Farewell, Old Friend

It’s time to admit that Comfortable Rebellion’s time has passed. This blog began in 2013 as an exercise to stretch my creativity and share some personal philosophies as well as the occasional anecdote from my past, present and … well, obviously not my future. No one could have predicted how the world, and my world within it, would change.

But change it did – and drastically. So much so that I couldn’t keep up, thus what had once been regular, then semi-regular, then occasional posts dwindled to a handful whenever I felt strong enough to try again.

Turns out I’ve changed as well. For one thing, I’m older. An elder, since my parents have passed on, though I’m still blessed with four loved and loving siblings. I’m retired from thirty-plus years in the BC public service, a career that no one expected I’d be able to have when my arthritis was diagnosed at the age of fourteen. Life is good – especially as things seem to have settled in the wake of seven years’ WTF?

What hasn’t changed is my passion. I am still creating. Writing, dreaming, philosophizing … and trying to be a positive force in this increasingly negative world. Rebooting the Rebellion seemed like a natural step in continuing to serve that passion.

Alas, though I enjoyed writing for it, the blog itself has lost its enthusiasm. I regret nothing posted here and have no intention of deleting any of it, but it’s tired. Attempting to reboot yet again can only result in another false start because the Rebellion is done.

Sometimes you have to let go of something old to make room for something new. An updated version is in development and coming soon to a URL near you.

Call it “Comfortable Rebellion 2.0”.

I hope to see you in the next round.

With love,

Letter to a Little Spark

Dear little one:

How your joy delights me! Your optimism, your enthusiasm and excitement, your willingness to embrace your dreams, fills my heart with gladness. My love for you deepens every day.

Yet I am pained, knowing what you do not. Knowing that these plans, made with hope and happiness, are not to be (quite yet), distresses me, for I can see what you cannot.

I know the eddies and currents of the greater flow around you. I see the roots and stones in your path, the unseen perils you will encounter. Your joy in this moment is not unfounded, but the time for fruition is not so soon. In part, you are not ready. In part, you are needed elsewhere, in support of another’s journey. You are yourself, little star, but you are also one in a glittering glorious tapestry and so some things must wait.

You will feel robbed. Cheated. Perhaps neglected or abandoned. Worse, you will doubt your decisions made while setting your intention. You will question your own wisdom.

I will weep with you then. I weep now, anticipating your anger and dismay.

I beg you to take heart, little spark. Trust in light when all is dark. Your present joy is not in vain. When the time is right and all is ready, you will be amazed at the wonders that appear. They will surpass your wildest imagining and be all the sweeter for the lessons you must first learn.

And let not your future joy be tainted. Turn your back on fear and trepidation; let neither colour your dreams. Be not haunted by what is done, but look ahead with the hope and optimism of now. Be excited for your future, little one, but life is to be lived in the present.

I am with you always.

With love,

The Year of Being Human

Twelve months ago, Ter and I stood in our kitchen and proclaimed 2018 “the Year of Transition and Change”. She was on the cusp of committing to retire from the public service, my job had settled down after a major shift in program staff, my wee sis and I were planning to visit our brother on Prince Edward Island. There was some concern over a nodule in Mum’s forearm, but the experts were confident—as was she—that it would amount to naught. In all, the new year seemed full of promise and adventure, and we were ready to tackle all the good things we envisioned.

Perhaps we should have been more specific. Perhaps we should have proclaimed 2018 as a year of positive transition and change.

Ter’s intention to cruise into retirement went south when she was called to be shop steward in an ugly harassment case. I lost my office and was moved into a shared space when branch staff expanded beyond the eighth floor’s capacity. Though Mum’s radiation treatment appeared to be a success in February, after a couple of months of normal, she fell ill and died four weeks after Ter’s last day at work. Wee sis and I cancelled our trip to PEI—she had injured her back while helping Dad care for Mum, and quite frankly, the shock was so overwhelming that we reeled through the summer and well into the fall. That’s when our landlord let us know she was thinking to sell the suite. Ter tweaked a muscle in her neck at Thanksgiving and was laid up into November. The Tiguan went into the shop for an expensive overnight service—twice. The postal dispute threatened Christmas delivery of cards and parcels ... and I’m sure I’ve forgotten something in the continuous monsoon of WTF? we endured throughout 2018, but that’s the gist of our Year of Transition and Change.

Keeping the faith was pretty darned challenging during the past twelve months. It’s easy to believe in a loving friendly and generous Universe when all is going smoothly. The tricky part is seeing the light in darkness. The majority of 2018 was, for me, a battle against a pervading sense of loss. Every night, I struggled to maintain my belief in being loved by a higher power, to trust that things happen for a reason, when they are meant to happen, and to know the rest of my life will not be spent gaping into a black hole. The gauge on my power of positivity has hovered perilously close to empty at times. I have cried more in the past months than I have in past years. I have raged at the heavens and thrown up my hands. I have stormed and begged and dug deep to get through the past turbulent, tumultuous, unexpectedly tragic fifty-two weeks.

And yet I have seen miracles. Small ones, to be sure, but miracles nonetheless. I will always remember the preternatural brilliance of the day after my mother died; how sharply defined and brilliantly hued the world appeared through the Ocean Room window. I will cherish forever the kindness and support I was shown by my friends and co-workers, people who rarely see me vulnerable yet rose to the occasion when I could not help myself. Christmas presents appeared from nowhere at the last minute, as did emails from loved ones after long silences. And others, too numerous to name. Feeling my mother’s presence in the room. Ter’s parking karma. Being able to pay cash for Tiggy’s repairs. Having a beautiful place to call home. Laughing with my office roomie, then going for tea with her because we like each other enough to be more than workmates. Hugging my little sister. The list goes on.

Though I almost lost it more than once, I managed to keep my grip on the thread that binds me to divinity. I still believe in something greater than myself, that all-encompassing presence that some call God. In truth, I’m no longer sure what to call it. I just know it’s there, that I am part of it and it is part of me—and of everyone else who is, who was, and who will be. For me, 2018 was all about the human experience and it truly sucked ... but I survived. I’m not through it yet, of course. The calendar doesn’t control time, it merely marks it. By all counts, I am only halfway through the process of reconciling myself to the tectonic changes that occurred in the past twelve months, so the drama ain’t over yet. I am relieved to say, however, that the light is more evident now than it was even three months ago.

It occurred to me on Christmas Eve, the most magical night of the year, that miracles are like stars strewn across a midnight sky:

The longer you spend staring up at them, the more begin to appear, and soon the entire night is bright with light.

Isn’t that wonderful?

Happy New Year.

With love,

Chances Are

Stop trying to scare me! I am fed up with news stories and advertisements designed to freak me out. Everywhere I turn, monsters lurk in the shadows. Cybercrime. Extreme weather. Economic disaster. Road rage. Housing crises. Someone wants to rob me. Something wants to kill me. Someone wants to be me.

I have no idea when the rules changed, but in broadcasting school, the first one was to keep my tone optimistic. One day while on the air, the weather forecast predicted an 80% chance of rain and I reported that we had a 20% chance of sun. It rained that day, but not the entire day and I dunno about you, but I appreciate a break in the drizzle.

In my mid-thirties, after passing a particularly stubborn kidney stone, the doctor warned that I had a 30% chance of having a second one. At first I thought, crap. Then I thought, wait a minute. The odds actually favoured a happier prospect. I had a 70% chance of not having a second one (and so far, so good). But why didn’t he say so? Why did he emphasize the lesser chance? It couldn’t have been to give me hope. We can’t have people believing that all will be well. There’s more money and more power in keeping people fearful.

Cancer is everywhere and has been everywhere for seemingly ever. But since it executed a hit-and-run on my mother that still has me reeling, I am particularly sensitive about it. I haven’t been driven to donate money to the related charities, though they’ve certainly upped their fundraising game. October is awareness month, after all, and I am more acutely aware of it than usual.

When I hear that one in sixty-four women will develop breast cancer, it’s hard not to panic immediately that I will be the one. Or that Ter will. Or my wee sister. Or my poet laureate. Or my office roomie.

Wait a minute. One in sixty-four will means sixty-three in sixty-four won’t—and I’m not jamming my head into the sand on this. I’m just deciding to be positive. To protect myself from manifesting a fearful intention. Thoughts are energy, positive and negative. Like attracts like. I’m certainly not saying that someone who fears cancer is doomed to be the one in sixty-four, but isn’t it more hopeful to focus on being in the healthy majority? Isn’t it more hopeful to focus on the positive side of everything? Contrast is a fact; there is no light without dark. If you flip that somewhat negative thought, however, then there is no dark without light. Life happens according to plan. That is also a fact. But we choose how we live it, be it in love or in fear.

I choose love. I choose to be positive. I choose optimism. I choose to deflect the negativity wherever possible, whenever possible. Of course I have off days. Mood swings and massive occasions of WTF? Contrast, right? Human. Things I must live with because living with them is why I’m here. I will not, however, allow myself to be intimidated by a society bent on intimidating me.

Being positive takes effort. It takes conscious thought. It takes persistence and courage and a host of other things that escape me right this second – but it can be done! And because for most of the time I live in a friendly, generous and loving universe, it works. Try it sometime. When you think or hear something negative, flip it and see what you get.

I bet the odds end up in your favour.

With love,

Terry Fox

Bup-buhda-bup, bup-buhda-bup, bup-buhda-bup.

This is the sound that meets you at the start of the Terry Fox exhibit I visited at the museum last week. It’s the audio on a video of a handsome boy with a grim demeanour and a ghastly prosthetic leg, running (can you even call it “running”? It was more of an awkward, clunking hop) along the serpentine Trans-Canada Highway, uphill and down, rain or shine, utterly alone with no sound but the rhythm of his gait.

Bup-buhda-bup, bup-buhda-bup, bup-buhda-bup.

I stood at the exhibit entrance and thought, I won’t make it through this.

Well, I did make it. The exhibit is not designed to wring a tear and make you reach for your wallet. It’s simply the story of how a kid from Port Coquitlam set out to make a difference and became an unintentional hero. More than that, he became a part of our national story.

I was nineteen years old when the Marathon of Hope began. Naturally, since it didn’t concern me personally, I was only dimly aware that a boy who’d lost a leg to cancer was trying to raise money for research by running from St John’s to Victoria during the summer of 1980. The awareness only came after his solitary run had started to gain momentum and he was suddenly featured on every nightly newscast.

Prior to that, he was running pretty much by himself, with a buddy in the van behind him and his brother along for moral support (and to act as referee when he and said buddy started scrapping on the road). The sheer magnitude of what he was trying to accomplish completely escaped me until it was over and schools were being named for him. I regretted not paying more attention at the time, but thanks to his family and a dedicated team, the details of his journey are available in ways they wouldn’t have been had he lived to reach his modest goal of raising a million dollars.

The exhibit chronicles the evolution of what became the Marathon of Hope, from the initial diagnosis of Terry’s cancer (his name wasn’t even mentioned in the doctor’s report; he was referred to as “the boy”) to the marathon’s premature end in Thunder Bay, where his health finally failed and he had to fly home for more treatment. Everyone knows how the story ended, of course. That’s part of the tragedy—yet, as is so often the case, some lights burn so brightly that their lives are destined to be short. Besides, if Terry Fox had successfully emptied his jar of Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific at Mile 0, the effect may not have been so enduring. He was a remarkable young man, as compassionate as he was determined, as courageous as he must have been frightened, yet he persevered because he had watched other people suffer in the cancer ward and decided that it had to stop.

Today is the annual Terry Fox run. It happens every September and has done so for years. It’s coordinated in countless communities all across Canada. People sign up for it who weren’t even born when Terry dipped his artificial foot in the ocean off Newfoundland. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been raised to fund cancer research and will continue to be raised because of his mission to make others’ lives better.

The weather report predicted rain for today—the first rain we’ve seen all summer. My first thought was of sympathy for all those people who’ve committed to participate in the run ... then I remembered the video at the opening of the museum display.

Bup-buhda-bup, bup-buhda-bup, bup-buhda-bup.

Resentments Under Construction

It’s handy having an icon who went to rehab then wrote about it. Naturally, I can’t find the exact moment in the book (In the Pleasure Groove: Love, Death and Duran Duran), but somewhere in the pages, John Taylor shared a saying that he picked up in treatment:

 

“Expectations are resentments under construction.”

It struck such a chord with me that I put it onto my office board. I remind myself of it whenever I come away from something disappointed. I try to apply it going in as well, being a person who once viewed optimism as expecting the worst of everything and everyone so that I could be pleasantly surprised if it didn’t happen. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes not. Expecting the best of everything and everyone doesn’t work that well, either. You get what you get, expectations or no, so why have any at all?

Dr. Wayne Dyer suggests that by envisioning things like prosperity and abundance, and expecting the universe to make it so, then prosperity and abundance will manifest. I’ve tried it. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. I’ve seen expectations exceeded. I’ve also seen expectations go down in flames, and when the person trying to manifest those great expectations deserves the best of everything yet winds up on the crap end of the deal, I have to step back and reframe.

Then I remember the saying from JT’s autobiography.

Resentments under construction.

When expectations are not met, you blame the other person. You blame the universe. Worst of all, you blame yourself. You should have tried harder. You should have prayed more. You should have steered clear of that Mars bar. Augh. Should, should, should! Old programming is really hard to break. It creeps into my new age philosophy whenever things do not go as I, er, expected. I like Wayne Dyer. Some of his theories and affirmations really do make sense to me. As with religion, however, no one spiritual guru has the market cornered on what works. I’m beginning to suspect that the universal response is tailored to the individual anyway. I can build my spiritual wardrobe from the weave of various designers and create a look that works for me. So, today, out with expectation.

Hope is the new expectation. It’s softer, gentler, more forgiving. More accepting. Less accusatory. Now instead of expecting a particular outcome, I hope for a particular outcome. The outcome may be the same either way, being the best thing for me no matter how I perceive it, but there is a grace in hope that expectation doesn’t exhibit when things go sideways. Hope is more gracious in success, too.

No one ever accused her of being a resentment under construction.