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Death And Turbulence

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For some rea­son, I’m always seated by the wings of planes. It suits me fine, as I like to watch the dance of flaps as the pilots check their instru­ments and con­trols. It makes me think of how beau­ti­ful flight is, of what an accom­plish­ment of human­ity it is to get this giant con­trap­tion off the ground.

The cap­tain issues a word of cau­tion over the loud­speaker in his generic voice about cinch­ing up our seat belts because it’s going to be bumpy until we reach 20000 feet. Leaving at 1pm and arriv­ing at five in the after­noon, it remains day­light for the entire flight, as we’re chas­ing the sun around the hemisphere.

Flight infor­ma­tion flashes in pairs on the TV screens:

Ground speed: 857k/h. Time to des­ti­na­tion: 14h 12m.
Altitude: 8000km. Distance to des­ti­na­tion: 15289km.

The man next to me reads People mag­a­zine to take his mind off the sud­den drops in alti­tude. He clutches his ster­num every time the plane dips sud­denly, and fum­bles around for the vomit bag. Eventually, he set­tles his head on the upright tray.

Every shake and sud­den move­ment is a reminder of your mortality.

I used to be scared of tur­bu­lence. Now I can’t tell if I’m used to it, or the fact that I’m going to die some day.

Date  March 9, 2009
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Categories  Random

Last Chance For Grandma

7

I’m on a plane some­where over the Pacific Ocean, in the mid­dle of this 16000km jour­ney. 18 hours of flight time, one lay­over in Chicago, and two meals.

My grand­mother in Hong Kong is dying. She’s been diag­nosed with colon can­cer, and started chemother­apy last week, slip­ping in and out of aware­ness due to the can­cer, the treat­ment, the med­ica­tions, or all three. So when my dad told me a few days ago that he was book­ing a ticket to fly out to see her, I had to take the oppor­tu­nity to go with him.

This is the woman to whom I mailed the first pay­cheque from my first job. The woman who gave me the jade neck­lace I never take off. The woman who came to Canada by her­self to find an edu­ca­tion for my dad, when the only English word she knew was “delay”. The woman who taught me how to hold chop­sticks prop­erly. The woman I’ve looked up to my entire life.

I don’t know how I’ll react when I see her, because I don’t know what con­di­tion she’s in. The details have been vague.

Awareness is a big thing. I want to be there. I want her to be aware. I want her to know how impor­tant she is to me.

The cir­cum­stances aren’t great, but I’m thank­ful to have this oppor­tu­nity to go. I’ll be able to bond with my dad. I’ll get a chance to see my uncles and aunts and cousins. I was going to go last year, but the trip was can­celed due to unfore­seen circumstances.

In a way, the tim­ing is right. I already have my pass­port. I was able to get more than three weeks off work. My col­i­tis has been diag­nosed, and I’m tak­ing med­ica­tion that will allow me to eat very well and not worry1. I have all the cam­era gear I need2. And I’ve been feel­ing so jaded with life lately, it’ll be good to get away, a lit­tle bit of much needed exile.

Before dri­ving to Toronto, I dropped Dolly off at Joel’s house3 The fish has a delayed feed­ing tablet. Extra pre­scrip­tions have been filled. The plants have been watered. Projects have been put on hold, both paid and unpaid, and plans have been can­celed. Even Naveed called me dur­ing the drive, and invited me to Rosella’s first birth­day party, but I’ll have to miss it. I don’t like to do things so last minute, but I have no choice.

This will be the first time I’ve ever gone when it wasn’t Christmas. It’ll be warmer, that’s for sure, and I’m going from a bru­tal Canadian win­ter to rel­a­tively trop­i­cal climes.

As a woman in her 80s4 with such a diag­no­sis on a dif­fer­ent con­ti­nent, it’ll prob­a­bly be the last chance for me to see her.

It feels like soon isn’t soon enough.

  1. I have yet to cal­cu­late the adjust­ment for the tim­ing of my med­ica­tions, since Hong Kong is 13 hours ahead, and the dosage for one of them is care­fully tapered over sev­eral weeks. [↑]
  2. The last time I went to Hong Kong, I wasn’t into pho­tog­ra­phy yet, so I bor­rowed my dad’s cam­era and didn’t know how to use it. [↑]
  3. He owes me a favour for tak­ing care of Sprocket for six weeks while he was in Australia last year. It’ll be inter­est­ing to see how she han­dles liv­ing in some­one else’s home, along with Sprocket and another dog. [↑]
  4. No one really knows how old she is, because they didn’t keep birth records in Hong Kong for girls when she was born. I’m guess­ing some­where around late 80s. She just tells every­one that her birth­day is on Christmas to make it eas­ier. [↑]
Date  March 9, 2009
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Categories  Daily Life

Protected: The Famished Lover

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Date  March 7, 2009
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Categories  Photos

Sensitive To Sensitivity

17

I almost walked out of Tai Chi class the other night.

Someone asked me if I was going to “pass out again”, because I got light-headed the class before and had to leave early, most likely due to a side-effect of the new med­ica­tion I’m on, though I was far from pass­ing out.

I was flat-out offended, and began expe­ri­enc­ing what my ther­a­pist explained are “auto­matic thoughts” — irra­tional thoughts that affect mood neg­a­tively. I had to step back from the sit­u­a­tion, put the words out of my head, and calm myself down. If not, I would have over­re­acted, and prob­a­bly regret­ted it. But I couldn’t fig­ure out why I was so upset. After all, I’m far from one who gets offended easily.

Was I being pub­licly emas­cu­lated? Was I being judged with­out con­sid­er­a­tion of all the facts? Was my com­mit­ment to attend prac­tice after not eat­ing for two days being belit­tled? Was it the tone? Was it because I couldn’t speak back and defend myself, for fear of pol­lut­ing the sanc­tity of the class1 with my per­sonal pol­i­tics? Probably a bit of each.

I tend to have sim­i­larly bad reac­tions to peo­ple being sur­prised that I don’t know some­thing. It feels like I’m being judged, as if they pre­sume to know who I am. Even though it’s sup­posed to be a com­pli­ment, it’s a back-handed one, like say­ing “I thought you were smarter than that”. John used to be espe­cially guilty of this2, but he suc­cess­fully cor­rected the behav­iour years ago. It took a psy­chol­o­gist to point it out to him, and adverse reac­tions from sev­eral peo­ple, includ­ing me.

I know I’ve already come a long way. I’m not so sen­si­tive about my weight (for a guy) any more. I stopped car­ing what peo­ple think when I know the truth. But this inci­dent made me real­ize that I still har­bor a sen­si­tiv­ity to cer­tain things. I still have some grow­ing up to do. Still have to real­ize that peo­ple say things with­out think­ing, or don’t mean what they say, or that I may even take innocu­ous things the wrong way. Even though I feel that I had a right to be offended, I still don’t want to be.

And the fact that I was offended just makes me more upset.

  1. I approach my work with the same kind of reser­va­tion and detach­ment to remain pro­fes­sional. After all, these are sit­u­a­tions in which we can’t choose the peo­ple we work with, so there’s noth­ing to do but accept and any unpleas­ant­ness. [↑]
  2. And quite self-aware of it. As a per­son obliv­i­ous to pop-culture, he loved to hold it over peo­ple when he knew some­thing they didn’t. [↑]
Date  March 5, 2009
Tags 
Categories  Random

Lost Among Friends

9

Wrapping pigs in a blanket

Thumbnail: Washing beaters
Thumbnail: cantaloupe seeds
Thumbnail: Making French toast
Thumbnail: Thick cut maple bacon
Thumbnail: Pouring smoothies
Thumbnail: Cooked waffles
Thumbnail: Cheesecake
Thumbnail: Cooked pigs
Thumbnail: French toast
Thumbnail: Cantaloupe slices
 

Sunday pot luck brunch was a lit­tle dif­fer­ent this week­end; instead of head­ing to Tim’s, I was at Pat and Jen’s. It was col­lec­tion time for a sit-up com­pe­ti­tion (where Julie destroyed every­one in both the largest total sit-ups and most improved over the last two months, win­ning $60), and we decided to get together to see how every­one was feel­ing, per­haps com­pare a six-pack or two.

There were home­made waf­fles, fresh fruit, honey bacon, French toast, pigs in blan­kets, smooth­ies, crois­sants, and cheese­cake. So much deli­cious food that I could eat, now that I’m on med­ica­tion to con­trol food induced flare-ups, and I hap­pily gorged myself.

Waffle with fruit

It was such a lazy Sunday. Long con­ver­sa­tions sit­ting around the table, then hang­ing out and play­ing games for hours while the food digested.

Pat later told me he used to come here and read about what’s hap­pen­ing with me, but has stopped read­ing alto­gether. The rea­son — and he paused as he was telling me this so that I under­stood the grav­ity of it — was that he would rather hear things from me personally.

While this is far from the first time I’ve writ­ten about my friend­ship with him, it still amazes me. We rarely get any one-on-one time, even when I’m over at his house on the week­ends for food and con­ver­sa­tion, unless it’s on the phone.

Pat always takes such a con­cern about what’s going on in my life. He asks all the right ques­tions. He lis­tens whole­heart­edly with­out inter­rupt­ing. He never judges me. He calms me because every­thing he says makes so much sense. Just being able to open up, where I’m vul­ner­a­ble, and have him com­pletely accept what I’m say­ing makes me over­flow with emotion.

Maybe I just need some­one to under­stand me right now.

Self portrait

I think I’m going through a period where I’m not get­ting enough social inter­ac­tion. My friends are too busy, or our sched­ules don’t work out. It’s left me con­fused and disillusioned.

Everyone seems to fit some­where, but I’m not sure where that leaves me. On days like this, when I’m sur­rounded by peo­ple, it makes me think that per­haps I still don’t know where I belong.

Date  March 3, 2009
Tags 
Categories  Daily Life Photos

Name My First Painting: Winner

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Before I announce the win­ner, I wanted give a HUGE thank-you to every­one who par­tic­i­pated in my paint­ing nam­ing con­test. It’s sim­ply amaz­ing, the num­ber of ways dif­fer­ent peo­ple can see the same thing, even from dif­fer­ent angles. I par­tic­u­larly liked the lit­tle bird in the left-hand cor­ner that Julie noticed.

Even though there were a few con­sis­tent themes, like flow­ers, and dancers, the types of titles sub­mit­ted were widely rang­ing, from:

…the abstract

  • “One” (by Nick)
  • “Life” (by Sabrina)
  • “We All Do” (by Xibee)
  • “Gogh’s Brain Child” (by Servant)
  • “Groupies” (by melissa)
  • “empower enflower”, “Mondrian Chickens with­out Wheelbarrow. Hold the Rain.” (by Pearl)

…to the straightforward

  • “Happiness in the dark” (by Edrei)
  • “Beauty in Black and White” (by Lucy)
  • “Daisies” or “Headlights” (by Joe Lencioni)
  • “Dancers wear­ing fedo­ras” (by Robin)
  • “Eruption” (by Lloyd)
  • “road­side daisies”, “rocket full of posies and bil­i­ties” (by Pearl)
  • “daisy Pop Rocks” (by guili)
  • “Black-eyed daisies” (by Pelf)
  • “An Aerial View of Sufi Spinners Bringing Spring” (by der alt­modis­che, schwarze Bär)
  • “flow­ers and squares” by bya
  • “Impact” (by Melanie)

…to the creative

  • “Sunny Side Up” (by Tiana)
  • “lush brush rush” (by Pearl)
  • “A muse, a spark, a dozen(?) daisies of inspi­ra­tion” (by Jason)

…to the sci-fi

  • “Celestial Blooms” (by Julie)
  • “Stellar Bloom” (by Steph)
  • “silent hill daisies” (by Rob)
  • “gen­e­sis” or “let there be light” (by John)

The Winner: "stroke of pluck" by Pearl.

I chose this as the win­ner because of how well it describes the paint­ing to me in such few words, while being wrapped in a clever pun. Congratulations to Pearl on win­ning the paint­ing! I’ll fig­ure out a way to get it to you this week.

To show my appre­ci­a­tion for all the par­tic­i­pa­tion, any­one who sub­mit­ted a title is eli­gi­ble to receive a 5″×6″ print of the paint­ing. If you’d like a copy, just e-mail me and include your con­tact name and postal address. Since I’ll be num­ber­ing and sign­ing each lim­ited edi­tion copy, I’ll need to know if you want one by the end of the month so I can fig­ure out how many to make in total.

Date  March 1, 2009
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Categories  Random
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