Author: samandoat

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Getting Dressed

I was not required to be a fashionista in my former job, in fact, I got to wear the same type of clothes every single working day for the past 15 years. Scrubs.

It made my life enormously easy.

But how boring!

Last week I looked in my closest and saw the most delightful assemblage of neglected beautiful clothes that I seldom, if ever had a chance to wear.

Ditto for jewellery.

Another discovery during my covid at home stay – I have neglected my femininity.

Forgotten it completely, actually.

The first day I got dressed up in fancy clothes I remembered how good it feels. How nice it looks. That I am a woman. And it is a huge privilege.

Sometimes our jobs make us forget that we are more than slaves, robots or things in scrubs. Make us forget our selves. Make us dress and act for them.

But there has to be a time for us. When we can dress and be crazy, sexy, wild, shabby, extravagant, elegant or go naked. Load ourselves down with necklaces, rings, bracelets and pins until we look ridiculous. Have fun!

Clothes and accessories can be a creative expression of who you are. I forgot that I have a personality. That I am a lousy dresser. That I have purchased some pretty out there clothes, but also some expensive designer stuff.

That I am way over do for some new outfits.

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Something Greater

Who are the people I admire most?

The ones who have dedicated their lives to something greater than themselves.

Like Kevin Richardson who fearlessly befriends lions. He has done much to help these creatures and enrich our knowledge of them.

Boyon Slat, who gave up his university education to rid our oceans and rivers of plastic.

Or the woman who removes hooks from sharks, Cristina Zenato.

There are so many others, people who rescue sea turtles, and all the private citizens who chance upon an animal in distress and help. Numerous You Tube videos on this. A new one every day.

But something is even more remarkable.

Those lions remember Kevin Richardson and are bonded to him.

Cristina’s sharks tell others that she can help them and they come to her.

A wounded bald eagle that was treated at a bird facility two years ago, returns to that facility for help when poisoned with lead.

A rescued pelican visits his rescuers daily.

Animals know our role on this earth better than we do.

And that is something greater than we can currently understand.

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You Suck (The Square One Rule)

There is nothing quite like being a novice.

Humbling experience.

Take a look at my early art beginnings and see what I mean. While doing them I was hysterically laughing, wondering how I could be so bad at this.

I suck.

I’m a bit better at animals.

I’m improving?

Well, eventually you get to this which is only slightly better but not so cringeworthy.

We’re not quite there…

But here is what I learned.

The Square One Rule.

If you persist beyond your suckiness, and become proficient, develop your own style, focus on your strengths, then you will never go back to square one. If you neglect your new found ability for a few years you might be rusty but it will come back quickly once you revisit it.

But if you abandon your new venture after only one session, have long intervals between practice, then each time you go back, you’ll be at square one and never get beyond that.

Practice sucks, but pays huge dividends. Pay off quietly sneaks up on you. Something like investing $5 into your bank account every day. Next thing you know, you have savings! Or doing one push up a day. Next thing you know, you’ve got muscles and a hot body!

I encourage you, that whatever it is that you are trying as a complete suck, keep at it, because you will get better, you will become proficient and you will never have to completely suck again.

The bad news is, sometimes you will always suck at something, no matter how hard you try. Do not despair. There are plenty of things to try and be bad at, and then in the future be an expert at. We can’t excel at everything! That wouldn’t be fun or fair.

There was only one Leonard Da Vinci, don’t get cocky! Some of us are able to draw realistically. Some of us cartoons. Others caricatures. Or wacked out like a Picasso. Surreal like Dali. If you keep at it, you’ll find it. So you can’t draw people, or animals, or like me, buildings, so what? Or you just can’t draw at all. I used to bemoan this, but acceptance works better.

There have been many talented people who wanted to be something other than what they excelled at, and this is a mistake. Noble, who drew the backgrounds for Wile E Coyote and Marvin the Martian longed to be a fine artist. Leonard Da Vinci regretted that he spent so much time on science he neglected his art (and we do too, as he left behind many unfinished masterpieces).

But I digress here.

I cannot for the life of me play the piano (yet) with two hands. It is hard to blend bass scale with treble. I forget where the notes are, I mix up notes. My left and right hand argue a lot. I put note stickers on the keys. But still, I suck.

I’ve never mastered the flute beyond a few bars of Ode to Joy, or the basic scale, or page 6 in my instruction book, and I probably never will. But so what? I have fun making some squeaks. I have resumed practicing every day because I learned the ‘going back to square one’ rule. I continue to try to push myself beyond where I am because you never know. Many many times the song I follow with a toot toot toot suddenly, magically, becomes a tune. But I will never be an Ian Anderson.

The same principle applies to all endeavors. Suddenly! Suddenly there is a real face you’ve drawn. A scarf you’ve knitted. A cake you baked. A new language you can understand. A degree. Moonlight Sonata on the piano.

Keep at it.

Maybe you are our next genius.

You suck.

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Hands

Us older women have a thing about hands.

We can improve our looks with makeup. We can dye away the grey hair. We can hide our bat wings with long sleeves. We can smooth out the lumps and bumps with the proper clothes.

But we can’t hide our hands.

And our hands won’t hide our age.

I look at my hands and I see something else beyond my age.

These hands wiped away tears and sweat. They cradled delicate beings and moved heavy furniture. They loved and they punched. With them I created beautiful things and destroyed the ugly.

They express my every emotion while I talk. They cook, they clean, they endure a lot of punishment. I’ve cut them with paper, knife, saw and razor blade. Chewed off their nails and cuticles. They’ve been immersed in some terrifying chemicals, and turned soil in gardens and pots.

Fingers have danced across typewriters, keyboards and musical instruments. I’ve strangled and discoloured them with jewellery. Broken blood vessels while boxing. Sprained them when falling. Overused them until they hurt. Slammed fingers in drawers and doors. I’ve smashed them with hammers, pierced them with nails, pins and needles.

They have rescued me.

They have enabled me to do the impossible, make dreams become reality, comfort and love the unlovable.

They have been in every orifice of my body, know every ounce of my skin. They scratch and rub and soothe.

I look at them and see a life lived.

Seldom do they complain.

Except when the weather is cold and damp.

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Garbage

Many years ago I was living with a fellow and we were both very busy and tired people.

I was in University at the time and struggling. I was not a youngster as far as University students go, I was in my late 20’s. I know, young, but I was in over my head taking biology. I’d been out of school a long while. There were many late nights.

My boyfriend was a real estate agent, and in those days, business was booming.

One morning, bleary eyed, we collected the trash and headed to the elevator to leave for the day, me to school, my friend to the office.

We stood at the elevator, in silence, waiting for it to arrive.

You know, when you are really beat, you can have a moment where your brain goes to another place, or shuts off entirely and you do something totally absurd and it seems perfectly fine.

When the elevator arrived and the doors slid open, my friend, with trash bags in hand, threw them into the elevator, to a much surprised passenger, and we waited for the doors to close.

I looked at my friend, and he looked at me, and we suddenly realized what had just happened.

Shame faced, we took the stairs out.

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Body Identity

I have watched a lot of videos about animals that are disabled and how they live their lives. One in particular gave me a lot of pause for thought.

A beautiful cat with no front legs and hops around like a kangaroo, plays, rolls, head butts, gives chase and does all the things my cat does and has just as much joy. And he doesn’t seem to notice that he is any different than any other cat. He is unaware. Problem? What problem?

How can that be?

And then I realized it is because they are not identified as their body. They are a cat. It does not matter the body. They are cat no matter what their body looks like.

So what does it mean to be human?

Who am I other than my body?

Women are heavily identified with their appearance, so it is not an easy question to answer. We have been taught from the moment we arrive on this planet that our appearance determines our future, our success, our ability to win at life.

The gift of me getting older is this, my body no longer cooperates with my efforts to remain attractive.

It says, ponder that message from the kangaroo cat. He has the answer. He knows the secret.

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I Don’t Have To Go Out

All the familiar sounds of winter.

Snow plows clearing the parking lot and streets.

Tires spinning on icy pavement.

People scraping an inch or two thickness of ice from their windshields.

The silence of no bus coming.

The deadly silence of no train coming.

The north wind howling and angrily shaking my windows.

Ice pellets clunking on my balcony.

Me making another pot of tea, munching a shortbread cookie.

Hey look, I’ve spent most of my life battling winter trying to get to jobs I hated. Long commutes. LONG commutes. Hours to go a couple of kilometers. Non existent buses. Walking miles. Freezing. Hungry. Tired. Wet. Miserable!

So I don’t have to go out now. I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts.

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Three Stripes

One morning the cat came home with three stripes across his back, where there was no fur at all.

The skin had not been broken and the cat cheerfully wolfed down a bowl of food and retired to his favourite sunny spot for a nap.

Mom and I were extremely puzzled by this. We checked the cat over thoroughly, much to his chagrin as he tried to nap, but he was not hurt in anyway that we could discern, other than the three bare skin stripes.

Dad had gone off to work but came home shortly afterwards and burst through the door yelling “Where’s the cat?! Where’s the cat?!” He was absolutely freaking out.

My Mom told him the cat was in his sleeping spot, and that something unusual had happened, but she didn’t get to say what. Dad rushed to the see the cat. Much relieved he told us the story.

On the way to work, Dad’s car overheated and steam was pouring out of the radiator.

When he opened the hood, a huge mass of cat hair floated out.

The cat had been sleeping on the engine, and when Dad turned the car on, the fan belt assaulted the poor kitty and both were flung off. We can’t even imagine how this happened.

Cats really do have 9 lives.

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Pencils

My cat has a homing device for pens, pencils and most anything else resembling these things. Like plastic pipettes, ink bottle droppers, makeup brushes, tweezers, you name it.

The more expensive it is the better.

All artist supplies are expensive. If he can’t haul them away, he’ll chew them on the spot.

I have some very expensive pencils. I have to keep them in drawers and hidden away or suffer the consequences. I’ve watched him on occasion, he will carefully select the pencil he desires from my pencil holders. Not just any pencil will do.

Then he runs off with it and hides it. I don’t always find them, even when I give chase. He is quick and clever!

He professes innocence when I do find the pencil much later but he can’t hide the evidence; the pencil end sports many puncture wounds.

Some people don’t believe it is the cat, they say it is me chewing them.

But it is the cat, I swear.

He never eats them, thank goodness – I can’t imagine the lead or ink would be too healthy, and what a mess it’d make!

So he is not totally destructive. Just mischievous!

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Casts

Writing about my adventure with crutches, reminded me of an adventure with casts. A cat in a cast that is.

We had a tabby cat, one of many while I was growing up, and in those days, pets were free to explore the neighborhood and do whatever they pleased. Occasionally a dog might get loose too. No one was upset about it, usually.

Anyhow, our cat had an unfortunate encounter with a dog. Fortunately my Mom saw it and saved the cat. But the dog had broken the cats hind leg.

My Mom was only 4 feet 5 inches tall, but man, you did not mess with her. And when she wanted something, you were going to comply, or die.

The cat sported a cast for a long while, which kept us awake at nights. As we all know, cats love to torture their owners (they have a diabolical streak) and he would run up and down the stairs and across the kitchen floor, all night long. Thump, thump, thumpety, thump!

Now, back to Mom. She wasted no time finding out whose dog that was that committed this crime and the owners were going to pay the vet bill. And get a piece of her mind too.

The dog belonged to a world famous photographer that lived by the river near us.

With me in tow, we marched straight over there.

The woman, I presume it was the photographers wife, tried very, very hard not to part with any money for any vet bill. At first she invited us into her home and immediately regretted it, as Mom was not going to take any shit from her!

It was an awesome home. I’ll admit that.

I don’t know if Mom got the money but the cat got better. Eventually we all got some sleep.