Learned Behaviour

I wake up and realize that- for me, anyway- Spring Break has truly begun. It's just Friday, but my work week tends to be front-loaded, and Friday/Saturday are my days. I snuggle down in my bed and relax. My apartment tends to be under-heated, but in the perfect pair of Alpaca socks (and the space kitty onesie), I am cozy and warm. 

Most days I would cruise Instagram for a while, but since I've mostly abandoned Facebook, that "while" has been creeping up and up. Recently I realized that I was often on there for over an hour a day. An hour a day! Not acceptable. Even my YouTube hero Casey Neistat has recently said he spends too much time scrolling through social media on his phone. If he can cut back, anyone can. So now I  pay attention to the warning on the app that tells me when I've been on there for fifteen minutes... and when that fifteen minutes hits, I stop. No ifs, ands, or buts. Less time on social media is one of my Big Goals this year, so making this change is necessary. I'm learning, slowly, to make changes so I'm less addicted to social media. It's amazing how quickly I don't miss it. A few days are usually enough. Always scary how fast you can get re-addicted, though. 

Instead of mindlessly phone-scrolling, I read a friend's blog. She hasn't been writing as often, so it's a delight to see that she's back... and in Spain, no less. A playwright by trade, she has a wonderful knack of painting a scene with some well-chosen words. I decide to update my own, with some ideas that have been floating around in my head for a while now.

But first: le Francais. Another change. My mother and I sat down in January and plotted out a summer trip to Europe. Not only plotted, but put down some $$$ on plane tickets and AirBnBs. Paris, Bruges, Berlin, and Prague await! We are determined to be able to order food in German and French. (Flemish and Czech? Well, I'm determined to know "please" and "thank" you in those two.) So as I write this blog I'm also doing French lessons on Duolingo, where a happy owl dances delightedly whenever I finish a lesson. My mother has embraced German with a passion, but I find French more fun, since thanks to my Canadian education I already know some. 

More changes: the goals I put on my bedroom wall on post-it notes wave in their colourful way as I get out of bed. Since it was the first  time I'd ever done anything like this, I made the mistake of putting a lot of long-term goals up there, but not as many short-term ones. So, lofty goals like stop using paper cups, write a song a month, and write the first draft of your play will likely be up there on the wall for the whole year. It does not escape my attention that fitness goals (do a bike challenge; do yoga every day for a month) and writing goals (make notes for future play; write songs for future play) are getting accomplished a lot faster than theatre or music goals. Form a new band? The current one hasn't accomplished much yet this year. Get headshots? Too expensive. Theatre is once again on the back burner as I immerse myself in music teaching. 

Good thing I didn't walk away from it, as I was tempted to do this winter. High on the success of Fiddler on the Roof, plus two other large productions, I pictured a successful return to freelancing, with no more teaching. Ha. I chafed against teaching life the first few weeks I was back, missing the applause, missing the camaraderie of my cast-mates, missing the easy routine: Show up and try to be excellent, every day. Okay. In teaching, the routine is more like, Show up and try not to murder anyone. Or, Try not to expose the gaping holes in your knowledge. 

I love it though. Teaching. I learn to love it more every year and it's hard-won love, which makes it more special. It's never easy but sometimes now it feels wholly right, in the way that performing does. 

Back to the Goals. When one gets accomplished, I peel the post-it note off my bedroom wall, fold it up, and stick in in a big jar, along with other post-it notes which have particularly happy or important moments written on them. The idea is that at the end of 2019 I will have a jar full of wonderful goals and happy moments to read about. That jar sits next to a much smaller tin which is slowly filling with money. Another new thing: all twonies and loonies are put in the tin, which has Croissant Fund written on it. By the time the Europe trip rolls around I hope to have several hundred dollars in coins, which will buy me delicious French pastries. I am learning new behaviour around money, at this advanced age. I am learning to make do with a little less now, in order to have a little more later. 

One of the reasons I gave up on Facebook: almost no one's story ever changes. You can take a break for months and when you come back, everyone is still posting the exact same thing. I am trying to change my story a little bit, with goals and French lessons and saving money. Some things are harder to change than others:
I will stop eating all sugar
I will drink nothing but green smoothies for breakfast
I will stop eating croissants and bread until Europe
I will exercise every other day
I will do yoga and try not to outgrow any of my clothes. 
Still some work to do here, obviously.  

Sometimes our stories change drastically for sad reasons: death, divorce. Sometimes we make decisions that change the course of our lives, like one of my favourite bloggers recently did. Our stories don't have to change at all. But getting stuck in a rut is so easy: we blame having kids, we blame being poor, we blame our jobs, and we never change. And that's lame, quite honestly. 

Recently I was in a music class of kids with autism, and as always, we asked a check-in question. What do you like to learn? we asked, and a hulking teenaged boy answered I like to learn about social skills, and my heart just melted. People with autism often struggle to learn social cues and behaviour that neurotypical people take for granted. This guy has identified a challenge and he's out there learning about it. I love that. It drives me crazy when people say I hate parties. I'm socially awkward. I'm shy. Adulting is hard.* 
You know what you can do? Learn. Practice. Change your story, little by little. Go to parties. Learn to make polite conversation. Practice. Call a friend instead of watching Netflix for hours. Practice. This is learned behaviour. If people with autism can do it, so can you/I.

*These are all things I have said, by the way. 

It's now 10:45am. I am still in bed. On the plus side: I wrote, I stayed off social media. On the minus side: I am still in bed. I will get up soon, and I will probably not have a green smoothie for breakfast. I will think about what parts of my story I want to change and hopefully I'll keep practicing and saving money and staying off Facebook/Instagram and doing yoga and I'll immerse myself in the daily business of not getting into a rut. 

I Gave Up Ambition For 2019 (clickbait title)

Can we talk for a second about guilt?

Specifically my  guilt, because I don't know if you've ever felt like this. Or maybe you have?

Do you, as a "creative", feel guilty if you're not doing something All.The.Time?

Do you glance over your shoulder to see if the wolf is almost at the door if you have a few days or weeks to put your feet up?

Ever felt like less of a person because you weren't madly writing your next play/song/book?

Let's talk about this quote for a second:

For the record, I agree with Mr. Tozer 100%. But here's the thing. If we're not taking a little time to enjoy our progress before launching into the next thing, what's the point? 

Let's recap:

Five years ago in January I was subletting an apartment. Then I moved into my brother's place. For three years. I barely got any work in the city, putting all my effort instead into my spring/summer job up north. I had yet to meet my boyfriend. Finding the 500 dollars (!!!) I needed to pay rent for the bedroom I lived in was often a challenge. I had never taught a class. I had almost never performed professionally, except up north.

And now:

It was almost exactly two years ago that I found my sweet little basement suite on Craigslist. I have never had to borrow money to pay the (substantially more than $500) rent, and I've never been late. Not once. I started teaching music classes. I've performed professionally all over the place. My new band has recordings I actually enjoy listening to. In order to help pay for the apartment (and to pursue my theatre dreams instead of playing it safe), I was out of town; away from my home and my love for 25% of the calendar year. 

So here I sit , at 11:30 am, in my Space Kitty onesie and a toque (my apartment is cold in the winter, it turns out). I had a green smoothie for breakfast- part of a regimen of health and lifestyle changes and challenges I'm spicing up my life with- I did my yoga, I was just about to get into the shower... 

And then I thought: I don't have to. I don't work on Thursdays, the onesie was soft and fleecy and warm... 

So I sat my fleece-covered ass down and started writing this post. 

You know, if you've read this blog before, that I struggle with The Hustle. I love my work, but I also love my downtime. I believe strongly in a work-life balance, except for me? the scales will always be more weighted on the Life side. 

I came back from two months away and I started working pretty soon after, but let's be real here: I only work about 20 hours a week right now. I have a sweet deal, because my teaching jobs pay pretty well. So, what's happening during the hours in which I do not work? 

Am I calling colleagues and making connections and generally hustling for the next contract? 

I am not, but I AM calling venues and looking for places to play gigs and gearing up to play regularly with my band after a forced hiatus because I was away for so long.

Am I writing songs?

I am not, but I've started work on adapting a favourite novel into a 1-woman show.

Am I running/doing HIT/going to yoga class?

I am not, but I'm doing 20 minutes of yoga a day at home (thanks, Yoga With Adriene!), drinking green smoothies, cutting out alcohol and coffee, limiting sweets, cooking at home, walking or biking to work, drinking lots of water. 

I'm also learning German. (More on this soon.) I quit using Facebook again (okay, only 2 days so far, but it feels good).

I have a list of goals on my bedroom wall, in colourful post-its. I am actively working on most if not all of them. 

I'm also watching more Netflix and YouTube videos than I have in ages. In my onesie. 

This is precious time for- much as I loathe the term- Self Care. Precious time to enjoy my home  and re-connect with my sweetheart after being away for 8 weeks. 

So, do I have a takeaway from this post? Is this just monstrous self-justification for a month of laziness? 

Perhaps. 

But you know, when I stop feeling guilty, I realize that I also feel... happy. Would I want all my months to look like this? Well no, but I also don't want all my months to be frantically busy, either. 

I think we- as women, but also as a culture of creative, self-employed people- are conditioned to sacrifice, to be uncomfortable, to hustle, to be overburdened.

 [Read this post, by a blogger I adore, if you want to get an idea of what it means to be juggling too many things.]

When we don't feel like this: stressed out, exhausted, juggling multiple projects, we feel guilty for not Doing It All. What bullshit. 

I have a holiday booked for this summer. When it rolls around, I want very much to feel that I earned it with a lot of honest, hard work. But when the soft times come, I also want know that I savoured them in the best ways I could, with leisure and self-improvement and domestic pleasures.

And then, just maybe, the wolf at the door will also just lie down on your doorstep and take a little nap. 

The Eye of the Beholder

I ran 10k today. Last time I did that was over 3 years ago, so it's kind of a big deal. 

Am I bragging? Hell yeah. Two months ago I wrote this on my other blog. I was overweight. I was eating any old thing I wanted. I was unhappy with how I looked and felt. Every day I started off with good intentions and every night I craved and caved and loathed myself for my lack of willpower. 

But I had a job coming up that I knew would be highly physical, so one day after I kind of hit bottom in terms of self-loathing, I got up just enough willpower to stop eating bread, pasta and desserts. I went on a few runs with my boyfriend, who likes to jog 2 to 3k to clear his head after working inside all day. 

A friend of mine was doing this and losing pounds, so I started doing it too. (Although I must say that my Bright Lines are a bit fuzzy 'round the edges at times, and I eat a few things that aren't approved in this plan.) I joined their Facebook page and I appreciate the support we all give each other. 

I moved to the prairies for 6 weeks and started bike-commuting every day. And running. And doing this very physical outdoor show. We built our set every night, did the show, took down the set again. I revelled in the heat of a Saskatchewan summer; kept biking, kept running. Kept eating well. 

I feel great. Dammit, I look great. I am so proud of myself. I can't wait to see where I'm at in another couple of months. 

And yet...

I shot a music video recently; or rather, I was in a music video for one of my songs. When I watch the rough cut I see my big eyes, my smile, my strong, sexy legs... And I see my flaws, over and over. Thin lips, short grey hair that never rippled or flowed down my back the way I wanted it to and when I cut it off this summer it felt like freedom but it also felt a little bit like failure. I see the weight I haven't yet lost, may never lose, because I am built to be short and curvy and I will not, will not starve myself, work out for hours, deny myself every last treat or cocktail just to attain that magical number on the scale. 

I know that my female friends will tell me how beautiful I am- and I will believe them- but when my male friends tell me I look good, I will feel more validated, because I am a hetero woman and I want to look good in men's eyes. Tell me you haven't felt that way; go on, tell me. 

I know that there are as many types of "beauty" as there are people on this planet, and yet I will always feel too short, too brunette, too plump, even though I know that even models are eaten up with self-loathing. 

I read, nightly, about rape, about abuse, about the ridiculous ways that female athletes at the olympics are treated in the media. I know people who can't run, can't exercise because of health issues, or abuse, or depression. Are their bodies any less lovely than mine because they don't have my good genes, or good fortune? 

I want to say that my decision to eat better and exercise more is an experiment in willpower- and it is- but it is also firmly rooted in a desire to look good, and not just for myself.

I can't tie this post up tidily at the end here; I have a few disjointed things to say and that's it:

When I work out, when I eat better, when I do yoga, I feel fierce and strong and self-confident. I am proud of what I can make my body do. As a musician and a writer, I see it as a strong example of what happens when you cultivate a daily practice. (Funnily enough, I have always been far more successful when it comes to exercising regularly than when it comes to playing music or writing on the daily.) I will not apologize for either my good genes or my good luck, but I will try to honour them by treating my body with love. In all its stages and levels of health.

I want to tell everyone- and especially anyone who's just feeling as if it's all totally beyond them- that it IS possible. You can make small changes in what you choose to eat. And then make bigger changes. If you are able to, you should do something physical. Because there are so many people who would kill to be able to do what you take for granted. (But if you can only handle one thing, change what you eat.) 

If you are a big, healthy, confident woman who revels in her sexy curves, then I salute you. I want to believe that I am as beautiful as you. And I know how hard you've worked to love yourself. If you're thin, tall, blond model-material who hates herself, I wish you peace and self-acceptance. 

For me, I just want more years of good health, more days of smart choices, more moments of happiness and confidence. I want to carve out some time for myself, even when things get hectic again this Fall, as they surely will. And I want that for you too, whoever and however and wherever you are. 

To Be A Rock and Not To Roll

Good gravy! Is anyone else having trouble yanking themselves out their holiday torpor, or is it just me? This December I had a dangerously seductive combination of (just) enough money, and plenty of time off, and I'm a bit ashamed to say that I really did very little over the holidays. I read, I lazed with the cats, I didn't even see many friends, if I'm going to be honest. I was a wee bit of a hermit, and I kind of liked it. 

But now the New Year is here, with all of its
New! 
Fresh!
Beginnings! 
Jolting me unwillingly out of my comfortable little rut and back into the fast lane.

Jay sent me a link to this lovely little animated video. Go ahead, watch it. It won't take long:

"I feel like that rock," I admitted to him the other day. "All this stuff keeps happening to me and I just want to... sleep." 

I feel a strange kinship with the sleepy little rock in this movie, who just wants to rest, but keeps being yanked into the most extraordinary situations, kind of like an inanimate Forrest Gump. 

Which is making me face an uncomfortable truth about myself:

I am the kind of person who lets things happen to them rather than making things happen. 

Which isn't to say I haven't had an amazing professional life. Let's see, I've

• played live gigs in Istanbul
• spent 5 summers doing historical theatre in a gold rush town
• made my living (kinda) as a freelance musician
• played in all kinds of bands, from Turkish to left-wing folk to Slavic soul
• worked for all kinds of theatre companies in Vancouver and elsewhere, from tiny struggling companies to some of the top professional companies in the city. 

...and all kinds of other good stuff.

But imagine how much more interesting it could be if I made my own plans?

If I said 

• I'm going to write and perform my own 1-woman show.
• I'm going to record an EP or album this year and get some of my talented friends to play on it.
• I'm going to take classes and learn something new this year to make myself more hireable.
• I'm going to actively improve my singing and piano playing.
• I'm going to contact more seniors' homes and get them to book me as an entertainer, rather than waiting for them to call me. 

Wow! I just came up with most of that stuff in 5 minutes! Imagine what could happen if I put some real time into making my life happen. 

But making your life happen instead of letting life happen takes courage.

It means letting go of your (my) fear of rejection and ridicule.

It means working hard, every day. 

It means never getting comfortable, always challenging yourself to try something new, something scary, something hard. 

But there are so many rewards, and my own history proves this. 

When I decided to apply for a music director job on the BC Arts Alliance website, I made a connection that would lead to six years of demanding, rewarding, life-changing work in a northern town.

When I left a stagnant relationship, I opened myself up to new adventures, and it gave myself and my ex-partner a new lease on life.

When I say 'yes' to teaching a class that I don't know much about at the music school where I work, I learn so much, and feel way more relaxed and at ease the next time I am challenged to take on something new.
I decided on a whim to go to Seattle and take a class with a yoga teacher who really inspired me. It was a wonderful weekend.

When I took decided to join a dating website, I met a wonderful man. And yes, I was the one who contacted him! In fact, he'd gone on to the site that day to shut down his profile, as he hadn't had any success, and then he saw my message. So...

When you take action, amazing things can happen. And yeah, I know that I sound like a goddamn motivational speaker on TedTalks right now, but I'm psyching myself up, yo. 

Today I got up, went for a run, did yoga, and worked- actually worked- on some stuff when I found out I had extra time because a meeting got cancelled. It's the first day in this new year that I can actually say that I felt supercharged with energy and purpose. And yeah, I know I'll backslide, but I really do believe that there can be a snowball effect. After all, as that cute little cartoon shows, an object in motion tends to stay in motion. 

The time for being a sleepy little rock is past! 

If I can look back at 2016 next January and honestly say that I took more control of my life, I will be beyond proud, even if I failed at some things. Especially if I failed, because that means that I put myself out on a limb, big-time. 

Because I'd like to say "Oh, torpor? Apathy? That's so 2015!" 

I don't know about you, but I'm feeling...41.

Last year, I celebrated my 40th birthday with some of my best friends. Campfire, cake, wine, and some wicked hash brownies to finish off the night. I literally felt surrounded by love. This year will be quieter. The friends I shared a fire with mostly live in other cities. But I am no less loved, for all that. Some of the people I only met last year are now some of my best friends. Distance makes it hard for us to stay in touch, but we do. I am slightly less thin, and my hair is greyer. But today, as I played accordion for a room full of seniors, one of them proposed to me, and another told someone she thought I was nineteen. Sometimes I’m amazed that I’m not. 

It's been an exciting year. Literally a week after I got back home to Vancouver last fall, a month an a half after my birthday,  I met somebody through an online dating website. My 3rd date. And we fell in love. How does that even happen? The other day, I marvelled to him, “I didn’t even know you existed this time last year!” We don’t always agree, as I wrote in a song about him, but he makes me laugh, he makes me think, he makes me feel precious and sexy and loved. With him, I am slowly learning that the occasional spat doesn’t signal the end of the world, that my “It’s all over!” is his “Did we even have an argument?” I may have him for five more months or five more years or fifty, but I’ll be the luckiest girl any way, just to know this kind of love.  

This was the year I started teaching piano at the Sarah McLachlan school of music, started teaching private accordion lessons, and realized that after all these years of saying I wouldn't like it, that I love teaching. I worked on a hit musical about a video game. I spent most of my summer in Saskatchewan, playing piano and double bass in a musical about poultry. As always, there were many times when I stepped outside my comfort zone, but I also felt my confidence growing every time I tackled something that scared me. I dislike this expression intensely, but I can think of no other way to say it: I feel blessed. I am blessed.

There were shadows this past year. I wasn't always well. For the first time since my surgery four years ago, I worried about my health. Something is making my lower back and hips sore. Something is making me tired and headachy. There were days this past year when I would get out of my bed after a nine hour sleep and have almost no energy. I would go to work in a fog. Probably very few of you knew this, because my work, especially when it involves teaching or performing, energizes me. But some days it was a struggle. It still is, sometimes. I have totally normal bloodwork; I’ve been screened for a number of things, including diseases I will forbear to mention in polite company. I have a great doctor, and we'll figure this out. But the fatigue and low energy took its toll when it came to my fitness regime, and I gained back some of the weight I lost. It’s an ongoing struggle. There are days, especially when I try on clothes, when I curse my curves, and the love of good food that makes them grow. But I am routinely mistaken for someone who is 10-15 years younger than she is; I can walk for hours (my friend Ari and I have invented Extreme Walking, where we ‘hike’ up to 30km in the city); I can bike 30-40 kilometres at a stretch. I know exactly what to do if I want to lose weight and I know I’ll do it again. Although I just started a food blog, so it may be a challenge. One of the awesome things that came out of my health issue was that a friend urged me to try a daily yoga challenge to help my sore back, and I totally fell in love with it. I can only say, with the fervour of someone who’s been practicing yoga for a whole 21 days, that it’s the best way to start the day EVER, and it is now the first thing I do when I roll out of bed. 

Writing- blogging in particular- has become steadily more important to me again, and I love it. I’m still figuring out how to make it pay, but for now it feeds my soul and that’s a great start. From someone who routinely wished she could think of things to create, I’ve become someone who hasn’t got enough time to fit it all in. I’ve recently started crocheting again. I have a food blog. My guy and I are working on some children’s stories. I take photographs. Sometimes- not as much as I’d like- I even write songs. I’m coming to terms with the fact that I’m a Jill-of-all-trades rather than a specialist. I may lack the dedication to focus and work really hard on one or two things, but trying lots of things has made my life much more rich and interesting.

This year, the year I become 41, there is already hope and excitement on the horizon. I'll be teaching again at the Sarah McLachlan school, hopefully learning how to become a better piano teacher as I assist four group piano classes and teach one. I get to music direct a musical parody of Jurassic Park. I'll be returning to Saskatchewan in the spring to compose some music for a show at the Globe Theatre in Regina. Not only is my work exciting and fun, but for the first time in such a long time, I should be making enough money to actually get by. 

Someone today commented that I’d paid my dues, but it never feels like that to me. To me, it always feels like I’m getting away with something. I think it always will. The difference is that these days, I can enjoy myself instead of guiltily looking over my shoulder. Happy birthday. 

Easing Back Into Things With Yoga & Bourbon

It's a hot Vancouver day. The New Vancouver, which means it's dry and breezy and there's not a cloud to be seen. Beautiful, but spooky in an I-want-to-love-you-but-it-feels-like-the apocalypse-is-nigh kind of way. Lawns are parched. Sweat blossoms as soon as you leave the comfort of your shady back deck. So why leave? Look, it's a sleepy, stretchy cat:

Full disclosure: these shots were taken yesterday but guess what? She's doing the exact same thing right now, and so am I. Sitting on the back deck, figuring out what comes next now I'm home and trying not to feel guilty about taking some time to rest and stretch, just like Molly the cat here.

Another disclosure: this post contains yoga. About a week ago, I kind of reached critical frustration point when it came to my poor, sore lower back. Years of not stretching have made me as tight as a rubber band that's just about to snap. And it's making itself known in my hip muscles, my back, my hamstrings... it's just not something I can ignore any more. So one of my cast mates heard my complaints and recommended Yoga With Adriene. Today was Day 6 of her 30 Days of Yoga program, and guess what? I'm hooked. So much so that I'm even considering getting up at 4:30am tomorrow so I can do my daily practice before my one-off promotions job handing out free coffee and debit card advice to commuters. I just took my laundry downstairs and many, many muscles were feeling very... alive, shall we say. I hope that by Day 30 I will feel some relief from the back pain, and also more in touch with my breathing and my body. As a singer, these things are very important and I ignore them way too much. Plus I have a bit of a girl crush on Adriene because she's kind of goofy, makes yoga easy to learn, and doesn't take herself too seriously. If you're dipping your toe into the shallow end of yoga, like me, you should give her site a try. But hey, let's not get all transcendental and shit. Yes, yoga is helping me to feel more grounded and relaxed, but you know what else does that?

Yup.


I've never developed a taste for whisky, and I think that's partly because you're mostly supposed to drink it straight-up, and I do like my cocktails. But eventually I ended up trying bourbon, and I like it just fine. I'll even sip it straight, but I find it mixes really well with ginger ale (Canada Dry has a dark variety that's perfect), lime- or lemonade... even sour cherry juice. Its woody flavour stands up to a strong, citrusy mixer. Jay just returned from a business trip to California. He got home the same day I did, and after we'd flown into each others' arms and all that good stuff, he presented me with a big-ass bottle of Bulleit he'd bought at the duty-free. And last night, out on the back deck (can I just do all my business/ play music/ relax/ spend the rest of my life out here on the deck? Because it's amazing), we barbecued steaks, talked about our latest schemes to collaborate on a kids book, and toasted each other with a couple of strong cocktails.

If the last few weeks have taught me anything, it's that you never know what's going to come around the bend and smack you. Could be joy, could be the best news of your life, could be crushing tragedy that knocks you off your feet. And, not to sound too glib or anything, but you have to rely on yourself, because everything else is transitory. So make the time to stretch your body, do your daily practice, whether it's yoga or music or art or writing or whatever makes you tick.

And when you're done, grab a giant, relaxing cocktail and observe a cat, because they are the laziest, stretchiest yogis of all.

"I can sleep all day AND still touch my nose to my butthole. If that's not enlightenment, what is?"