Christmas has just kind of snuck up on me before I was ready. This year it’s been the same story–how can it be Christmas time already? I haven’t made a paper chain yet! I never placed a frantic phone call to one of my sisters to make sure we didn’t get the same things for other family members! I’ve HARDLY “ballet-danced” to the Nutcracker in my apartment! I haven’t been nearly drunk enough! I haven’t watched “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (the animated one narrated by Boris Karloff of course), “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” (narrated by Burl Ives of course), or “Mickey’s Christmas Carol“!

My lack of preparation caused me to be afraid, despite the lovely Christmas parties I have attended, and the many cookies I have prepared and eaten, and the fact that I have now read Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, that I somehow wouldn’t be able to get into the Christmas spirit in time to really celebrate the big day (which is December 24, Christmas Eve, for my family). This would have been horrible because Christmas is my absolute favourite holiday, combining so many of the things I love: my family, good friends, good food, good spirits (both emotional and liquid), beautiful music, nostalgia, MAGIC, warmth, pretty sparkly things, snow, and the traditions we have established that make Christmas an incredibly special time for my family. To be out of step with my traditional “getting into the spirit of things” preparations because I have a job now, much less time, and no VCR created a fear in my heart that I wouldn’t be able to give this time the specialness it deserves.

My anxiety was unfounded. Christmas isn’t about watching slightly creepy stop-motion reindeer (though I’ll be digging up that VHS as soon as I get to my parents’ place). Christmas isn’t even about snow (though I’m crossing my fingers for some weather magic). Christmas is a feeling. Christmas is when I can’t stop smiling because I am TOO EXCITED. Christmas is a little light being turned on inside me that makes it possible to feel like a kid again. Christmas is always, every year, an overwhelming feeling of love and gratitude.

And my traditions? They’re important to me. They shape my experience of the holidays and provide me with a sense of continuity year to year. Christmas is a time to hold these old traditions very dear, and I do. But Christmas is also a time for new traditions. For example, this year my TC and I welcomed our friends into our home for our very first Christmas party. Both my TC and I will be spending Christmas apart with our own families this year, so on Monday we also had our own pre-Christmas dinner, and exchanged presents with one another under our own little (sadly fake) tree.

Ribriffic. Happy Alcoholidays!

And did Christmas come to us on December 19? Without snow, or a live tree, or even a day off work? As Dr. Suess wrote, the lack of a few things “didn’t stop Christmas from coming. It came. Somehow or other, it came just the same.” Greek ribs had been in the oven since the afternoon. Potatoes were mashed with cheese and garlic. Granville Island Winter Ale was sipped from novelty glasses that had the word “ALCOHOLIDAYS” printed along the rim. Presents were exchanged, the rabbit was given a carrot, and Jim Henson’s “Muppet Family Christmas” was watched on YouTube.

Our evening was merry and bright, cozy and lovely. Christmassy? Very. There’s something to be said for new traditions.

Our tree is the best. December 2010

But there’s nothing like the old ones. Meeting my family at the airport (my mom is an air-travel-booking magician, so all three of us “kids” usually arrive the same day), a chilly three-hour drive from Saskatoon to my childhood home in the Prairies, fantastic food and drinks with neighbours, sleeping (or trying to) in my tiny old twin bed bathed in the glow of the yard light and listening to the dog howl at Something, being scalded by the shower if anyone else in the house turns on a tap to so much as wash a potato, re-reading all of my childhood favourite books, cross-country skiing, family photos in which we pretend to be rappers or monsters or something, and most importantly, having the BEST CHRISTMAS TREE EVER–these traditions are my Christmas.

My family and I don’t always follow ALL of the traditions and little rituals I’ve assembled in my mind every year, and some of them will likely fall by the wayside over time. One day my sisters and I will have families of our own, and our Christmasses will look different from the ones we have now. It is a loss–observing your Christmas traditions through the frosty panes of a Christmas memory instead of living them year to year–but I am comforted by the idea that my favourite things about Christmas will never be lost. Christmas is a feeling. Year after year, there will be traditions (new or old), there will be family (new or old), there will be love, and there will be much to be grateful for.

And now I’m feeling sentimental. It must be Christmas. I wish you and yours a very merry Christmas, however you love to celebrate, and I wish you the very best and happiest of Christmas feelings.

Photo credit: Daina Zilans

[Note: I did not coin the phrase “Christmas is a feeling”. I remember it from a song performed in the Turtleford School Christmas Concert when I was in Grade 3. I cannot remember what the song or the play was called. I believed it involved the smallest and most humble evergreen in the Christmas Forest conveying the true meaning of Christmas through the aforementioned song. In fact, now that I think of it, the song was probably called “Christmas is a Feeling”. Classic.]

Children and the Arts: The conversation begins

/ Lauren / Leave a comment

Damon Calderwood and Robyn Wallis, Photo credit: Tim Matheson

Last Saturday I was invited by Jessie van Rijn, General Manager for Carousel Theatre for Young People, to a Bloggers’ Night at Carousel Theatre’s holiday production of The Wizard of Oz at Waterfront Theatre. While the bloggers in attendance were invited to tweet and live blog before and after the performance and during the intermission, Jessie was careful to stress both in her invitation and at the event itself that Carousel did not require or expect us to do so.

What Jessie did want to do by inviting bloggers to a Carousel production was to start a conversation about the role of the arts (and in Carousel’s case, specifically theatre) in the development of children and young people. Even without Jessie’s kind invitation to watch the stage version of my childhood favourite film (the MGM classic starring Judy Garland), I am more than happy to do so.

I know without a doubt the invaluable effect images, films, books, theatre, music, and dance had on my imaginative life and on my creativity growing up. From having the ending of Romeo & Juliet explained to me by my mother (after which I wondered why the heck anyone would bother writing a story that ended like that) to realizing after a conversation with my dad that I’d perhaps sided with the wrong character (apparently, the Phantom of the Opera was not a very nice man), the art I was exposed to led me to question what I saw, to hunger for explanation, and to create my own possibilities and versions of events when the explanation didn’t suit me (a creative act and one that the most lauded adult innovators perform constantly). I know that the cultural activities I was exposed to as a child and as a teenager shaped my own ambitions regarding becoming an artist and a writer.

Whether or not a child grows up to become an artist themselves, any activity that inspires and nurtures creativity (such as a trip to the theatre or the ballet) will be beneficial to them and to the world they will inherit. Celebrated 21st-century figures such as Steve Jobs were not only technically skilled–they were also incredibly creative. Terms like “innovative” and “thinking outside the box” get thrown around a lot nowadays as desirable traits for the work world of today, but what everyone really means is creativity, the ability to break from an established pattern and make something new, even if it’s simply something old viewed in a new way.

Creativity is not only useful in the workplace–it is also necessary for developing life and coping skills. Far from the stereotype of the miserable suicidal artist, reinforced by the high profile suicides of artists such as Virginia Woolf and Vincent van Gogh, a faculty for creativity is NOT a precursor to misery and suicidal ideation as creative people are better able to envision alternative solutions to the unhappy circumstances they face, and to find an outlet for the emotional and mental distress they may be feeling. The more choices you can envision for yourself, the less likely you are to find yourself powerless and trapped by your circumstances.

If you are still wondering why it is important to nurture children’s imaginations, my favourite answer is simply because children have them. Kids have a rich image life and as they begin to learn about the world they are exposed to new fears and wonders. I can think of no better example of this than the experiences of the five-year-old guest I brought with me to The Wizard of Oz (along with her mother, a friend of mine). Today I’ll call her LG (for Little Guest). LG is an outgoing and sassy little girl, who wanted to be the one to buy her Mentos from the lobby concession BY HERSELF and who chatted freely before the show even though she hasn’t seen me since she was three.

Meghan Anderssen, Photo credit: Tim Matheson

When we sat down in our second row seats (thanks Jessie!) and we saw how close to the stage we were, LG became a little apprehensive about her proximity to the Wicked Witch, and then she became downright terrified and asked to go home. My friend (her mom) had a chat with LG in the lobby about what she was afraid of and Jessie at Carousel not only helped by describing what would happen in the show to LG (explaining that in this production the Witch is more funny than scary) but was also able to re-seat us near the back of the theatre where we could still see and hear everything perfectly well (there’s not a bad seat in the Waterfront) and where LG could have a few rows of audience between her and any onstage witchiness.

After the show, the children in the audience were invited to climb onto the stage with Jessie and take a look at the sets and props used, meet the cast members, and ask questions about how the play worked. I think understanding how the images and characters that scared her are created helped smooth over LG’s initial fears and in the car afterwords she announced proudly that though she was “a little scared at first” she was glad she went and that she liked Glinda and that Jessie explained to her how the magical snow was able to defeat the Witch’s poisonous poppies.

The point I am trying to make with this heart warming little story, besides the fact that Jessie van Rijn and Carousel Theatre are good with kids, is that whether we encourage it or not children will imagine. No one told LG to think about the Wicked Witch, or to imagine that the Witch could possibly harm her, but LG was frightened anyways. What nurturing creativity does is provide children with weapons to combat their imagined fears (in LG’s case, Glinda and some magical snow did the trick).

The bright side of children’s ability to imagine that horrors lurk in the closet or under their bed is their ability to imagine that the world around them, while dark and strange sometimes, is also full of wonder and light. My little sister’s imagination once plagued her with night terrors, but her imagination was also able to convince her that the dream catcher my parents hung above her bed would stop them, and so it did. The same mind that believes in the Bogeyman and ghosts is also able to believe in Santa Claus and fairies. Children will imagine whether we tell them to or not–why would we not want to provide their imaginations with images and experiences that make them feel happy, inspired, and powerful?

I once came across a quote from Lewis Mumford (American historian, philosopher, cultural critic, and father) which I have loved ever since for eloquently framing my feelings on this issue of encouraging (or discouraging) imagination in children:

In repressing this life of fantasy and subordinating it to our own practical interests, we perhaps…gave the demonic a free hand without conjuring up any angelic powers to fight on the other side. We did not get rid of the dragon: we only banished St. George

                -Lewis Mumford, Green Memories

So there you have it folks. Give your kids something lasting this Christmas, something that will encourage their creativity, stimulate their imaginations, and arm them against their fears. Give them a St. George, or a Glinda the Good Witch, or even just a fun evening at the theatre or with a great book.

For me, this is what has lasted. This is what I remember and treasure after my old toys have been boxed up or garage-saled or forgotten. My parents gave me as much imagination and creativity as they could and it’s those gifts I am continually thankful for.

Robyn Wallis, Darren Burkett, Mike Stack, and Josue Laboucane, Photo credit: Tim Matheson

Full disclosure: I do not have children of my own. But I was a child once, and I have a good memory. I also have teacher parents, teacher neighbours, little cousins, TC’s cousins, friends with kids, babysitting experience, and an obsession with YA fiction.

My ticket to The Wizard of Oz, as well as the tickets of LG and her mother, were provided by Carousel Theatre for their Bloggers’ Night event. I was not asked to review or promote the show.

Carousel Theatre’s current season is based on literary classics. For more information about its productions and what Carousel does,  please visit their website.

Why I think an NDP-Liberal merger is stupid

/ Lauren / 10 Comments

Image by Sonja Kresowaty

Let me begin by saying I have no problem with the idea of a coalition between two political parties in government. Coalitions (at least in theory) mean distinct parties, representing different demographics, who view the world from different angles, working together and combining their different experiences, values, and perspectives to solve problems in government. At its best, it would mean working with the “two heads are better than one” philosophy. That sounds civil, and cooperative, and democratic, and very Canadian. If, after some future election, a coalition between the NDP and Liberal parties of Canada seemed like a prudent choice to best serve Canadians, I would be all for that. I’d probably, as the kids say, “lose my shit” with joy.

But the next election is a long ways away. The Conservative Party has a majority government. They can do just about anything they want, and providing a more immediate opportunity for Canadians to potentially choose not to continue with them is probably not among the list of Things the Conservative Party Wants To Do. So instead of picking up whispers of an NDP-Liberal coalition, lately, I’ve been picking up whispers of a merger (usually in Macleans).

And, as you can probably tell from the title of my post, I think this is stupid.

I do understand that many feel Canada’s “divided left” is much to blame for allowing the Conservative Party to become so strong, and I understand that our years of a “divided right” contributed to our being able to go so long without a right-wing government in Canada. I also understand that many people would rather see just about any party in government than the Conservatives, and see a merged NDP-Liberal party as a potentially useful tool that hasn’t yet been tried. But I still think the idea is stupid.

The people crying over a divided left seem to forget that the Liberal party is a centrist party, not a left-wing party (by Canadian standards). Far from unifying Canada’s political left into a strong and solid entity, merging the centrist Liberals and the leftist NDP would scare rightist  Liberals towards the Conservatives (not good), and would potentially send more leftist NDP voters running either towards the Green Party or to another leftist Fringe party that will seem to reflect their views better than a watered down NDP-Liberal party would (also not good). It’s like smushing two things together and having each end fall off. [Of course, I did not come up with this prediction myself. This sentiment has been echoed by several writers and columnists since this merger idea was just a twinkle in Canada’s eye. And it makes sense to me.]

Besides the aforementioned smushing and breaking, there are two more good reasons I think the idea of a merger is stupid.

Reason One: A merger would not be good for either party.

With the exception of the incredibly tragic and unfortunate death of NDP leader Jack Layton (and I agree that is a BIG exception to make), the NDP has never been in a stronger position in the House of Commons. While the Liberal and Bloc parties faltered in the May 2011 election, the NDP grew its ranks. Where Ignatieff waffled and flip-flopped, Layton stood his ground (albeit with his now-iconic cane). While the NDP clearly did not believe that the Conservative Party should form the government, they did not believe that the Liberal Party should either. A large number of Canadians made a choice in May, and they chose the New Democratic Party as the alternative to the Conservative Party. Why the NDP would want to compromise their new-found strength, and let down their voters (not to mention the memory of a leader who refused to compromise his ideals), is a mystery.

And then there is the Liberal Party. They took quite a beating in the last election. They went from being “the natural governing party” to a party that has lost its way. They have been handed a bittersweet but golden opportunity to take some time to find themselves again and define what it really means to be the Liberal Party of Canada. With the Liberals’ long history in Canadian politics, I somehow don’t think the outcome of their soul-searching will be deciding that what it means to be the Liberal Party is to be the NDP.

Reason Two: Uniting the left will essentially result in a two-party system (this is only a good reason to think a merger is stupid if you don’t believe a two-party system would be a good thing, which I don’t).

The NDP and Liberal Party are not the same party. If they were, the NDP would never have been founded in the first place. These two parties address different Canadians, with different needs and values. Not every non-Conservative voter would be content with the leftward shimmy that would be a Liberal government. Not every non-Conservative voter wants to move all the way to the NDP.

When people say it would be more useful to have a two-party system “like the States” I want to ask them if they’re crazy. I haven’t done that yet, so I will now. Are you crazy? Look at the state of US politics! You have one party (the Republicans) that seems, at this moment, like it is going to be led by total wingnuts (though we’ll see, I guess, once they choose a presidential candidate), and a second party that is SUPPOSED to be different, and is a little more palatable to the leftist voter, but is still forced to kowtow to the wingnuts in Congress on important traditional leftist issues like the environment,  reproductive rights, and marriage equality. The current US President is a Democrat, and do you see a many wins for the Stateside left-wing voter right now? I certainly don’t. If I could use only one word to sum up Obama’s presidency so far, I would choose “disappointing”. Given the opportunity to add a second word, I wouldn’t, because I’m too disappointed.  Bogged down by its own system and by a frighteningly vitriolic attitude between the parties, it seems to me the US government is doing nothing, and representing nobody.

Though our parliamentary system here in Canada is far from perfect, the availability of more than two choices ensures that Canadians have a better chance of being able to vote for the candidate and party that best represents them. That’s democracy. Voting for one of only two parties and then having whichever party wins have their hands entirely tied by the inability of the two parties to cooperate with each other, resulting in bills that do practically nothing, or require massive compromises in order to pass, is not democracy. That’s just politics. And let’s not forget that in the event of a merger, half-measures, compromises, and ass-kissing would be occurring between two sides of the new “left” party, before the party could even think of taking on the other. More politics.

There are people all over the world who are willing to fight, and to sacrifice their lives, in the pursuit of democracy for their country. No one ever died so they could have the privilege of politics in their lives.

The inevitable frustrations and disappointments of watching governments produce nothing but hot air is what turns people off politics in the first place. The more people are turned off by politics, the less they will be politically involved. The less people involved in politics, the less democracy can truly represent us. The people who elected Liberal candidates in May believed something different than I did. Despite this, I respect their decision to vote for a party that, while it is not the Conservative Party, does not best represent me or my values. I expect the same respect from Liberal supporters.

This is democracy. I want my voice to be represented, even if my voice doesn’t win. Winning will mean nothing if all I have won is the chance to watch the party I voted for compromise everything I hold dear, everything that made me vote for them in the first place. I want to see a party that cooperates with other parties (when appropriate) and conducts itself civilly, but that will be able to honour the choice I made when I voted. It’s a tall order, but anyone who thinks they belong in the House of Commons should be prepared to face that challenge.

On the flip side, anyone who is comfortable throwing the values I voted for out the window and hopping in bed with another party just to win does not deserve my vote. Because I don’t want to vote for stupid ideas, even if they win and get to form a stupid government.