Monday, June 22, 2009

THE GREAT ESCAPE

I highly recommend the movie THE GREAT ESCAPE featuring Steve MacQueen. I brought this home in the dark days of winter, and my kids have watched it about 5 or 6 times since. But this blog is about a different type of GREAT ESCAPE, this weekend I went for girls weekend with some old friends that I used to work with at Metro Guide Publishing. Years ago, I worked for the magazine publisher in Halifax, and from that job I gained a wealth of experience, but more importantly some amazing friends. For the past 5 years or so, we have been venturing down to a beautiful country home along the French Shore. We look forward to it all year, and then when it arrives all of us run from homes, hop into our designated drives, and hightail it down there for a weekend of girl time. We do a little Frenchys' shopping, we eat like queens and we talk. We get updates on marriages, deaths and children. We laugh hysterically, and cry comforted by "our kind". It is chick weekend - we talk for almost 48 hours straight. The end comes too quick, and we leave eager to come back next year. We are all busy juggling our lives, but this short weekend provides us with an opportunity to remind us that we are something more than mothers, wives, sisters, caregivers, etc. - we are women! Hooray! Hear me roar! Sunday arrives and we return to our dens where our cubs await us. I walk in, and everyone tells me how much they missed me, and it is great! Shortly after this homecoming, I start to prepare supper, discover our dog has had diarrhea in the living room, discover ants in the kitchen and realize my son hasn't completed his school project yet. I am exhausted, and start to daydream about next years weekend - only 364 days to go! Why do I only do this once a year? What is your best girls' weekend?

Friday, June 12, 2009

Nothing to fear but fear itself

Truer words have never spoken, and I'm almost embarassed to use them in the context of my life, because I really have not had too much to fear. I recently heard Joe Schlesinger, the journalist, interviewed on CBC's The Current. He talked about his life, and how his Czech parents had to send him off to London at age 10 to flee the Nazis, and he never saw them again. Imagine the fear he must have felt, how did he overcome it, to move on to become a successful journalist and human being.

When I turned 40, I was diagnosed with health anxiety. I had recently miscarried, left my job to work at home, and moved into a new house. In September of my 40th year, I developed "real"pain in my abdomen, and an unbelievable anxiety which stemmed from my belief I was going to develop some fatal disease. I saw my GP, a physiotherapist, and therapist. Read a few books on depression, and talked a lot to family and friends. If I wasn't dying, I thought I was going crazy. I lost about a year in my life, but made it through to the other side. Simply put, I feared my own fears. In a conversation in the park with my husband, we talked about how I could get better, what were the tools I needed. Not knowing my son was listening (he was about 5 at the time) he said, "whoever you were before you got sick, be her again". Easier said than done, but the answer was that simple. I had no definite fears, they were ones I created. Weeks went passed and with the help of medication, my GP and family I moved forward.

I still get scared but instead of curling up and letting it control me, I try to face it head on. It works for me. Thanks Mr. Roosevelt for those great words of wisdom. How do you deal with fear?

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Bring back the sandwich

Bring back the sandwich, Okay maybe you didn't know it was gone. Well when I was kid my dad searched high and low for the best sandwich. He worked on perfecting it himself. He made a wicked reuben, egg salad, western and ingonish sandwich, but he continued his search wherever he travelled. He loved Sydney's Ike Delicatessen for its smoked meat on rye and was blown away by the size of the sandwich at the Carnegie Deli in New York. He appreciated a good Club Sandwich, but pushed it away if it didn't have real turkey. I thought it was fitting on my last trip to Cape Breton, I would celebrate his life with one of his favorites - the veggie sandwich from the Herring Choker Deli outside of Baddeck. This is truly free advertising because I am over the moon about this place. The people are great! the service is first rate, and the sandwiches are big, fresh and the bread is delicious. They have a great deli and great baked goods. It is simple and that is why it works - they have been providing the same delicious menu for years. Most delis start to scrimp on the sandwich after they have sucked you in but not the Herring Choker. Go and ask for the veggie on oatmeal bread and you will be satisfied. By the way the Ingonish Sandwich is two pieces of french bread, fried egg, bacon, ketchup, mayo and strawberry jam. Better if you eat it in Ingonish near the ocean. What is your favorite sandwich and where can I find it!!

Monday, June 8, 2009

It smells like summer

Well I am back. Finished Family Expo, and returning from Cape Breton after the loss of my father. I will miss my father everyday for the rest of my life, he was one of the good guys. I do take solace in the fact that the smells of summer bring back so many happy memories of him. My father was sick for almost six months during which he was in bed for almost 4 months. Before this, he was an active senior - he loved to garden, take morning walks along the Sydney River, mow the lawn, or at least in the last few years tell people how to mow his lawn. He loved the way his property looked in the summer, all decked out in blossoms, snowballs and lilacs. The smell of over an acre of fresh mowed grass, and the fragrances of the flowers, saw his chest burst with pride. He was born in Westmount in 1924 and lived in a farm house there until it burned down when he was 10 or 11. His sister and brother spent the winter months of that year with families in the community, while my father bunked into the barn with his parents for a winter they wouldn't soon forget. The community then built them a new house in the spring and he would see his father and mother die in that home and eventually raise his family in chez Morrison. On Monday of last week, he arrived via ambulance to his birthplace. Struggling to breath the whole journey, he then arrived to his home. Exhausted from lack of sleep, weakened by the past six months of fighting for his life, the attendant brought his bed around to the front door of his home. The smells and colors that day where spiritual. He opened his eyes wide and took it all in. I don't think he was ever ready to stop fighting or as they say "meet his maker" but he knew he was in the only paradise he had ever known - his home. He died 12 hours later in his sleep. That was just one day in his life, I will remember picking cherries in August, late night barbecues, days gone by stories told on the front deck . . . the smells of summer - here for such a short time and do we really ever appreciate them as much as we should? Do you live your life to fullest?