How I survived myself

I have a confession to make. A year and a half ago when I started working for lululemon athletica, I hated yoga. In my interview I was asked if I practiced yoga and I answered yes, which was the truth. I had been practicing yoga at least three times a week for the last two years as a part of my theatre training. What I didn’t say was that given the choice between having all my teeth pulled out individually without the use of anesthetics, and yoga, I would happily spend the rest of my life toothless.

  Now, you’re probably wondering why, if I disliked yoga with such passion would I want to come work for a company which was founded around its practice? The answer is, I loved what lululemon athletica stood for and wasn’t about to let a hatred of downward dogs stop me from being a part of the community. What I didn’t know, but was about to find out, is that what lululemon athletica stands for, and the practice of yoga are interconnected. I was about to embark on a journey that would not only transform the way I approach yoga, but also the way I live my life.

  I have always been a perfectionist. Days spent darting between classes, dance lessons, and rehearsals. Life lived in the pursuit of excellence. Beating myself up for missed notes, forgotten lines. Best to keep busy. Go, go, go.  And if my body was busy, my mind was even busier.  My thoughts travelled a mile a minute, no time to be still. So when I entered my first year of theatre school and found myself having to lie down on a mat and breathe for an hour every day, I panicked. I could not even fathom how bored I was going to be. But what I discovered was even scarier than boredom. As I contorted my body into different postures and felt the breathe moving to parts of myself I’d never felt before, felt my body stretch further and further  and then all of a sudden just stop, I knew I wasn’t going to get anywhere soon.  I was going to have to sit in the stillness and feel the weight of that. There was no fast track to the destination and the thought of the journey made me want to run.

  I wanted to run out of the room, dance around like a chicken, anything to keep me from feeling the torture of stillness. Anything to keep me from myself.

  So needless to say when I began working for lululemon athletica I was absolutely terrified of yoga. I made every excuse not to go until I was presented with something called hip hop yoga. Yup. Yoga with a live DJ and booty shakes. Ok, I thought, I’ve got rhythm-this I can do.

  And so I dusted off my mat, put on my wunder unders and some bling and I was ready to kick some serious asanas.

  One hour after the beats started blasting, I was hooked. Somewhere between the first sun salutation and Namaste, the joy of yoga snuck in. The class was vibrant, sweaty, fun, and humbling. In that class I discovered that I didn’t have to be the perfect yogi. I didn’t have to get both legs over my head, or stand upside down. It became clear as I bounced my booty to the beat and felt the energy of all the people in the room that I was perfectly free to be me. I had been looking at it all wrong. Yoga is not about winning or being the best. Nobody is comparing me to the limber body on the next mat. It’s not about doing it doing it right, it’s about doing what’s right for you. And it is not about pushing yourself to be something you’re not; it’s about releasing into what you already are.

   We are born flexible. Our hearts open, our minds ready to receive. As we grow, our bodies change, tighten with the stress of living, our hearts sometimes harden, our minds sometimes close. We forget that we are in this together. We are connected. To each other and to the planet. On the mat as I deepen my practice I learn to let go. As I breathe into the space between my bones and feel my muscles relax, I find new openness. In the stillness of each posture and in the motion in between, my heart softens, my mind expands. And as I allow the light to shine from within, it lights up the world I live in.

Day One. Again.

I’d made a commitment to myself. Promised that I would write every day for thirty days. I didn’t keep it. I could lay down a myriad of excuses. All the reasons why I didn’t keep my word. The truth is, I got scared.

The truth is I am scared.

Afraid I’m going to sink instead of swim.

Afraid my dreams, my optimism are shrinking along with my bank account. So focused on the earth sliding out from under me that I’d forgotten that when you can’t feel the ground anymore, it’s time to give flying a try.

So today, I start over. I recognize. I apologize. I recommit.

I make amends.

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

                                                                                                                              Pablo Picasso

  In the third grade my teacher asked my class to illustrate the story of Creation. The one from the bible where God says “let there be light” and then he makes the entire universe in seven days. We were to draw the Garden of Eden. The way the world was before that darned Eve messed it all up.

  At 8 years of age I reckoned I was quite the talented artist so I decided to spice up my interpretation. I had the lush trees filled with fruit and the cornucopia of species, but my animals were classier than the ones in biblical accounts. My mice drove drop top convertibles that filled up at tiny gas stations, the cats floated down the river on margarita filled rafts, and the monkeys donned cool sunglasses and peace signs.

  When the final touches were complete I surveyed my masterpiece with great pride. Sometimes you just know you did a good job, and this was one of those times. Each animal was crafted with such detail that they almost seemed to come to life. And my use of color was pure unconventional genius! I was sure Miss Hammond would be more than impressed.

  She wasn’t.

   Her eyes squinted as she examined my work. Her lips pressed together. She began taking labored breaths which made her nostrils flare out.

  “This is not the Garden of Eden.” She said. Her words were tight and thin. “The Garden of Eden did not have bears reclining on lawn chairs along a purple river. You will draw this assignment again. And this time, you will do it right.”

   If I wasn’t eight years old at the time, I probably would have had much more to say to Miss Hammond. I would have dug in my heels and fought a good fight. I would have defended my creativity and my right to be wrong. I would have told her a thing or two about art. But as it was, I redid the project and this time, I coloured within the lines.

   Years later I had the opportunity to facilitate an arts program at the Calgary Drop-In Centre. A new project spearheaded by mother and the Wildrose church, the program was designed to give people living at the shelter a chance to find within them a creative voice that had been muted by life on the streets.

  In the programs beginnings, my job was basically to supervise the clients and make sure the supplies were being handled with care. If they needed help with simple techniques like shading or mixing colours I would provide that too, but I quickly learnt that the best way to teach art was to sit back and watch it unfold.

  In those first few months over the course of an afternoon, clients would come and go. Some of them were seasoned artists relieved to have a quiet space to practice their trade, but many hadn’t picked up a pastel or a piece of charcoal since grade school. And some had no memory of their last brush with creativity at all. When you are fighting to survive, self expression often takes its place in the backseat alongside things like hopes and dreams.

  When I would ask some of them what brought them up to the art studio the response I became used to hearing was “I just wanted a break from the second floor.”

  “Well, while you’re up here why don’t you grab a canvas and some paints” I’d say as I led them towards the art supplies.

  “Ok, but I’m not a very creative person.” So many would reply.

  And as I would watch their white canvases slowly fill up with images and colour, I began to learn that there is no such thing. We all have that spark in us, waiting to be set free.

  Every child is an artist…

  As their paintbrushes would swirl across the linen surfaces for an instant I could see them; Children again, exploring the world as if for the first time. They would tell me stories about the images they were creating, the past, the part of themselves they were drawing it from. Some of their paintings were childlike in their simplicity and hopefulness, others dark and ominous and laced with pain. All beautiful in their own right.

  As the months went on artists continued to come up to the sixth floor, bringing new mediums like beading, and carving and collage. Each new face, new spark breathed new life into the space. Musicians began to come too, and what was once the serenade of public radio became live Spanish guitar and a chorus of modern day Beatles.

  We are all creative. Whether we live in a quiet suburban neighourhood, or the downtown eastside, we have the possibility within us. The lucky ones have managed to carry it with them from childhood intact and unafraid. For others it has been blown out by the Miss Hammonds of the world. By those who dare not see life in anything but black and white for fear they may be wrong. For others still the spark has been extinguished by demons far more menacing and powerful than the words of a third grade teacher. Their voices silenced long before their inner child could escape unharmed.

  But still a wick of hope exists. The faintest light waiting for the opportunity to be ignited. Waiting to be handed a paintbrush, or an instrument, or a pen. Waiting for the chance to add a ribbon of colour to a world of too much grey. Waiting for the chance to be seen. To be heard.

  It is my first night out in Vancouver. Each note of rain hitting the pavement sings of adventure. Follow these streets wherever they take you. This city, this world, this life, ripe with possibility.

  The night is spent meeting new people, exploring new places. Hip bars, dive bars, bars with no names. Like all good things, the night eventually comes to an end and my girlfriends and I hop on the bus that will take us away from our whirlwind tour of the downtown.

  On the bus there is a group of young men, and I do not fail to notice something odd about one of them. The one in the navy blue pea coat is holding a carton of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. I cannot lie; I have had a couple of glasses of wine by this point and am feeling rather bold. So I ask him, probably with a bit more volume than is appropriate, who broke his heart.

  He looks at me like I’m completely insane and replies awkwardly, “umm…no one. Why?”

  “You’re carrying a carton of Ben and Jerry’s on the bus at midnight on a Saturday. Somebody must have.”

   He laughs and begins shaking the carton of ice cream which my friends and I find utterly hilarious and then it is our stop. For a brief moment we discuss stealing the Ben and Jerry’s but we exit the vehicle empty handed and hungry.

   One week later I get a phone call from my friend. I can barely understand what she is saying between her fits of uncontrollable laughter. Oh my god (laughter) he (more laughter) shook it. (serious laughter)

“What?”

“The guy from the bus. (laughter) You got an I saw you!”

  I should explain that in the weekly arts paper there is a section entitled “I saw you”. A half page dedicated to random strangers and long lost lovers. People place a tiny square of words in the hopes that somehow it will lead to another connection. It is my favourite section. I spend more time than I should concocting back stories and futures for these desperate people and their cryptic messages. I never expected though, that there would be one for me in there.

  My friend composes herself and reads, “Me, navy blue pea coat holding a carton of Ben and Jerry’s. You, beautiful brunette cutely stamping your foot. You asked me who broke my heart. Damn it, I should have said, you.”

  And now I die laughing.

   “You have to contact him.”

   “Absolutely not. He’s probably some sort of psycho killer.”

  “Oops. I guess you’re gonna be pissed that I contacted him for you then.”

  And so, because this event has all the markings of a great story, and he has the same name as my imaginary junior high boyfriend,I agree to meet this ice cream holding stranger for coffee at some trendy spot on Broadway.

  As I step off the bus to meet him, thoughts are racing through my mind. Number one, I can’t remember what he looks like. Number two, I wish I had taken up my friends offer to dress in camo and hide in the bushes should I need saving, and in the back of my mind, my romantic self plays with the thought that this all feels rather cosmic.

  Thankfully there is only one person sitting on their own when I enter the coffee shop. He is wearing a burgundy sweater. The kind with the big collar that he wears flipped up. It is the kind of sweater that one buys at a second hand shop for more than it cost the first time. His jeans, too tight, hit just above his ankles. The more space between the pant and the shoe, the more trendy you are.

  He gets up to greet me. He has already ordered an espresso so I place my order for a chai latte, relieved that he doesn’t offer to pay. I hate feeling like I owe something.

  Our beverages arrive and we sit down. I ask him what his story is. He says he’s sick of his story, what’s mine. I entertain his request and give him the kind of details one gives a perfect stranger. Where I’m from. What I do.

“An actor. That explains your comment on the bus.”

“And what do you do?”It is my turn to ask questions now. And he is not short on answers. He goes on and on until there it is. The awkward silence. Typical conversation protocol goes like this: Person A asks question. Person B responds. Person B then returns favour by asking person A said question. He has obviously missed this lesson and chooses to remain completely silent when finished saying what he wants to say.

  So I ask more questions and as he sips his espresso it becomes increasingly clear that me and my chai latte are simply not hip enough for him and his references to obscure architects and archaic video games.

  For one hour, one exceptionally long hour, I listen to his rants and force myself to laugh at his attempted jokes, and respond with words like “cool” and “sweet” which I hate the moment they escape my lips.

  At one point I catch myself staring longingly out the window, wishing I were one of those people on the street. They don’t know how lucky they are those free, anonymous people. I snap back to the interchange at hand. “What’s your gold standard at karaoke?” He says something like, “David Bowie” and I respond with something like, “awesome.”

  I apologize as I reach for my phone to check the time. It is something I have been resisting though every fibre of my body has been screaming for me to for the entire course of our conversation.

“I’m meeting a friend for sushi” I explain. I manage not to add the “Thank god.” That I want to.

  We exit into the cold December air. Awkward goodbye. And we both hastily make our escapes with the knowledge we will never see each other again.

  Just because something looks like fate, doesnt mean it is. It may just be coincidence dressed up in destiny’s clothes.

One moment I was up in the air and the next I was flat on my ass. Funny, how one moment can hold so much power over the next. One minute I was a graceful dancer able to effortlessly utilize each muscle of body, then with one wrong move the simple task of getting up became an exercise in patience and pain.

  For the last three weeks I have been recovering from the effects of a fateful New Years Eve dance. From being catapulted through the air and landing smack on my back. My bones bruised, my muscles damaged, my ego shattered. Sitting here writing I have to continually adjust, stretch, maneuver in order to displace the pain. One tiny part of me in turmoil, and the rest of my body suffers. I can feel my other muscles tensing to support the weakest part of me. I feel my bones over working themselves to compensate for the damage done. An injury to one tiny part of the body affects the whole.

  And the effects of my fall are not just physical. I can feel the intangible damage being done in my mind, my spirit. I was on a course. A yoga challenge, training for a half marathon, dance lessons. Excited about transforming my body to do new things. One moment and the coarse changes. Becomes about healing instead of doing. I don’t have time to be still. My heart wants to move!

  Strange how sometimes it is the absence of something that makes one realize how important its presence was. In the absence of my able body I realize that each cell of my being is connected. Each particle works together as a team. A team that is only as strong as its weakest member.

  Like life. When one aspect is out of balance, all other areas are stressed. Like a wheel rolling along and suddenly air begins escaping from one tiny hole and it all goes flat.

   What in my life isn’t working? Where is the air escaping? How can I patch it up?

   I was supposed to be on a 30 day yoga challenge. But there was an unexpected bump in the road, so I’m changing with the course. Since my body has to take it easy, I’ve got to challenge my mind. Lift up my soul.

  So here it is. Entry number one of 30. Write every day for thirty days. My mat’s out of order, going to balance it all out on the page.

  Sometimes the darkness is heavy. Sometimes it becomes so thick it covers the patient moon. Sometimes it is so black that the road ahead disappears. Sometimes the darkness seeps inside the body. Fills the lungs, and clouds the mind. Sometimes it is so heavy it shatters the bones.

  We are fragile. Breakable. Our very skin translucent in the light.

  Yet sometimes, in the darkness, as our bones are breaking, we find our strength. We find our light.

  And sometimes, though we may not know it, we are that little speck of light, of hope. We are holding up each other in the dark.

  I have always known they were there, but now I must thank my stars, and most of all, my moon.

 I don’t think about the darkness very often anymore.  I choose now, to remain in the light. But there was a time when the black of night threatened to rob me of the very last shred of day I clung to. When my blood yearned to vacate my veins to stop the pain. When the fear of living eclipsed my will to live. When every breath I took felt more and more like drowning.  

  I received a phone call this week from a man producing a documentary about women whose lives have been affected by crime. One of the women whose story they are covering is my mother who was in a relationship with a man who led our family, our friends into the dark.

  This man was calling to interview me about what it was like for me during this time. They are questions I have answered before. A journey I have spoken about, written about, released. I was prepared for what he might ask. The story, after all is etched in stone.  As we walked across the course of the past I recalled for him my first impression of my mom’s new boyfriend, the shiny cars, the promises, and then the lies. The story is easy to tell. It holds no power anymore. Forgiveness will do that. I hold no anger towards this man. Towards my mother. Those scars have long since healed. They are just details now. Words that make up a past I cannot change.

  The story that is harder to tell is this one: The story of how my sister carried the weight of me for all those years. How do I forgive myself for her cracking bones?

  When I was thirteen our family therapist made me make a promise. I had to look into my eleven year old sister’s eyes and swear to her that I would not take my own life. I could not hear it then, but across time I hear it now; the sound of her heart breaking.

  My interviewer continues to ask me questions, but I am no longer with him. I am racing across a decade of memories, each fracture I created suddenly illuminated. They are displayed like slides from an x-ray.

Slide one: She says she is afraid of the dark. Can she sleep in my room? I found out the truth last year. What she was afraid of is that I wouldn’t be there in the morning.

Slide Two:  “I am scared of you”. And I could not blame her.

Slide three: The moments she didn’t see but probably knew about. Each bottle of pills I put down because I promised her.

  A couple years ago a young man I worked with took his own life. People were angry. They could not understand how someone with their whole life ahead of them could just end it.  I understood though. He could not carry his own weight. Could not carry the shame. Perhaps he could only hear the bones of the people he loved breaking-didn’t want to hurt them anymore. Perhaps he did not realize the beauty of bones. That over time, and with care, they heal.

  And I didn’t know it either. Until I realized as we were speaking this morning across the miles that it is not her forgiveness I’ve been searching for. All along it was my own.

  There are not words enough to thank my sister for saving my life. For carrying me out of the darkness. For showing me the stars. My gratitude runs thicker than the blood we share.

   In a little over two months the world will have its eyes on Vancouver. On Canada. It is difficult to forget this fact as I am inundated daily with images of red and white. Olympic anticipation is in the air. The news broadcasts stories nightly about athletes, about security, about the Vancouver, the Canada they want the world to see.

  The other night on my commute home, I spent the hour long trip talking with a young man visiting here from Mexico City to improve his English. After asking what bus he needed to take, he asked me if I was Canadian. “Yup.” I said casually. “Wow.” He replied with a look of awe. He explained to me he had been here one week and was so amazed by this country. By its beauty, its people, and its order. “My country” he said, as sadness crossed his face, “my country is not like this.”

  He went on to tell me about the corruption, the poverty, the fear that robs his countrymen of their joy. I asked him if he planned on staying in Canada. He shook his head. “No, I want to be a journalist. I want to share the stories of my people. I want to open the worlds eyes, how do you say…?” He stopped, searching for the right words, “Bring peace?” I nodded in understanding. “And the food is better there.” He added with a smile.

  We spent the rest of the ride talking about Canada, about Mexico, about music (we both agreed on everything but heavy metal), and about snow. He was going to Whistler in the morning. He had fears that his blood might freeze.

  “Goodbye Fernando.” I called out as he departed. ‘Good luck with the snowboarding.” And in my heart I wished him luck with the peace too.

  As I walked down the safe streets to my warm home with the ocean behind me and snow capped peaks before me, I could see the Canada that he sees.

  But I see another Canada too. A secret Canada that Vanoc doesn’t want the world to see.

   Sitting in Starbucks the next day I try to write words across the pages of my journal. I am angry. I have just read a story by mother about a series of events back home in Calgary. A group of individuals, who happen to be homeless, gathered together to volunteer at a charity event. Their help was refused when the coordinator read their addresses as the Drop-In centre. I am angry. I am stunned. I am without words. Does a person lose their right to help when they lose their home? What kind of world is this when ones worth is determined by a street name? What kind of Canada?

  The man next to me looks up from the Intro to Buddhism he has been reading and asks if he can ask me a question? I don’t point out that he just did and nod yes.

  “Are you Canadian?” He inquires in his broken English. “I am” I say, half expecting “wow” to be his reply. Instead he motions to the street at the man sitting on the pavement with a cardboard sign and an upturned hat set on the ground before him. “Why are there so many homeless?”

   Here, the sadness crosses my face,” I wish I knew the answer.” He shakes his head “It just seems like a pretty shitty job.”  The irony of his earnest comment seems to escape him and he goes on, “Maybe he knows something we don’t. He is like a monk. Very quiet. Very still.”

  “You mean, maybe he’s just meditating?” I smile.

  “It is not like this where I am from. There are no homeless.”

  Minoo goes on to tell me that he is from Korea, here, like Fernando, to learn English. He likes it here. But only when it’s raining. It is too quiet in the sun. We sit in silence for a moment looking at the people on the street pass the man praying for change. They walk by him, heads held high, a glance down only to avoid stepping right on him. He is invisible. A secret Canadian.

   Minoo breaks the silence “Maybe he is searching too.” I glance from his book to his eyes, “Is that why you’re really here? To find meaning?”

  “Your eyes are very brown.” He says, dodging my question. Again he says, “Very brown” as if it is something extraordinary. “Mine are black.” And I look into his dark eyes.

  “Life’s got to mean more than just smoking weed and searching for pretty faces in a crowded bar.” He says, a silent pain lacing each word. “I think I’ll go to Australia next.”

  “It’s very sunny there.” I point out and he laughs.

“Goodbye, Alexis from Canada.”

“Goodbye Minoo. Goodluck on your search.”

  I gather my belongings and head out onto the street. The man is still there. “Hey do you have any change? He says without really looking at me. I stop. I want to say “I see you.” but I don’t have the words. I don’t have change either so instead I offer up the only thing I can think of to give. “I can’t help you in the finance department, but I have a hug if you want one.”

  “Pardon?”

  “A hug.”

  His face breaks into a smile. “Really?” He asks incredulously. “Yeah, I’ll take one.”

  And I wrap my arms around his worn coat and for a moment we are both just two Canadians standing heart to heart.

   My grandmother loves Jesus. She also loves his mom and dad and his apostles, and all the dead people who have been made saints in his name. She loves him so much that she has images of the guy adorning her apartment. Paintings of him with his palms up, his sacred heart glowing, little pure white statues with long flowing locks arranged on a make shift alter beside her bed. My nana is the kind of woman who ends each conversation with the words ‘God bless you” and makes a journey to the church to light a candle when anyone gets sick. She is a believer and I know it’s not very Christian of me, but I’m envious.

  I look at images of Christ with his tan and his scruff and I think the guy is kinda sexy, but while I’d be more than willing to sacrifice my Friday night, I’m certainly not about to give up any baby lambs for him, let alone my own life. And when I go to mass on Christmas Eve it’s more for the tunes and less for the opportunity to get a little taste of His body, His blood.

  But I look at my Nana sometimes, and there is a part of me that wishes I had that kind of faith in something. Wishes I could believe that hope is as easy as lighting a flame, redemption as simple as 10 Hail Mary’s and meaning as easy as the sign of the cross.

  I stood in a room recently where we went around in a circle, and each participant was asked to define their beliefs. One by one each respondent answered “I believe in Jesus Christ our savior….” until the question made its way around to me. “Umm…I believe…in…love?” And immediately I felt like an outsider. Like some pagan witch come to cast evil spells on virgins. Now, there was absolutely no reaction from anyone in the circle, after all they were all loving Christians, but I couldn’t help feel that my lack of faith in J.C. somehow set me a part a bit. Like in the fifth grade when all the pretty blonde girls created a club that wouldn’t accept a brunette as a member. I wasn’t not invited, I just didn’t have the luxury of recessive genes.

  Maybe the faith gene is like blonde hair and blue eyes. Its recessive and I’m out of luck because I’m pretty sure my mom is a Wiccan Buddhist and my dad’s an atheist. And if this is the case I’d better just accept the fact that like I will never make an attractive blonde, I will never make the cover of Good Christian magazine.

    When my grandfather (who quite possibly loved Jesus even more than my Nana) passed away I was sent to Catholic school. It was, I think, my mother’s way of making peace with the father who couldn’t be pleased. If she couldn’t catch on to the whole God thing, maybe her daughters could make up for it. So I said my prayers, ate the tiny flavourless wafers and I sang the hymns up to the angels listening in the rafters. It was what was expected of me. And I believed because…well everybody else did. But somewhere along the way, I discovered that the more I tried to live in the image of Christ, the less I felt like me. And I could say my prayers every night but I still wasn’t going to wake up with hair the colour of sunshine.

  Maybe this whole envy thing I’ve got going on is really more about belonging and not really about faith at all. After all, isn’t that really what we all want? To belong? To be a part of something?  To count? Because when it really comes down to it, I am, all hell and damnation considered, at peace with life as a non believer. By choosing not to believe in any one thing I am leaving myself open to all things. There is no wrong or right. Or more importantly, you are not wrong or right. What is just is. And I like that. I like just belonging to this universe and all its options.  And when I leave space for what might be, I have room to cherish what is and to imagine what’s possible. The very real possibility that this moment, this life is all I have fills me with the kind of grace I can’t get from any Testament new or old. Because if this is all I’ve got, then it doesn’t matter which book I’m reading or who I’m reading it with. What matters is what I do. How I use this precious time. And if this Jesus dude is as cool as I’ve been told, he’d probably be down with that.

The sky is fading now, turning slowly from grey to midnight blue. The streetlights flicker on and bathe the wet streets in a warm glow. The pavement sparkles as drops of rain dance with the light. Rush hour traffic plays like the soft crash of cymbals as it slides by. A symphony of rain sounds.

People walk by clutching briefcases and umbrellas. Two men sit protected by the awning of the coffee shop from whose windows I watch the world go by.  I wonder what they are discussing as the one man creates pictures in the air with wide swoops of his hands. The other man nods in agreement-or what I assume is agreement. I discovered recently that in some eastern European cultures the movement of the head to signify yes and no is in reverse of what we in the west are accustomed to. One doesn’t see too many eastern Europeans with handle bar mustaches and denim jackets though, so I think my assumptions are reasonably safe.

  As I observe the characters on the avenue I am reminded of a favourite childhood pastime. When we were young my mother used to take me and my sister on people watching missions. I suppose we didn’t really venture out with that intention, but it became a tradition that whenever we found ourselves on a park bench or at the table of a restaurant we would create stories taken from the lives of the people who walked by.

  The old man shuffling his feet along the pavement, holding the leash of his geriatric dog was a decorated world war two pilot. He had returned from overseas and married the love of his life. Together they raised three boys. His medals lay under a pile of papers in the top drawer of his old wooden desk. His sons grew up and moved away. They draw straws to determine who has to come back for Christmas. The silence at the dinner table makes them uncomfortable. They don’t know the hero who sits sternly at its head.

  A young couple walks by hand in hand. He doesn’t know that she is looking for the words to end it. She is going to leave out the fact that she is leaving him for his best friend. The ring he bought yesterday will remain in his pocket for weeks. Sitting there, weighing as heavy as his broken heart.

  The woman sitting in the corner hovered over her pile of books is studying for her MCATS. Her mother and her father are doctors. Her older sister is a surgeon. As she memorizes the names of each bone in the human hand she contemplates running off to be with the classical guitarist she fell madly for while on her semester abroad in Spain.

  For hours we would entertain each other with stories like these, interjecting new twists and turns in the plot of these stranger’s lives, delighting each other with our wild imaginings. I am sure that had our subjects heard our rendition of their histories they would have gladly corrected us, and gladly we would have accepted the truth. But in our little exercise, imagination trumped accuracy.

  As I sit in this coffee shop at dusk taking in the world around me, I realize how our people watching tradition has shaped me. I did not know as a small child that I would dedicate my life to the telling of stories. To the sharing of both fact and fiction. I feel tonight the storyteller’s blood coursing through my veins. A teenager doodles in his notebook, a middle aged couple silently reads the paper, passing completed sections between them, a man in a suit looks disenchanted with whoever is on the other end of his cell phone.  All of these people a living story. Without even realizing it I give them each names and traits. Fill their lives with plot turns and surprise endings. Each person playing the protagonist (and sometimes the villain) of an epic novel.

  These streets are full of stories. Real and imagined. Each of us a twisted tale under an umbrella, sipping a latte, or pressing  words onto a computer screen on Lonsdale Avenue. And if we are each a story, we are connected by the appearances we make in each other’s lives and our stories become part of something even greater. Sometimes we are entwined by a sentence or a single paragraph, and sometimes we spend whole chapters together, unraveling in unison until the final page turns.

  The world is full of stories, some whose words I know as if they were etched into my own heart, but most that remain a mystery. Blank pages waiting to be filled in. Imaginary lives waiting to be discovered. Waiting to be shared. And in the sharing of stories somehow the old man and his dog, the couple walking hand in hand, become more than just strangers on the street. They become friends. As if  I can glimpse for a moment, beneath the twists and turns and wild imaginings, the truth. It doesn’t matter if the character they play is a hero or a heart breaker or a doctor, underneath it all, each character is simply a human being on a journey.  Our stories started at the same place called The Beginning and in that way we are all the same. We are connected.

 The skies had not stopped pouring rain since my arrival nearly two weeks ago. And yet, my spirits remained surprisingly sunny. Surprising, because I had expected to spend my first weeks here in a wash of tears and that just was not the case.

 Today I woke to the sound of silence, to the absence of raindrops pounding the rooftop.

 And as I sit eating my breakfast, looking out at a patch of blue trying to break its way out of all the grey, I am torn between encouraging its plight and wishing for its disappearance.

 I found something in the rain. Or perhaps more accurately, I discovered its absence.

 Going over the Lion’s gate bridge on my way into work yesterday I looked out over the expanse of water and realized that for the first time in so long there was space in me. As if all weight and doubt and indecision had suddenly lifted like the morning fog.

 As if in leaving things behind I had suddenly made room for happiness to sink in.

 The joy of seeing a brilliant palette of leaves painting the gutter with red and gold. The blissful sound of mud being squished beneath my running shoes as I push myself through one more kilometer of hail. The way I cannot help but feel alive as tiny droplets sting my face and numb my fingers.

  I am taking my time to adjust to all this change. Learning slowly the names of streets, the locations of shops, and which bus goes where. Learning which shoes allow the water to seep in, which sweaters just aren’t warm enough, discovering how to maneuver through a sea of umbrellas threatening to take my eyes out.

 Today as I sit and miss the rain, for the first time I feel the longing for all the familiarity I’ve left behind. Without the rain to fill the empty spaces, there is just silence. And words, to faraway to touch over the telephone.

 I know that this is only a moment. Like the rain, they come and go. The passage of time as unchangeable as weather.

So I choose to accept the blue sky today. Embrace it. Let it fill me up and prepare me for the rain tomorrow.