Wednesday began with a regular normal walk along the Windecker trail. Sheba was slow but was not limping; her pace was ideal for me. It was the first time I walked that trail without any heavy breathing. I felt great about my own capacity on the walk, the progress with Sheba’s feet, and to be back walking with our friends.
The balance of the day was spent doing domestic chores. I kept busy all day, cleaning, tidying, searching for things I’d misplaced, and in the afternoon, we went for a bit of fetch, but it only lasted a few minutes before Sheba got the ball and skedaddled back to the car. She was done.
Late in the afternoon, the sky brightened, and my spirits rose. As the days pass, each one with no appointments or dates or conversations, it amazes me every evening that another day of doing nothing has gone by without even a millisecond of boredom.
I’m making a cheesecake to take to François and Eoin’s place tomorrow night. Last night, because I was so excited about making my very first cheesecake, I measured out my ingredients so that I’m all ready to go today. F & E responded to my invitation to them and Jay to come here for (purchased) pizza by offering to host our gathering at their place and they’d make the pizza.
I’m way off reading. Many days pass without me reading at all, but when I do begin a book I like, I try to ready a chapter or two every day. But I never do. I always miss a day or two a week. I don’t draw, do graphics, take on creative projects, do creative writing, and TV bores me to tears. However, Summer is coming, and all my time will soon be outdoors.
I blame FND for my abandonment of everything that once did with great joy. I’m flat, but as I wrote earlier, I am fine with emptiness. Before FND, I led a pretty busy social life. I maintained many friendships and acquaintances, and I was always making, drawing or writing something, so I remain shocked by how different I am today from who I used to be.
All my many, many hours with Dr. Shoja, and her diagnoses, have me looking back at the social guy I once was. Now, I see myself as someone who was highly motivated by a need for a bond. I was 4 when I met Marilyn and Doug Downey. We very quickly became inseparable. We were together every recreational minute, we were at school together, and we would talk all the time on the phone.
They were the first people I encountered in my life who wanted my company. They gave me joy like I had never experienced before. I asked their mother if I could call her Auntie Jean, and she said yes. But when it came time to begin Junior High, everything changed. They were in a different program, I was having migraines every weekend, Connie was in the hospital and Don was always at work or with her. And … puberty! Grade seven was a clusterfuck for me; I was suddenly always on my own.
I missed what I had with Doug and Marilyn every day until I met Steve and Dwight when I was 30. I was with Steve for 14 years, and Dwight lived with us for five extraordinary years.
Children who are wards of the state or a social agency are often fostered. They live with sponsor families, but they retain their orphan status and mentality. I didn’t know I was being neglected. I was focused on myself, not egotistically, but practically. I had to look after myself. I still can’t believe that for years, when I came home from school, I’d fetch a knife from the kitchen and search every room and closet in the house before I could relax.
I had a recurring dream/nightmare that clearly exposed my sense of disconnect with people. After a couple of years of living with it, I undertook an exercise I learned from a prof at UBC. It’s a Gestalt exercise that sounded ridiculous to me until I tried it and discovered its power. I have learned great things from doing the exercise.
You put two chairs facing each other and a few feet apart. I wanted to know what was bothering me when I first did it. I felt that I was carrying some heavy emotional weight, but I couldn’t understand what it was or why I was feeling it. So, as Irwin taught me to, I sat in one chair and asked myself, out loud, a question: “So, what’s going on? What’s bothering you.”
Then I got up to take the other chair to answer the question. The first time I answered, I said, “This is stupid.” I truly did. But I persevered, and I can’t remember what happened, but I know it was good because I used this tool of self-discovery for the rest of my life and had amazing results with it.
Because I was taught this, I did it. I needed the credits for the class toward my degree, so I was compliant, and when I did it alone at home, I played the game earnestly. It was revelatory every time for me. I’ve done it maybe 8 times in my life. At some point, you stop moving chairs, but you continue the dialogue with yourself out loud or silently. One time, I was having a discussion that was growing logically. I can’t remember what concerned me, what I remember was out of nowhere, from somewhere separate from my rational brain I said, “I just want someone to love me.”
That stopped me. I just sat there dead silent, because I was so surprised that I had said that. We weren’t talking about love or relationships; it was a complete non-sequitur. As soon as I said it, I stopped talking. The game was over, and I just sat there for a long, long time thinking about where that had come from and what that said about my soul. Something of insightful and profound impact happened every time I did it. It remains my best university experience, learning that from Irwin Shaw.
That experience led me to realize that I was still living with the mentality of an orphan, even though I was living with the Tyrells. From that day onward, everyone Don and Connie had me calling ‘my uncle,’ or ‘my cousin,’ weren’t my anything. From then on, they were my mother’s, or my father’s, sister or nephew or whatever.
In grade eight or nine, we went to the art gallery for an afternoon where we had lectures about individual pieces followed by Q&As. We were sent home with an assignment, pick any piece of art and write about it. The essay was to be handed in to our English teacher for grading.
My mother’s niece, Ann, was married to a Canadian Trade Commissioner who was stationed in Athens. She was always kind to me; she was 15 years older than me. I had a postcard from her with the Venus-di-Milo sculpture on it, and I chose to write about it because that painting because her body and face were so flawlessly beautiful. She was perfection. But what I really loved was the drapery. And no, I did not know that I was gay.
Drapery was my favourite thing to draw. Fabric speaks to my soul. I bought 27 saris when I was in India, I went to the Fortuny studio in Florence, and I wrote a competition to be a sponsored employee at Marimekko … and lost. I love fabric, and I love drawing fabric and admiring the work of artists who sculpt or draw draped fabric. I love blockbuster costume and fashion exhibitions.
So, I wrote about M-d-M. I wrote about the body as perfection and fantasy, and I explained that her missing arms intensified my response to her beauty. But lastly, I wrote about her as if she were a living person. The last point I made was how hard it hit me that her children would never feel the warmth of her embrace. Something like that, because she had no arms. My English teacher, Ms. Jones, wanted to read my assignment to the class, and I told her that I’d be very proud to hear her do that, but I didn’t want to be identified as the writer.
We talked. She didn’t read it aloud, but she told me why she wanted to read it, and she moved me deeply. (Writing that sentence made me tear up.) She said something about the part about the M-d-M not being able to embrace her children…. I don’t remember what she said, I just remember floating home, lifted by the pride of her compliments.
I am twentieth century urban orphan. I don’t carry that label around in my head. Instead, I think of myself as a survivor. Living in paradise. I’ve never met another orphan, but literature and popular culture is FULL of them!
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