Monthly Archives: February 2012

The first sign of spring

Posted in Canada, Fun, Life by

Spring is peering round the corner. Just yesterday afternoon my little brother and I were cruising for some groceries (i.e. grocery shopping) at the huge waste-of-space outdoor mall in Kanata. Driving into the Centurm (the mall) we spotted a sign:

“Look at that sign!”

“Which sign?”

“Right there”

“There’s three signs!”

“The second one.”

(pause for observation)

“Wooohooo!”

“Yah!”

“Alright”

“Awesome!”

“Wooohoo!”

The mall has just become a little less of a waste-of-space with the recent addition of a Basking Robbins Ice Cream shop. I adore BR mostly for the childhood memories, but also largely for the delicious flavours of ice creamed delights inside their store. Personal favourites: Cookies and Cream, Peanut Butter and Chocolate, Jamoca Almond Fudge, and Pralines and Cream.

Fast forward past the grocery shopping, and we are driving around this open-concept outdoor mall thing looking for the Baskin Robbins. It’s conveniently next to the LCBO (liquor store). We park, go into the Baskin Robbins, and two minutes later exit the store with one cone and one small cup. Then, wrapped in our winter jackets and wearing heavy winter boots, we lean against the LCBO window where the sun is hitting and enjoy our treat. 

Ice cream in February . . . who would have imagined?

So I heard that the ground hog saw his shadow, but forget that because we ate ice cream outside. Now that’s a real sign of spring. It’s coming people. Get yourselves ready.

P.S. Happy Valentine’s day!

A golden kind of silence

Posted in Fun, Life, Love by

Okay, so I wouldn’t go quite so far to say Zsolt and I are cheap people. We’re simply thrifty. Go to a restaurant and skip dessert; split on the lunch buffet instead of an evening meal;. enter a mall with clear goals and no additional purchases (almost, I mean . . . if it really looks cute, I might bend.); never order alcohol; check the charity shops before the outlet stores . . .

And this morning, in honour of upcoming Valentine’s Day, we “went to a movie before noon, so we can get half off the tickets.”

Sounds like fun, eh? 🙂 It was.

This morning, close to noon, we attended a showing of The Artist at our local AMC theatre. This is a show that features a charming male lead who, in The Artist, is a popular silent film start. Talkies enter the picture and his career goes crashing down. Meanwhile, he meets this young and equally charming actress whose career is on the up. They don’t spend the entire moving making passionate love to one another, but they are present in each other’s lives – even if from a distance.

Zsolt and I were enthralled with this picture from the opening scene. It’s sweet. It’s funny. It’s very clever. Frankly, I’d say it’s a perfect Valentine’s day picture simply because of its light, humorous and love-struck aspects, but also because of the quality. Quality film, no doubt.

Just because romantic comedies are cheesy as a rule doesn’t mean there cannot be some shining exceptions.

Once upon a time, in a memory far away, I was reading some interview with the Canadian author Modicai Richler. And in this interview, he talks about a letter he once found that his son had written to his school. Basically, the son is swearing and angry and ripping up the school, and plans on sending in the letter. Mr Richler reads it, and instead of getting angry with his son’s horrible langauge . . . he edits the letter. All the “Fuck yous,” and “Fuck this” and “Fuck everyones” were removed. All except for one at the end, where he left a final ‘Fuck You’. Passing the letter back to his son, he explains that when going for impact: less is more.

I’ve never forgotten that. It’s one reason I detest the triple, or even double, exclamation mark (!!!). (Except when in brackets; you can get away with anything if it’s place between two brackets.) And it’s one of the reasons that The Artist is such a success despite being a mainly silent movie. The music takes on more meaning. The movements are more important. The looks are deeper. And subtle background noises suddenly gain huge significance.

A movie about silent films, which is silent, and which struggles within that silence . . . Gosh, it was good.

Just go and see it, eh? I could write more – but what’s the point? There’s a cute dog, fabulous physicality, great style . . . but none of this matters unless you see the movie. (And try for before noon, if you want to catch that discount.)

So, that was our Valentine’s Day adventure. Two days early because we don’t want to pay extra on the actual day. And yeah, we’re a little stingy . . . but I still enjoy a beautiful moment. This film was full of beauty. As was the experience of snuggling up to my husband in a dark theatre, and enjoying our splurge purchase of pop corn.

Lovely date, no? I hope your Valentine’s day is just as nice. 🙂

(And after the film, we attempted to walk around outside, but Zsolt was wearing his street shoes – no boots – and basically froze to the point of non-enjoyment. Therefore, we hid in Walmart and called home for a ride. I felt like a 14 year old again.)

That is enough of that

Posted in After treatment, Bumpboobs by

This past weekend involved my travelling to Toronto to meet, share and learn with a group of ladies who had in the past been diagnosed with cancer (A bitter sweet experience. On one hand, it’s amazing to get together with women and chat-chat-chat ourselves silly about fertility, chemo, treatment and diagnosis . . . on the other hand, stepping back from the tea and biscuits, it’s also a little bit sad so many wonderful people had to have gotten sick.). The idea here (and in this case, it’s specifically a breast cancer charity, though similar sorts of support are offered through many cancer centers, such as Wellspring.) is that those newly diagnosed can reach out for information or a quietly listening ear from those who have ‘walked that walk’ before.

Really, it’s all about the sharing. There are times when we desperately need to share, to reach out, to connect. Personally, I had a negative first experience in terms of finding support. I’ve told this little story before, and now I’ll tell it again: when I asked the breast cancer nurse (moments after being told about the cancer) if there were any breast cancer support groups in the area, she basically said:

“Not for a women your age, at your stage of treatment.”

Gag. Really? Really? Then she went on to tell me that I was in an exceptional position, and the last time a woman around my age was diagnosed was maybe two years ago. I guess considering the surgeon performs several mastectomies and bilaterals a week . . . this ‘one every few years’ thing was small peanuts.

But I digress.

Support is a great thing. Before finding Facing Cancer Together (my first and still very important experience of peer support within Canada), I guess there was the blogging. To share, even with just my family and the people they referred Bumpyboobs to, was alleviating.

It wasn’t because people could write back with all the answers, and it wasn’t because writing would carry away my problems . . . it was because . . . . . . because I could share.

Release that ball of pressure. Let others know how I felt without having to make things ‘nice’.  (Or at least, not too nice. My grandmother was reading that blog, so I’d be lying if I said there was no censorship . . . but it was, on the whole, a very honest medium.)

So there I was last weekend ready to volunteer my time and energy to a program I think is essential (i.e. Peer Support for Young Women with Breast Cancer).

And here we go – into training! Friday starts with some emotional ‘what inspires me’ stuff, then Saturday rolls into picking apart pity versus compassion, and all the while we eat-eat-eat (sushi & Thai food for lunch . . . ahhh, so good. I made some Thai last night just to recreate the experience.) and as we eat, we chat-chat-chat.

“Fertility. Babies. Children. Drugs. Surgeries. Options. Chemo. Radiation. Depression. Exercise. Side Effects. Projects. Reconstruction. Discovery. Advocacy. Research. Doctors. Diagnosis. Family. Energy. Nausea. Work. Sick Leave. Hair growth. Marathons. And so on!”

I really should have known better. Saturday night following the training, I ought to have curled up in the hotel room with room-service pizza and ordered some stupid movie for distraction. But instead, since this was a great opportunity to meet people (and it was, which is why I couldn’t say no), I went out for dinner with the ladies. We ate this gorgeous pizza, and we talked-talked-talked.

“Babies. Children. Drug Plans. Lymph nodes. Prognosis. Treatment. Studies. Genetics. Birth Control. Fertility drugs. Family planning. Tamoxifen. Herceptin.”

Listening-listening-listening. I felt my head get heavy and the room tilt sideways.

What the heck was happening?

This is what happening: I suddenly had had enough. Exhaustion replaced interest, and I basically fell asleep in my pizza before interrupting the conversation and asking to be taken home. The following Sunday involved a lot of role-playing (very useful but also intense) and I think everyone had had enough of ‘cancer’ by the time the weekend was over.

Which is why I think, really, sometimes it’s better to focus on the “Everything else we go through” as opposed to the cancer. Yes, sharing is incredible. Meeting like-experienced others is confirming in the ‘you are not alone’ sense. This is all so very good, so very supportive, so very helpful.

But it’s also a wonderful thing to breath and be quiet. To remember that the sun is shining. To lose yourself in a book. To run that mile alone. To just let yourself be everything and anything except a person who has had (or has) cancer.

Stepping away is a wonderful thing.  So for me, this week, I’ve tried my best to step away. This post speaks otherwise . . . but along with writing this post, I’ve been working on Narrative Nipple, looking at places to move, applying for jobs, and arranging a reading group. Not bad, eh? :)

So, here’s to stepping away and letting it go. Those are the best moments, after all. The moments where you’re nothing but yourself, and the pressure is forgotten. Just let it go. Once in a while . . . just let it go.