The Experiment

 We'd just moved onto a ten-acre plot of land, only a farmer's wheat field and a forest trail away from the country school of Waterloo Elementary. I remember a dusty back road, sunshine, and tall spruce trees. My grade-three teacher, Mr. Baker, looked like Santa Clause. He called me 'love' and read the Hobbit out loud to our class every day. 

To me, that small school of one hundred kids felt enormous. Over the last four years, homeschooling had left me with an inflated sense of self and no understanding of social norms and taboos. Some of this was good (I was willing to make friends with anyone). Some things were hard. As a homeschool kid, I believed my parents knew everything about fashion and being cool. So I let my mom dress me in a white turtle-neck and bright pink corduroy overalls with big white buttons for my first day. That was a mistake.

I learned fast, though. I figured out who the cool kids were. I dressed like them and worked hard to insert myself into their social circles. I wore baggy sweatshirts and ripped jeans. I side-parted my long hair from one ear to the other. Being at the right place, at the right time, with the right people, saying the right things meant everything to me.

Fricken grade three. After about six months, I felt like I had done it. I was popular. It was exhausting. I spent more brainpower maintaining my social status than learning my multiplication tables (and it shows to this day, pop quiz me 12X7, and I'll panic a little inside).   

And then came the Experiment: the Day that Changed Everything.

A skinny young man with leather writing patches on his blazers' elbows came to visit the class. He explained that he was doing an experiment around the way people communicate with one another. 

We all received folding cardboard blinders to prop up on our desks and a handful of colourful wooden blocks. The man explained that he would build something with blocks behind the blinder he'd set up for himself at the front of the room.

Then the young man pulled out a floppy $100 bill from his wallet and waved it through the air. The room became pin-drop silent. 

"If you can build your blocks exactly the way that I build mine, simply by listening to my instructions, I will give you this $100 bill right now," he said.

We grabbed our blocks and buried their heads into our makeshift cubicles.

"Put the green triangle on the orange square. Put the purple triangle next to the orange square, put the blue triangle on top."

The room vibrated with focus, each kid laying their blocks with the precision of an "Operation" game player. After setting a few blocks down, I leaned back a little to stretch my neck. I accidentally caught a glimpse of another kid's blocks, and a shock ran through me.

I glanced towards another desk and what I saw confirmed my suspicion: both kids on either side of me had arranged their blocks differently from mine. I'd been placing my pieces in parallel to one another while the other kids had stacked their blocks horizontally into pointy towers. I'd been doing it totally wrong.

In a flash of panic, I destroyed my design before anyone else could see. I rebuilt the blocks to match the towers of my friends. How could I have been thinking so wrong?

To this day, this story still hurts to think about, much less write. The young man at the front finished describing his pattern, and we all dropped our blinders. 

Everyone in the class had built neatly stacked piles of blocks. However, the young man's blocks were arranged flat and parallel to each other, precisely how I'd set mine up a moment before.

The young man blew out his cheeks and laughed. He waved his $100 bill once more in the air before tucking it back into his wallet.

"You know," he said, "I've done this experiment at dozens of schools, and no one has ever replicated one of my patterns, but I still get nervous every time."

And I knew, with terrible, finite certainty, that no one would ever believe that I had matched his pattern but then destroyed my work moments before the reveal... all because I was afraid of being different.

It was a bitter pill to swallow, but the lesson behind this moment imprinted upon my young brain and encoded itself into my DNA.

That I must never EVER be the same as anyone else, ever again.

Which, of course, is a philosophy that has led to all sorts of misadventures (stories for another time). But it sure makes life interesting.

And I don't even care whether you believe me or not.

😆

Dryuary: Drying out and levelling up

 

Sometime halfway through November, I realized I was drinking more than I wanted to. Savouring an occasional glass of wine had turned into drinking nearly an entire bottle to feel the same sort of heady buzz. My alcohol tolerance had gone way up, and my standards for the type of wine I was willing to consume had gone way down. I could also see that my need for wine to relax at night and the hangovers I had in the morning were encroaching on the quality of time I could give to my family.

I tried cutting back on my own, but a few slip-ups left me frustrated and regretful. I journaled, I struggled; finally, I reached out. I found accountability vital to weaning me off alcohol, but it's also the most challenging part. There is such a stigma around admitting that you are regularly consuming more alcohol than you should. It's a shameful and taboo subject.

I find this attitude a little strange. I mean, a large majority of us drink regularly in some form or another, so it follows that many of us also find ourselves somewhere on the slippery slope of addiction to alcohol. The biggest revelation that I've had in the last month is that the saying "alcohol and drugs" is wrong. Alcohol is a drug. Full stop.

Now, I know this blog is supposed to be about creativity, but for me, the practice of living a creative life includes mental and physical wholeness. My love for good wine was out of balance; to live a full and creative life, I need to regain control.

Many of my thoughts around this subject are inspired by the book "The Naked Mind" by Anne Grace. Like me, if you want to, at least, moderate your drinking, I highly recommend her work. I find it especially effective as an audiobook.

Nicotine is a drug; caffeine is a drug. Our bodies naturally build tolerances to these substances, and we need to consume more to have the same desired effect. We also develop dependencies on these drugs, making it hard and painful to stop using them even when the drug no longer gives us the buzz we initially felt, even though we now consume our drug of choice simply to feel normal. 

Alcohol is a drug. There's no clear line between "them"(alcoholics) and us. We're all consuming the same substance, and we're all on the same path. If you drink regularly, it's pretty much inevitable that you will someday develop a dependence on the drug called alcohol and encounter its harmful side effects. As so many of us drink, I'm writing this blog post because I'm sure many of you have felt the same as I have;

That just maybe, you're drinking too much.

I didn't like what I was doing back in December. The irony is, the wine really flows around the holiday season. In an effort to cut back, I gifted my neighbour with a bottle I'd purchased to drink on Christmas, only to discover a bottle in the gift bag she'd given me in return. But I had some help. I'd connected with a friend who also wanted to take a break from drinking, and the accountability stopped me from pouring a glass with dinner. Instead, I indulged in hot chocolate with foamy cream, mini marshmallows and a dash of cinnamon.

It took me about ten days before I felt the physical cravings for alcohol subside. It was absolutely a battle, and honestly, I threw my calorie diet out the window and used sugar as a substitute to help manage my cravings. It was the holidays and boy, did I eat a lot of chocolate and candy!

Once the physical cravings subsided, the mental ones continued. My mental wish for alcohol forced me to examine what made me want to consume in the first place. We often say that we use alcohol to relax, but now I asked why. Relax from what? And how can I make that stressful situation better rather than reaching for a drug to numb my feelings about it?

For me, this involved a sit-down talk with my two little precious girls. I told them, nicely, that when mom is trying to sear a pot-roast, it is a very bad time to start spin dancing next to the stove and bickering about who gets to build a googly-eyed monster with the last fuzzy pink pipe-cleaner.

Among other things. :)

So yeah, establishing clear boundaries in my life has helped me lessen the number of triggering stressors that gave me the mental urge to reach for a glass of wine.

I remember the first time since choosing to abstain that I felt mentally overwhelmed, and I wanted a glass of wine. I was about to grab the bottle when I thought, 'this is a good time to see what happens without it.' I won't lie, that night was a hard one, but it also forced me to do the work to address the problem I was trying to run from. Wine doesn't solve problems; it just stops you from dealing with them. In the morning, your situation is still there, and you've got a hangover.

So instead of drinking, I choose to deal. :)

And remember that bottle of wine from my neighbour? I still have it. I actually like the fact that I have alcohol available. It means that I could drink wine, but I choose not to.

Another reason that I was drinking was because of physical pain. Typing over a keyboard, crafting, and painting all give me great joy, but they also all put incredible strain on my neck. As a reward for abstaining from wine, I am using that money towards a monthly massage instead. :) 

If you are interested in drying out for the short or long term, January is an excellent time to start. Many communities now recognize this first month of the year as 'Dryuary,' giving you a built-in support system towards regaining control. Just google it. :) It's a unique and affirmative movement, and I'm so excited to be participating this year.

However, please consider your level of physical addiction. Going completely cold-turkey on your own may not be safe for you if you have a high level of dependance. That's when your doctor may need to become involved. Be safe, be honest, and know you are not even close to being alone in your struggle!

To be honest, I'm not ready to give up alcohol altogether. I want to be drinking for the right reasons, and I want to be in control of alcohol, not the other way around. Ideally, I'd like to return to the occasional glass of wine on special occasions. Realistically, I know this may not be possible. Physical addiction to a drug changes the structure of our brains. I may find that I now permanently struggle to moderate my intake. It's something to watch out for!

In the meantime, I'm currently in the market for some delicious gourmet hot chocolate. Any ideas?

 

Alchemy Rose

A few years ago, I investigated the long-stemmed roses in front of our new rental house. I'd never been much of a gardener, and I believed that if the plant didn't produce food, it wasn't worth my effort. There were six bushes. Aphids and powdery mildew covered the buds and leaves, yet the stems looked strong. 

It was a dark time in my life; I'd been experiencing debilitating depression and anxiety-driven blackouts. I needed something to distract my mind from the pain and fear I felt. I found a rusty pair of shears and scoured them clean with steel wool. 

I decided I couldn't make things much worse. 

I had no idea how to care for roses. I began by cutting away the diseased and mildew-covered parts. I washed buds with water, knocking and shaking all the aphids to the ground. I cleaned my shears and did it again the next day, and then the next.

My beautiful roses exploded. I harvested the blooms and filled our house: roses in the kitchen, roses in the entranceway, a bouquet on the dining room table, vases in the bedroom. I carefully cut the blooms, clearing the way for new baby buds and coaxing the bushes to grow in attractive shapes. 

The roses didn't need any special knowledge to bloom. Their roots were deep, and the oldest stems were wooded and robust. They just needed someone to care. I visited my plants daily, checking the leaves, trying to understand.

When I couldn't get out of bed for me, I would get out for my roses. I needed to check on them. The summer came with forest fires, toxic air, and the most severe water restrictions I've ever experienced. I saved dishwater and fed the roses by hand. Even through the wilting heat, the blooms continued.

And then a week or so went by where I had no time to prune. Rose blooms bobbed on stems up to six feet tall, wild and gangly, waving in front of the windows like cheeky toddlers. My human children needed me and the days slid by without giving me a chance to work in the garden.

Finally, I made it out one early morning. I walked down the little path that spans the width of our house, and a vice gripped my heart. Where there had been roses, wild, brazen, and thorny, laden with heavy crimson crowns, there were now only stumps.

Clusters of torn leaves and woody stems, hacked to about a foot off the ground were all that remained.

Shock blacked the edges of my vision, and then came a wave of horror. Next, I felt stomach-turning guilt. This was my fault; the roses had grown too wild. My landlord must have seen the untended roses; he must have wanted things to look neater. Maybe he thought he was helping. A sense of rage and helplessness washed through me. He was in the right; it WAS his yard... but I'd loved them. 

I wept that day. I ran into the guest room, locked the door and closed the curtains. I knew they were just flowers, but we'd grown together. I'd healed them, and they'd coaxed me out into the sun. 

I sobbed harder than I'd cried in recent memory. The hacking of those stems shattered my heart. And yet--strangely--the experience felt good. Whenever my tears slowed, I would dredge up another painful thought and cry some more. Soon I wept not just for the roses but also for myself. I cried until there was nothing left to cry for; until there was nothing left but the raw truth I'd known all along:

That the stems were strong, the roots were deep, and the blooms would come again in spring.

And they did.