Shared Mythologies: the Darkness in the Light

Three years ago, I came home on the day before the solstice to find my fat cat, Merle, lying on the kitchen floor. Usually he would come greet me at the door, but on that day he didn't even lift his head.  He was lethargic, but he purred when I said hi, so I figured he'd eaten something weird (the cat had once chocked on a bell, and he ate an entire pack of contraceptive pills when he was a kitten. It wouldn't be out of the norm).  The fact that he hadn't eaten his breakfast, however, was rather odd.  Merle ate all the time, without fail.  He had an immune deficiency and required cortisone shots every six weeks.  I like to blame those for the hunger/fatness issues.

Once, a few years before that, I thought he had an eye infection.  When we finally brought him to the vet, we found out that his immune deficiency was attacking his gums.  Six teeth were so rotten, they had to be pulled out.  It never slowed down his eating.

So when I realized Merle had missed a meal, I grew concerned. Roomy was away to the Pony Fair in Las Vegas (couldn't drive there, go fig), so I was on my own.  By 6:30 pm, it was obvious that Merle was in distress, so I gently put him in the carrier (as gentle as you can be with a 25 lbs cat), then in Maude (my car), and drove to the emergency clinic.  This is the only call I have ever made on my cell phone while driving.  I called my brother so he could meet me there, since the clinic was not far from his house and I knew I would become a crying mess.

Okay, I was already a mess.  I'd lived with this cat for nine years, since he was a wee bit of a Merle.  My mom had decided she wanted an orange cat to call Miel.  My friend Ren and I made that vision happen.  And he became angry Merle.  He'd stayed with me and my senior tabby, Bart, and the three of us lived alone for a few years, welcoming friends into our house now and then.

We reached the vet clinic and my brother was waiting outside.  The cat weighed a ton, especially in his carrier, but I wanted to carry him in.  We brought him in the room and waited for consultation. He was lethargic still and wasn't purring or moving around anymore.

There's this point in every pet owner's lives when you know your pet isn't coming home.  Sometimes it's really obvious.  With Merle, I knew the second I went to say good bye to him.  They'd strapped him up to monitors and an IV line, and planned on doing tests overnight and contact me with results in the morning.  When I went to say goodbye as he lay in his little cage, I knew that was it.  The cat had a good run, but life had finally caught up to him, at the tender age of nine.

I received the call at midnight, on the cusp of the summer solstice.  His heart had stopped and they had failed to resuscitate him.  They needed my permission to stop efforts, since they hadn't seen this coming, and I had signed no paperwork. 

"Just let him go."

I spent the night with my brother and Ren.  We watched bad movies and laughed at the memories. The next morning, my family gathered for a final farewell.  He had been a big cat, in every sense of the word, and had made a mark in our lives. That was my brother's first Father's Day, too. Well, it was memorable! 

That evening was Earthborn, the Kymeras' summer solstice show. I was a mess.  I hadn't slept all night and had cried most of it.  I thought I'd go and tell just one story, and then come home.  But Ruthanne Edward, the other Kymeras storyteller, was struck down with H1N1, and I needed to tell at least two stories for the audience.  The theme was "home."  I remember that I told a story about Merle, and equated him to home.  Everyone cried.  Except me, cause I was telling at the time and had to maintain some form of composure.  At one point I had to tell the audience to close their eyes and take a deep breath with me, and they all did.  It was soothing and stopped the tears from flowing. Okay, I cried after the show.

I don't fully remember that story. It was created on the spur of the moment, out of grief and exhaustion, and will never be told again.

Some stories just aren't meant to be told more than once.

I always feel nostalgic when the warm weather sweeps through my city.  Tonight, I'm also bringing in my first car, Maude, for a final farewell, the same way that she helped me bring Merle to his final farewell on the same day, three years ago.

I'm looking forward to meeting my new car, but there's still some sadness attached to losing your first car. We went everywhere, Maude and I.  To Cape Breton, Memphis, Rhode Island (twice!), Kentucky, Windsor...  Good memories were made while driving that car.

A friend once told me that it was good to be in a couple, because you had someone to witness your story. I've been single a long time and enjoy it, but I agree with this philosophy, though I don't limit it to couples. I have a great group of friends, my family, who witness life and make it everything it is.

When we buried Merle, they were all there (in spirit if not in person), and I remember watching my nephew, not even a year old, in my sister-in-law's arms.  I remember vividly the rush of grief when I realized that, to my nephew, Merle would only ever be a legend.  A story told at night. Something the old people rambled about.

And then, I took heart when I told the story at Earthborn. Just as I do today telling all of you.  Just as I will tonight when I hand over the keys to Maude to a complete stranger.  Well, I won't necessarily tell him all of it, but I'll share the memories with all of my friends, still. My mythology is theirs, and theirs is mine.

And so Merle and Maude, both caramel-coloured and legendary in my own mind (ha!), will live on in my friends' memories, and in mine. There's great comfort in that, somehow.

Although I now refuse to name any more of my caramel-coloured things with anything starting with "M."  Lesson learned!

The Day Maude Went POW!

Maude facing off against Evil Maude two days
before her demise.  I blame Evil Maude.

I have a car. My first car, in fact (I was a late bloomer) - a cute beige 2003 Ford Focus, the luxury model with leather seats...  I loved her as soon as I saw her, and named her Maude.  But I'll post her origin story later.

We'll begin with the story of her death.

Last Thursday, my maman was moving out of what I fondly like to refer to as the "OMG, you're going to get murdered if you stay here, and what the hell did I just step in!?" place.  So yay for a move!  My job was to go and bring the cat, the plants and the maman to the new place.  

I headed off early, since I was also in charge of bringing my mom breakfast (my diabetic mother. The plot thickens.)

I was merrily driving, about to cross the bridge into Quebec, blasting 80s rock and roll tunes and singing along, when the track changed and, in the silence, I heard the most peculiar of noises:  "BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM."

.... is that my car???  My curious mind inquired.  

Maude, undertaking the roll of shame.

And yes, it was!  So I pulled over, whipped out my iPhone and tried my CAA app, only to be informed it was no longer valid.  How disappointing!  Thankfully the CAA folk were useful on the phone, but I still had to wait about two hours to get towed. In the meantime, I phoned my mom, called to rent a car, and whined to my friends on e-mail (that's what friends are for).

By the time I got to my mother's, three hours later than planned, she had lost her cat, which we thankfully found behind a drawer half an hour later (wily thing).

But, back to the car.  I was distraught.  My mechanic, whom I trust, said that it could be small, or it could be big.  Turned out it was the air conditioning compressor. That's not so bad, sure, but add that to all of the other work she needed done, including some suspension work, and I was faced with the decision to drain my savings to fix a ten-year old car, or to use it as a downpayment on a new, more reliable vehicle.   

I'll admit that her death wasn't a complete surprise.  Roomy and I are leaving for the Pony Fair in Florida in two weeks, and I'd mentioned to her a couple of times that we might need to rent a car.  I could feel Maude's steering tightening up, hear noises that just hadn't been there before and, you know, she clunked loudly every time I turned.

The mechanic said he could get her functional for a trade-in and for me to drive her around as I hunt for a new car.  Roomy and I headed off to pick her up on Friday evening, but we arrived too late - the garage was closed. Sigh!  There was Maude, sitting primly in the parking lot, and we couldn't whisk her away.

Roomy and I decided to walk to the nearby mall (IKEA!) and grab some supper.  There, we pondered our future means of transportation (Roomy being the primary passenger and therefore opinion giver).  We had fun with crayons (Montana's understands the need to draw with colourful crayons):

Roomy felt this car looked unsafe and un-aerodynamic.  I couldn't really disagree, though I enjoyed the snazzy purple colour.

So I made us a raft, instead, for a more environment-friendly option.  I felt it made sense, as we live not too far from the Ottawa River - only about one to two hours of portage away!  Roomy was against it, again.  As you can see, she's in fact screaming in fear. Note the skillful use of crayons to illustrate hair colour.

Next I appealed to her love of fish.  I put us on a giant fish, though Roomy was screaming again.  In this drawing, note how I master the arms, which now flail without cutting her head. I am a master artist in training.  

Then Roomy pointed out that the fish wouldn't be great on roads.

I disagreed by adding wheels on my fish. Giant fish on wheels is the next great commuting evolution.

This was Roomy's suggestion. I'm not against it, but they're hard to come by, unless you steal them, and most garages don't service them, I'm lead to believe.  And yes, that's a pony head beside it.  That was Roomy's side of the tablecloth, after all. 

While we were making a strange mess of Montana's paper tablecloth, my mechanic called twice, undoubtedly to tell us that we could come pick up the car.  But we missed both calls, as we were busy cackling manically at odd scenarios.  Oh well.

Roomy and I got lots of walking done last weekend, which was a nice change of pace. But we still need a car for the upcoming road trip!

I'm all about making informed but quick decisions, so I already bought a car. HA!  I'm meeting her/him Wednesday evening, at which point I assume I'll know his/her name, and inform you all of it.

Exciting new times, my friends!!!

Bullied and Bully

The talk lately has been loud about bullies. And well it should be.  Kids hurting kids, kids feeling the only way to escape the world by killing themselves... it's not right, it never was, but it's always existed.

And it's something we don't really speak of, still. More and more people mention it, but it's not spoken of that much when you consider the devastating consequences it can have on innocent lives.

Everyone needs to speak out against bullying.  It's not just about being gay, or poor, or even rich, pretty or ugly, smart or not so smart.  It's about people and how people hurt people.  Not just about the labels they use to justify their behaviour. We can all be targeted, with no rhyme or reason, for something as simple as saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

In grade four, I was bullied in a pool because I said "sorry" when I bumped into someone.  The kid (a girl) pushed me in the water until I was coughing and spitting out water and she kept screaming "Sorry!"  I was still learning English and was confused between "I'm sorry" and "pardon me," so I couldn't tell if maybe I had used the wrong word.  It took me ten years to ask one of my university friends if sorry was the right way to apologize.  (I totally use that word when I bump into people now, too.  And I bump into a whole lot of people cause I'm a klutz.  Never got beat up since.)

Most of us were bullied, too, at one point or another.  Parents, siblings, schoolmates, bosses, co-workers... we all have to learn to cope or fight back in some way.

I followed the usual advice, at first. "Ignore them and they'll go away."  Really?  Who the heck came up with that advice, anyway?  "Ignore the grizzly running towards you and you'll be fine!"  "That bus sure is big, but if you ignore it, it surely won't hit you."

Those words are stupid.  I came to the conclusion early on that people utter those words hoping that they can ignore it, and it'll go away. And it's understandable, even.  Parents might have been bullied at one point and it might be their sincere wish that it'll fix itself because they're afraid of facing the bully's parents, who might also be bullies.

I get it.  But still, don't utter that sh*t.  Standing up is hard, but so is being bullied.

When I was growing up in a welfare, drug-ridden area (which is now a lovely area, might I add), I was lucky because I had my brother and my mom, and we lived on the outskirts of the "low-income housing."  Sure, the house was falling apart and was insulated with Jehova's Witnesses pamphlets (learned that when I leaned on the wall and went through it), but it was home and I loved it.  There was a lot of bullying, but I only got beat up once.  It was for a Club Z towel.

Club Z was the predecessor of the HBC points, before the great Zellers/Bay merger.  The towels were given out for free when you joined.  And that's what I got beat for.  An old towel that everyone got for free, for signing up for a points card.

It wasn't a horrible beating.  No broken bones, no bruises that were difficult to hide, but I remember thinking how sad it all was.  Beat up for a free towel.

I grazed over that incident (and many other incidents, including large objects hitting me). School is where things were really annoying me.  We were a low-income (or poor, as we used to call it) single mom family with two kids, and we didn't have money for "un-necessities," which included clothes.  So I got hand-me downs from my cousins.  My boy cousins.  My straight-as-a-stick boy cousins.  And I developed early, to boot.

At one point, in grade six, I only had two outfits for a few weeks.  One red plaid shirt and one blue plaid shirt.  (My love for clothing and shoes developed later in life, thankfully).  I was teased a lot, as you can imagine.  One day, I was walking home and a boy followed me, screaming at me, asking if I only had two pieces of clothing and saying other nasty things that don't bear repeating.  I tried to ignore him, like I always did with bullies.  Like I'd been doing for years. 

I cried as I walked faster and faster, but he kept screaming at me. The sole of my right shoe chose that moment to begin ungluing and I was horrified he would see it wobbling and make more fun of me.  I couldn't walk faster because of my shoe. He got closer.  I got more scared.

Then something snapped.  I remember my eyesight actually turned slightly black and I got light-headed.  I was pissed. I'd ignored for too long.  (Totally a Hulk moment, but less nakedness, thankfully. Though I look good in green!)

Physically, I wasn't able to defend myself all that well, but I soon learned that words were just as powerful a weapon.  I'd been insulted enough.  I had material to work with.  I made that bully cry and I was proud of it.

And then I made a lot more cry.  Not just bullies, too.  I bullied friends, their siblings... whoever was close enough for a lashing. I was a generalist as a bully. I didn't pick on people because of labels.  I just attacked before others could.

We moved right after the tenth grade and I changed high schools. I hated it. My brother didn't change cities with us, so I'd lost my best friend. We'd gone to five grade schools (that we recall) and I was used to having him around as my sole, dependable friend. I became an angry, dark teenager (I could have totally gotten on the emo train, if the emo train had been identified and labeled back then!)  My new high school was less than favourable and had a lot of bullying, drugs and fights.  I wasn't in the mood for any of it.  There were three bouncers in my new school and they were all scared of me within a week.

My tongue lashings seared and I knew it.

Around this time I also discovered heroic fantasy literature and took away the lesson that it was okay and good to stand up for yourself.  But see, I turned it all wrong. I stood up for myself by becoming, quite frankly, a bitch.  A bully in turn.  I had become my enemy.  And I was damn good at it, might I add.

I enjoyed it.  I laughed at the tears.  I was still well liked, generally, since I was outgoing (always have been). People opened up to me and I threw their pain and weaknesses back at them when it suited me.

I skipped grade 11 and went straight to 12, not wanting to bother with high school anymore.  My situation at home was degrading, I had only a few real friends and I felt smothered.

I was all dark nebulous clouds and lightning.

Before leaving for university, which was at least eight hours away, my mom told me this: "Be careful of your words.  I don't think you understand the power in them."

Now I'd read enough fantasy and comic books by then to take these words to heart.  I really thought about those words for a long time.  My brother gave me a yin-yang ring to remind me to strike a balance.  It didn't have to be all or nothing.  I was terrible at defining boundaries.

I went to university with a clean slate.  I decided not to be the bully anymore. I thought I could be more.  I was right.

Being a bully was, honestly, easy.  It seemed to be the only way to protect myself, because "ignore it and it'll go away" just didn't work.  I tried, until I couldn't take it anymore and snapped.

I had to relearn to treat people right and respect them, but when I was ready to do so, I met the four women who are still my best friends to this day, more than fifteen years later. I had stopped being a bully.

I still wear my brother's ring, to remind me about balance.  To be bullied or the bully are two dangerous extremes.  I write books I hope will inspire people, especially young women, to stand up for what they believe in and for those they love, not because they have the right guy, weapons or outfit, but rather because they believe or learn to believe in themselves and are willing to do what needs to be done. I really want people to believe in the good and the harm they can do.  To refuse responsibility is to deny potential. It makes me sad just thinking about it.

I avoid talking about my past generally.  I hesitated in telling this story, too.  I tell the funny stories (and there are many) and the quirky stories, but the ones I'm not overly proud of, I keep to myself.  Often I also don't feel I have a lot to add to dialogues.  But in this case, I wanted to speak up.  I've been on both sides of the train tracks, I worked hard at becoming who I am today and still work hard at it, and I'm a strong believer in personal responsibility.  I'm also a straight white girl.  Being bullied and being the bully are not all about being gay or macho, different skin tones or belief systems.  Those are the stories I've been hearing lately.  They're important, so important, and thank you for everyone who has the courage to share them. It's not easy.

But they're not the only stories.  There's no need to further isolate kids by saying the label brings the bullying. I know it's meant to bring solace to the bullied, but it somehow echoes the message that bullies who bully certain groups are "normal" bullies.  Bullying affects everyone at one point in their lives, regardless of who they are or what they represent. And we all need to stand together, so that those who are more likely to get picked on know they're not alone, that they have allies.  And not just allies in people that are "just like them," but allies in everyone else, too. Let's break the isolation.

Let's all join our voices against bullying in a chorus that can't be drowned out.

A Tale of Betrayal - by Underwear

Winning story told at the first slam of the second season of Once Upon a Slam in Ottawa. 

But really, need I say more than the title?