Month: May 2012

Everything Is Not Okay In the Communities That Raised Me

/ Lauren / 9 Comments

I planned this week to write a funny blog post about politics and ghosts.

Instead, before I could get started, my mother broke the news that a young man from St. Walburg, one of the communities I consider “my neck of the woods” (my childhood home in rural Saskatchewan is equidistant from the towns of St. Walburg, where my mother taught, and Turtleford, where I went to school) and his wife and son had lost their lives, allegedly in a more upsetting and shocking way I would ever have thought possible.

For information about this tragedy, I have turned to the Saskatoon Star Pheonix and CBC Saskatchewan, which have given me some facts, I guess, though I resent the splashy way in which these horrible events are being presented, and the audacity of the reporters who would be so callous as to contact family members for comment at a time like this.

When I saw the photos of the family I recognized him right away. When I was in high school I thought he was cute. My mom taught him in grade 3. I competed in the Meadow Lake Music Festival with his sister. There is nothing in my thoughts or memories of this young man or his close-knit family to suggest such a horrible thing was possible.

But the horribly impossible has become horribly possible. I am in shock, I guess, I can hardly believe it (I certainly don’t want to). When I think about what the families of these young people must be going through (which, at the moment, is all the time), I feel sick to my stomach. To say I am experiencing grief would be an insult to the families and friends of this young couple and their son, because their grief is beyond imagining now.

Instead, I am casting around myself, trying to understand something that can’t be understood, that maybe isn’t any of my business to try to understand right now. For the second time in the past year and a half, a young man my age, from my tiny rural area, has lost his life in an inconceivably desperate act (although in these most recent events the deaths of his wife and son have exponentially heaped horror on the tragedy). Both of these young men were good-looking, good-humoured, gentlemanly young men with supportive families and close friends. They also both worked in Fort McMurray, an oil town gaining a reputation for suicide, violence, and desperate acts among its workers. It’s fairly common knowledge that working and living conditions in Fort Mac are extremely dire in terms of mental and emotional health.

This is unacceptable to me. Nothing is worth this loss of health and life and this senseless devastation of families. Not oil, not money, nothing. How many other families in other provinces, Alberta or Newfoundland or Manitoba, etc., see young men go up to Fort Mac, only to have them return mentally and emotionally strained to the point of breaking (or not to return at all, the victim of a suicide or murder)? This is not acceptable to me. It is not acceptable for anyone.

And yet the conditions that help contribute to these tragedies are accepted. The oil life is no picnic no matter where you are (which is why I also know several young men who’ve become addicts or alcoholics while working on the patch) and this has become an accepted part of life in the Prairies. I’m frustrated by this. I’m horrified, I’m angry, and I’m completely heartsick.

I can’t write a funny or clever post today. I’ve been thrust into a world that is harder, meaner, more senseless and more dangerous than the world of the communities I grew up in. And my communities have been thrust into this world too.

Where I’m from, people look out for one another. We are good people. Our parents worked hard all their adult lives to provide a good life for us. We are not unfamiliar with the harshness of cold winters or summer drought. We are not unfamiliar with the cruel indifference of fate as it intersects with farm life (though I must admit that as the child of teachers I was insulated from the worst of this). The communities that raised me know how to accept the good luck with the bad. But this is not a case of luck. I do not accept this. And I am utterly sick at heart.

[I am categorizing this post under “Politics” because ultimately, any push to improve the working conditions in Fort Mac will come down to the will of regulators and lawmakers, as long as there is public support for positive changes.]

Brief Encounters: Strangers, Drugs and the DTES

/ Lauren / 3 Comments

Living where I do, I pass through Vancouver’s Downtown East Side (DTES) almost every day, either transferring buses on my way to work in the morning or passing through to Gastown on the bus for dinner or a show on the weekend. For anyone not familiar with the DTES, it is a place unlike any other in Vancouver (or Canada). This part of the city sees a high rate of drug addiction, mental illness, and homelessness. It is also alive, buzzing, colourful. In other parts of the city, it is the distressed and marginalized who become invisible to the world. In the DTES, it is me, with my lack of involvement with life and work in this area, who becomes invisible–an observer, and occasionally, a listener.

With the arrival of spring (and the warmer weather), I have had the opportunity to see and interact with more people in my brief journeys through their landscape. Some of these encounters have stuck with me, snapshots tacked on the mirror. I can’t condemn or judge. I have no solutions to offer. I can only tell.

ONE.

It is evening and TC and I are riding the bus. We have a reservation at Jule’s in celebration of my birthday. I’m sitting gingerly, careful not to wrinkle or dirty my dress. I’m playing with my necklace, a birthday gift. A man in his thirties makes his way towards the back of the bus (and us), swaying dangerously as the bus moves. He sits down across from us and makes a funny comment about his difficulty getting to his seat. TC and I laugh. The man begins a conversation with us. I assume he is drunk, but he has a nice smile and nice teeth. We are not at all bothered by him. The man tells TC that his “wife” (i.e. me) “has a good sense of humour.” TC agrees and I cover my left hand with my right so the man will not see that I have no ring and be embarrassed by his mistake.

The man tells us that he is going to Main St. to take drugs. He says he has a wife and three children. His wife does not know that he’s using crack–she doesn’t know he has ever been using drugs. He says, “I know it’s supposed to be bad to lie, but sometimes, you have to. To protect people. I know I’ll have to tell her sometime though.” I think to myself, this man is an addict, the way I would think, this man is a hippie, or this man is a Canucks fan. Just a marker for a stranger.

He tells us he has only been using drugs for two weeks. I’m surprised but I believe him (I imagine that long-term crack use would damage his very nice teeth). He has only been using for two weeks but already it has claimed his Friday evening and probably several days and evenings since. He is angry that he ever took crack in the first place, and blames a friend for getting him into it. But he gets off the bus at Main Street, and tells us he just wants to get back that feeling.

When I tell my co-worker this story, she asks if either TC or I attempted to convince this man not to use drugs that evening. I say no. We didn’t. He wished us a good night and we said thank you. And that’s all that happened.

TWO.

I am returning home from running errands at 2:00 p.m. I switch buses at Main and Hastings. To my left, I am joined by a Young Man who seems more like a boy–he could be my age at most but I’m not sure he’s even 20. He’s wearing a white undershirt and his skin is pocked and scarred. He is otherwise a good-looking young man, with a wiry build that suggests energy and activity, but today he is so tired he cannot lift his head from the hands resting in his lap.

To my right sits a man in a ponytail and clinical scrubs. He seems a little wired and very sociable. He remarks loudly to the fellow beside him that he was on his way home from work but has been called in to return to cover the rest of the day. He is asked what he does. The Man in Scrubs replies that he works at a methadone clinic.

At this the Young Man riding beside me raises his head. He turns and asks (over me) about which methadone clinic he should go to. He has a referral for one, but he’s not sure if it’s the one he should visit. The Man in Scrubs tells him kindly (and cheerfully) that it is best for him to go to the clinic he’s been referred to, that it’s close by, and not to worry, he will be taken care of there. The Young Man looks tired, and sad.

As the bus nears my stop and I leave my seat, I hear the Young Man tell the Man in Scrubs that he has relapsed today. The Man tells him not to beat himself up about it, it has happened, and to just keep going. I get off the bus and I wonder what the Young Man was like before he began a methadone program. I wonder about his energy (did he have more before, or less?). I wonder how old he is.

THREE.

It is 7:30 a.m. and I am waiting at Main and Hastings for the bus that will take me to work. I’m looking up periodically, always afraid that a bird will shit on me (crows constantly congregate on the electrical wires at Main and Hastings, and pigeons live under the awning of the Rickshaw Theatre; seagulls, of course, are everywhere). Two men near me have a small argument, and one of them walks away.

The other approaches me and says hello. He tells me that he wants me to see something and holds out a stub for a federal government cheque. He tells me to look at the amount. The cheque had been for $326.

He says, “I helped ten people buy dope yesterday because I had this [the cheque]. How much of that do you think I have left today?”

I say, I don’t know. I can feel my features making a sad face and I say, Is it gone?

The man holds up a toonie. “This is all I have left,” he says. And then, “I’m not telling you this because I’m asking for money. I just wanted to show somebody because I’m ashamed of myself. I needed someone to see what I did.”

I nod as my bus pulls up. He tells me to have a good day. I think I say, You too. I hope I say it.

———————————————————————————–

These stories are true, to the best of my memory. These stories all happened in the past three weeks. I’m sharing them not because I have anything to say about them, but because they made an impression on me, and because I want to.

I don’t know about drugs or addiction. I haven’t seen it in my immediate life. I hear and read good things about harm reduction and recovery programs available through places like Insite and the Union Gospel Mission in Vancouver. But I don’t know anything. Stories brushed against me, and I just wanted to tell them.

Hive: The New Bees 2 (Get your buzz on May 24-26)

/ Lauren / 2 Comments

Are you in need of a great night of arts and culture, but can’t decide what to see? Do you wish you could have the opportunity to experience a variety of work from a variety of theatre companies, without having to leave the venue? Do you wish that instead of watching one two-hour show, you could watch ten-minute shows, have a drink at the bar, and then just keep watching more bite-sized pieces of theatre? If so, Hive: The New Bees 2, produced this year by Resounding Scream Theatre, may just be the show for you.

In 2009, Simon Fraser University BFA Theatre graduates Aliya Griffin, Gina Readman, Natalie Schneck, and Caroline Sniatynski organized and produced the original Hive: The New Bees as part of the 2009 Vancouver Fringe Festival. The mission behind the original New Bees was to showcase the work of recent Vancouver-based theatre graduates from SFU, UBC, and Studio 58. This year, Catherine Ballachey and Stephanie Henderson of Resounding Scream Theatre have taken up the mantle to produce Hive: The New Bees 2, showcasing the work of 12 emerging Vancouver theatre companies (many of which had participants in the original Hive: The New Bees).

For those of you who have never been to either Hive: The New Bees or to any of the three Hives produced by Vancouver’s professional companies in past years, you are in for a wild and fun night. You can stay as long as you like. You can see as much or as little as  you want to. If  you want to try to watch every single show, you can! If you want to watch one show again and again and again, you can! If you want to sit by one of the two bars and watch roving performances or our musical and comedic guests, or simply stare into your beer all night long, guess what? YOU CAN!

I’ve been to two of the professional Hives and I performed in Hive: The New Bees in 2009 (shameless plug alert: I am also performing next week, as part of the ad hoc company The Troika Collective). It’s always a fun night and I’ve always been able to walk away with at least one gem of artistic creation that really blew my mind (in addition to the other theatrical work I enjoyed).

The 12 emerging companies (and ad hoc companies) participating next week in Hive: The New Bees 2 are:

After each company is finished performing for the night, New Bees 2 will present after-show entertainment for those who like to party. For more information on the after-show acts, please visit the show’s event page.

Hive: The New Bees 2 runs May 24-26 at 8:00 pm at Chapel Arts (304 Dunlevy  Avenue). After-show events will run from 10:00 pm to midnight each night.

Tickets are available at the door or can be purchased online at Brown Paper Tickets. Tickets are $20 for the whole evening or $10 for the after-party.

Emerging theatre companies often suffer from a lack of exposure as much as a lack of funds. We’re here! We’re theatrical! Come on down and get to know us!

[MORE SHAMELESS PLUGGING: The piece I am performing in is called “Chernobyl: The Opera,” directed by Aliya Griffin, with music for four voices, accordion, and cello composed and arranged by Elliot Vaughan. We’re a talented bunch (if I do say so myself), and plus, you get to hear me sing!]

UPDATE MAY 25th: This just in! Colin Thomas of the Georgia Strait had good things to say about the pieces in New Bees 2 and about the Troika Collective as one of the particulars! Read all about it!

It’s time to impart my 26-year-old wisdom

/ Lauren / Leave a comment

This past year I was in Lisbon! Wowee!

Birthdays seem to be favourite times for people to reflect on their lives, the year that has passed, and what, if anything, they have learned about themselves and their world. Given that I possess a long memory (so long, it seems, that I also remember things that didn’t happen), and an obsession with things past, I am no exception.

As I turn 26, and enter what I consider to be the last year I can truly refer to myself as being in my “mid-twenties”, I’ve been turning over the events of the past year in my mind. I’ve been examining them and trying to figure out what I did right, what I could have done better, and what had nothing to do with me at all. My 26th year was a good year, as years go. I was very busy, and was challenged to be braver and smarter than I usually think I am, but I was also very engaged, very supported by those around me, and very loved.

If there is one common theme to be found among the many little things I’ve learned in my 26th year, it is this: my own decisions govern a much larger portion of my life than I had originally thought (though obviously life still throws in events, obstacles, and lucky breaks all over the place).

On the one hand, this scares me. To be in the driver seat of my life is a big responsibility (and one, at the age of 26, I really can’t escape). On the other hand, on my birthday at least, it feels incredibly empowering, and exciting. Be gone, stupid things that bother me, it’s my world now!

ANYWAYS, I’m not getting any younger so let’s cut to the chase: now that I am a super wise 26-year-old and am no longer held back by my 25-year-old naivete (ha ha), the gift I will give to the world this year is a list of decisions that, before my 26th year, I never knew were really decisions at all:

1. My own limitations are my decision.

I learned this when I travelled across Portugal and Spain last October. I was very anxious about travelling by myself for a month. I expected to be overwhelmed. I expected that I would be subjecting myself to the cruelty of the universe and my inability to read directions on a map and I’d spend most of the trip having an awful time. But I was fine. Yeah, I got lost. Yeah, I wasted some time and money. Yeah, planning on the fly can get a bit stressful, especially with shoddy internet connections and foreign keyboards. But I saw the things I wanted to see and did the things I wanted to do (with a couple of exceptions). I knew where the boundaries of my comfort zone were, and I decided to step outside of them.

In Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia

I also tried to recognize where having limitations was beneficial, and in those cases, I decided to honour those limitations. For example, because I was travelling alone, I decided that my health was paramount. So I didn’t drink much, and I didn’t stay up too late (Barcelona is a pretty expensive place to just lie around and be hungover in). Sure, I missed out on some of the clubbing, but hey, I’ve spent the past six or so years in highly physical training of one kind or another. I am very aware of the limits of my physical stamina, and I decided to respect them by being good to my body while I was travelling. So did I miss out on things? Did I limit myself? Yes. But my limitations were my decision and the compromises I made were ones I can live with.

2. Falling in love is a decision.

I don’t think I so much fell in love this year as made a decision to step forward into it. There is a moment, in love, when you can decide to leave certain things unsaid, or undone. You can turn back, you can pull away. It might not be this way for everyone, or every time a person is in love, but this time, I decided. I decided to accept the potential for heartbreak. I decided to make space for a new past, one that included a person who had never been in my past before. I decided to make space in my imaginings of my future.

It is a big thing, to take on the potential for hurt, to include someone else in your wishes. I’m glad I didn’t tumble headlong into it, sight unseen, and just stick with it because it was too late to turn back. I’m glad I decided. It was worth the decision.

3. A family is a decision.

There’s a funny old saying that goes, “You can’t choose your relatives”, and biologically speaking, no, you can’t. Your parents will always be your parents, your siblings your siblings, and your children your children. But that’s beside the point.

My parents’ vegetable garden on the Prairie, July 2011

The family I will always want to have is a family that is close and supportive, whose memories of funny moments and happy times outnumber the memories of arguments or strife. I don’t ever want to have a family that dreads seeing each other on the holidays, or dreads telephoning each other, and fortunately for me it is unlikely that I ever will.

That said, it occurred to me this year that just because I will always have my family, that doesn’t mean that they can be taken for granted. The same attention I give to my romantic relationships (because there is the potential there to lose the other person if things don’t work out) can and should be paid to my relationships with my family. This means trying to watch my temper, trying to be helpful, and trying to be understanding of my family’s peccadilloes, (the way they are understanding of mine). My family has always been close to me, and we are funny and awesome. Now that I don’t get to see my family as often as I’d like, I want to make sure they will always remain close to me. Whether or not I put in the work to maintain strong supportive relationships with my family depends on me.

4. Being a nice person is not one decision, it is many many decisions.

I’ve always wanted to be a nice person. I presently want to be a nice person, and I’ll always want to be a nice person. But deciding to “be nice” is only the first decision of many. Being a nice person means making a decision every time I am faced with the opportunity to prioritize my comfort over the comfort of another. Sometimes it means deciding not to be snappy or rude to a stranger just because I’m having a bad day. Sometimes it means giving up something that I want, but don’t actually need as badly as someone else does. Sometimes it means inconveniencing myself a bit for the convenience of someone else.

Does my good side always win out? No, it definitely does not. I’m still a work in progress, and I’m okay with that (no one’s perfect). That said, do I think I am a nice person? Yes, for the most part I do, because instead of resting on my laurels and assuming I’m nice because I’m polite and don’t kick puppies, I recognize that being nice is a continuous process.

It’s not just about how good I feel when I do something nice (and I do feel good), it’s about deciding to make my coveted identity as a “nice person” an effortful and continuous state of being. Or, you know, an effortful and continuous struggle. Because as anyone who knows me well can probably tell you, I’m no saint. But at least I try.

So “Happy Birthday” to me.

I’m probably one of the luckiest ladies alive, considering the often-charmed circumstances in which I spent my 26 years. Now that I’m a little bit older, I hope I am indeed a little bit wiser (otherwise I just wasted a lot of everyone’s time imparting my wisdom) and I hope at this time next year I will be able to look back on continued growth, and more bitchin’ good times. I hope you will too.

Granada, October 2011

[Note: This year I had hoped to repeat my Five for Five Project in the weekend before my birthday, but unfortunately a personal matter took me out of the province. Instead, to express my gratitude for 26 years on this great planet I have donated $26 to the David Suzuki Foundation.]

My “Exquisite Hour” with Relephant Theatre

/ Lauren / 2 Comments

Nevada Yates Robart and Josue Laboucane. Photo: Tim Matheson

Would you give me your hour?

That depends, you might say, will I enjoy it? Will I be glad I did? What will I get in return for my hour? When this hour is gone, what will happen to the hours that follow?

If the hour you give is the hour you spend watching Stewart Lemoine’s The Exquisite Hour, produced by Relephant Theatre Co-op and presented at the Revue Stage on Granville Island, then I may be so bold as to reply, yes, you will enjoy your hour, yes, you will be glad you gave it to see this play, and as for the hours that follow The Exquisite Hour, that’s for you to decide (but I imagine you will spend some of them dreaming of sunshine and letting a private smile play across your face).

Would you give me your hour?

This is the question the oddly forward Helen Darimont asks shy bachelor Zachary Teale after she intrudes on his evening ritual of a quiet glass of lemonade in his garden. Zachary’s hour is the favour he grants, and it is this hour, played in real time, that the audience is privy to.

On the surface, this dainty two-hander, set in 1962, seems it may be perilously close to saccharine–the colours are bright, the patterns are floral, and there is a “just-so” simplicity to the story that could quite potentially grate against the sensibilities of any confirmed cynic.

But to hell with the cynics, I say, this play is lovely. To fault a story for being sweet is like faulting someone for smiling–if the impulse behind the good cheer is genuine, you’re probably just jealous. To dwell on the sweetness of this play as a flaw is to see the lemonade glass as half empty (and to not even notice that there’s a shot of bourbon inside).

Nevada Yates Robart…doing…something. Photo: Tim Matheson

Bourbon indeed. The saving grace of The Exquisite Hour is that it is not all sunny yellow sweetness. Actors Nevada Yates Robart (Helen) and Josue Laboucane (Zachary) infuse the good-natured humour of Lemoine’s script with a total and hilarious commitment to playfulness. It will likely be the strangest and nicest hour-long conversation you will ever eavesdrop on and I know I wasn’t the only member of the audience to scream with laughter or shake my head as an incredibly awkward but incredibly funny moment unfolded in front of me.

In case you are wondering, The Exquisite Hour is not an avant garde play. It is not high-tech. It will not cover your world in shades of ethical grey or expose the dirty underbelly of society. Plays that do these things are often good plays, and you find yourself leaving the theatre unsettled and challenged. The Exquisite Hour does not do these things, and yet, The Exquisite Hour is a good play, one that will leave you bright-eyed and tickled (take that, cynics!).

The appeal of The Exquisite Hour lies in its balanced combination of sunny nostalgia and refreshing verbal and physical humour. It’s a warm summer evening–spent with your weird but lovely neighbours. The world’s alright, the lemonade’s cool, and it’s that little kick of something just a bit stronger that makes your hour truly, well, exquisite.

Quite happily, I gave my hour to Relephant Theatre and I don’t want it back. If you would like to do yourself the favour of spending your hour at the Revue Stage, The Exquisite Hour will be running until May 12, with both evening and matinee performances. Tickets can be purchased online through VancouverTix.com, or by calling 604-629-8849.

Disclosure: My ticket (and +1) for the opening night of The Exquisite Hour was provided by Relephant Theatre. I remain the sole author of my content.