Â§hria's Spot

The single life or fakin' it like a pro

Fakin' it used to be so much easier. Back when I knew what sort of girl they wanted me to be.

Now I suffer from disosiative faking disorder.

I forget which me to fake at any given time. Sometimes I have to fake being a good daughter while faking an enlightened state of blissful motherhood. In the next instant, I must make a smooth transition into the role of efficient journalist while neatly spinning the plate that is my role as supportive friend.

Meanwhile I wonder, or should I say wander through the roles trying to pick out facets of the real me. Who am I? Does it really matter? What is important? Will I ever play the role of partner again?

Flirting with disaster

Situation:

Four of Cups: You not only have gifts at your disposal, you are being offered another at this moment. You are focusing on an idealized concept that does not exist at the expense of current happiness.

Why is it that when I am all nice and comfortable being married to my job some man always has to try to come between me and my beloved work?

It's okay, though. This one is so not serious. He's been saying he wants to be with me for about three years now and doing nothing to make it happen.

Okay, in all fairness maybe I could have been doing something to make it happen. Especially since he is so perfect for me.

He is sweet, compassionate, passionate, sexy, an awesome lover, smart, interesting, talented and capable. Best of all, he is 511 miles away... just over eight hours of driving.

It means I don't actually have to have a relationship with him and it isn't anyone's fault.

He is so perfect for me. I get to say I'm committed to him and avoid relationships here while knowing there will never be more than the occasional conjugal weekend between us. I can call him 'boyfriend' instead of 'bonk buddy' and no one will be the wiser.

As I said, perfect. He'll never have the chance to really know me and come to despise me.

I can easily pretend to be someone vital, sexy, interesting and important for the brief and rare times I am with him and totally avoid any of this getting to know the real me nonsense.

No risk, just a very hot sex pod up my sleeve.

Outcome:

Wheel of Fortune Reversed: Be aware of using the cycles of the wheel to neglect personal responsibility. Keep in mind the things that are within your control and do not blame circumstances for mistakes that are truly your own. You could miss out on important lessons and opportunities for growth.

From Llewellyn Web Tarot

What a weekend!

And so much for my bike-capades.

Imagine me sitting under the arbor at Shingwauk Education Centre, chatting with a Medicine Man about days gone by, ceremonies to come and the merits of traditional teachings. The good-natured fellow makes light of it when my cell phone starts to ring.

"The smoke from that fire," he says, pointing to the sacred fire. "That smoke is like a telephone to the Creator. It carries our prayers on the wind to the Creator's ear."

After we are done talking I pull out the phone to see who called. It's Ami's cell. I am wondering why she called from her cell when she is supposed to be at home and feeling a little apprehensive.

A little while later I am chatting with the Executive Director of National Residential School Survivors Association. He is sharing some very personal and painful memories with me and I am feeling honoured to hear what he has to say.

My phone rings again. It rings a very long time. Long enough for him to laugh and say I better answer it and for me to find it in my purse.

It's Ami on her cell again.

"I've been hit by a car," she says.

No preamble. No reassurances to cushion the blow. Not even hello. Just, "I've been hit by a car."

"Agaaa????" I say in my usual eloquent style.

"I think I'm pretty much okay but your bike isn't," she quickly adds. I can almost see her cringing through the telephone.

"Are you really okay? You're not bleeding? You haven't broken anything besides the bike have you?"

"I'm just really shaken up... *gasp* *sob*"

"What the HELL were you doing on a BIKE!!!!"

I didn't really care about the bike, especially not then, I just cared about the fact that Ami's health is highly questionable to begin with and anyone who knows anything about it would agree that a bike is not a good place for Ami to be, most especially when the bike is under a car.

So surely I am going to need a new bike and I was pretty sad about that until Ami's mom delivered an envelope that had gone to her place by accident.

Apparently Ami has been accepted to graduate school at McMaster University with a full scholarship. Yeah, I thought that was pretty cool all right. It sort of took the edge off the whole Ami getting run over thing.

But really, who has a life like ours?

Last week I was trying to wind down from some very huge and heavy stories I covered then Ami got run over by a car and accepted to McMaster in the same weekend.

At least it isn't boring.

Two for one sale

Be aware of the lure of the role of the tragically broken-hearted lover. It gives the lover reason to pine and mourn and never move forward. It is a sham, an excuse to avoid life.

Hey, would you look at that! I made two blogs in one day. Nothing in forever and then two in one day.

I'm still not moving forward though. I'm THE most obstinate ass I know.

You know, I always thought I would have made someone a good partner.

When I was married I thought I could be a good partner to my husband if he ever came home long enough to notice me. Before I was married I thought I could be a good partner to someone when I found the right one. Now that I'm not married any more I think I could have made someone a good partner but that opportunity has passed.

Am I avoiding life by realizing that the man I am live-die-and-do-anything-for in love with is head-over-heels-happily-ever-after in love with the woman of his dreams, that she is perfect for him and that I am happy for him because his happiness means everything to me? Maybe. Maybe I would have made a good partner for a good partner for me. Maybe life is avoiding me by making my perfect catch a catch 22.

I am feeling weak and lonely. I must keep myself more busy and avoid emotional entanglements of any kind at any time, especially at vulnerable times like this.

What is in me that craves connection and intimacy? What do I need to hunt down and kill to make sure I NEVER crave it again?

The outcome of the matter.

You have dallied with desires and fancies that kept you distracted from your path, from doing what you know you must. It is time to turn away from this shallow comfort and forge ahead.

-- Llewellyn Web Tarot

Yeah, right... I'm gonna do that right now. NOT! (Â§hria digs in her heals and brays like the ass she is!)

Mowing the lawn - a metaphor for life

Here I am trying to do something good and what happens, I dig myself a series of holes. Of course it would have helped if I weren't so passive about the settings on my mower.

Ami discovered a new depth for lawn mowers. We shall call it 'dig'. Apparently she thought she was raising it and was actually lowering the body of the mower.

I, being the trusting should that I am, thought there must be something wrong with me because no one else but I could possibly screw something up that badly. So I huffed and heaved the thing around the lawn, which is now bald, for about three hours until it was too dark to see the furrows I dug with Ami's dad's mower.

Let me say the guilt I feel is great. I feel guilty for seriously dulling the blades on an innocent mower, doing irreparable damage to a beginning friendship with owner of the mower, not to mention the damage to my struggling field of wild flowers, well the guilt is overwhelming.

Yes, mowing the lawn is a metaphor for life.

And today, the dandelions are back, standing tall and proud above the brown furrows that used to be my lawn, my body hurts everywhere and I have to find the energy to work.

Perhaps brewing coffee will be a better metaphor for life. Or maybe a school being torn down... that's what the pictures are from. No, they have nothing to do with the blog, I just thought they looked nifty.

The hot and cold of mother's day

The images that spring to mind when you say the words 'mother's day' are images of things such as flowers, chocolates, Sunday brunch and a special dinner. Most people in our society see smiling mom’s with loving children having burnt toast and eggs in breakfast. They see special family dinners and picnics in the park. They see a day spent with family doing loving things.

I guess I’m not most people.

When you say 'mother's day' to me I see an image of my sister-in-law weeping with a pile of envelopes in her hand. She is long dead now but she used to check almost daily for news of her lost children taken in to foster care long before she straightened out her life. I see her straightening her face and opening her arms to her younger children and being the whole, healthy, strong mom they needed to rely on when her heart was broken so badly by her husband's fists and the system's cold shoulder. I see her keeping things together for them when the world was falling apart outside her door and in her soul. She died in June of 2001.

I see my friend Ann Marie struggling to stand when she was so full of cancer and pain that she couldn't eat or sleep. I see her struggling with all her heart to walk to her dying mother's side, to hold her children's hands and to keep things together when the world was falling apart outside her door and in her body. She died in April 2004 and her mother died in June of 2000.

I see my friend Michele holding tight to her loving husband's hand and trying valiantly to keep it together for him and for their son when her body was long gone – lungs, bones and lymphatic system filled with cancer. She died February 23, 2006.

I see the face of Melody Burtis smiling from a photograph of her with her son and daughter. She and her son died April 20, 2006.

I see the face of Debbie Doucet smiling from a photograph of her with her wonderful husband and two beautiful daughters. Her husband, Donald Doucet became the first police officer in Sault Ste. Marie to die on duty. He died on mother's day this year and they buried him on his daughter’s 17^th birthday.

Somehow, the cold touches of tragedy found in the lives of the other mothers I've known and felt for are fading the warm, loving touch of my own mother. Even the loving hugs from my children seem a little further away these days. The tragedies I become a part of on a daily basis so that I can write about them with the intensity they deserve are changing me and not for the better, I fear.

Please could I have some happy stories to write about for a while?

I am a social problem

Today, as I was covering the release of a study about the working poor done by Dr. Gayle Broad and Seffanie Date of Algoma University, I realized I am one of the people they are talking about.

Their study, Courageous Lives: A profile of the Working Poor in Sault Ste. Marie, says that a working poor family is a family of four that earns less than $34,000 a year and/or has to spend at least 50% of its gross income on basic needs.

I earned just over $24,000 last year. The year before that, I earned almost $18,000 and about the same in 2002. In 2001 I earned $9,000. I am raising two children on my own. Those income figures also include child support from my ex-husband.

On average, my monthly income is about $2,400 gross now. Basic expenses usually come in at about $1,700 before gas, and not counting the payments I am making on a loan I had to get to replace the engine on my car. (The car was paid for by my separation agreement) There is nothing left on a month with no unusual expenses. Hit a month with car repairs, a birthday, a holiday or other special event and I am screwed. Something doesn't get paid.

Yes, I am one of the working poor.

Broad and Date say 77% of the working poor are women.

Though it's kind of a moot point, I am actually a woman.

Two-thirds of those women are single moms and I am a single mom.

Nova turned six about two weeks ago and Dana turned 12 recently. Their father can and does spend a fair amount of time with them but I am their primary provider and care-giver.

Apparently we working poor are at a much greater risk of becoming homeless.

I know this. I lived in my car for a while after I left my husband. Then, when I got my kids out, we lived at my parent's place (many of the working poor are also forced, unwillingly, to rely on the help of family, friends and charity0.

The working poor are also supposed to be more likely to live in subsidized housing, which I do.

We are also more likely to be depressed, to suffer from illness or injury that goes untreated because we don't have any medical benefits or health insurance above OHIP. Some of us work in the sex-trade industry or stay in abusive relationships to survive or take care of our children.

Many of us suffer from post-traumatic incident disorders that go untreated because we can't afford counselling, can't get the time off work or don't want to deal with the stigma of it.

I don't have to worry about that. I never get enough time between traumas to get into the whole post-traumatic thing. I also have my blog so what do I need a counsellor for?

This all comes as quite a shock to me. I had no idea I and my life was that messed up. While I am not disputing the findings in the study in the least, I am creating an opportunity to defend myself. After all, to me it's just life - like water to a fish.

So I'm poor! So what? Does that make me a bad mother/journalist/daughter/sister/friend or what-ever?

I think not. Yes, I am one of the working poor and one who has slipped through the social safety net more than a few times. Yes, I have experienced many of the negative consequences of it, but I know there is little I can do about it or even want to do about it.

I like my job, even though it takes up about 60 hours of an average week. I like my little house in my cute little neighbourhood. I like my friendly, colourful neighbours, even when they sit on their front steps drinking beer, smoking cigarettes and shouting to each other when they wake up about noon or so on any given day. I like my ugly, old furniture because a dear friend gave it to me when I got this house. I like all the stuff in this house because I got it for myself.

I like being a single mom. We girls do plenty of quality boy-free stuff that makes us happy to be together. I like the messy chaos created by our four human and seven critter lives blending, conflicting, harmonizing and coming together as something bigger, better and more alive than any of us would be alone.

Yeah, I am a working poor person. I am a mostly-happy, more-satisfied-than-not, working poor person. Sure there are things I'm working on changing about myself and my life but who isn't? And, if you are one of those people who think housing, childcare and other such subsidies are a bad investment, think again. It would have cost you a lot more to fix the damage done if us girls had stayed in the unhappy, affluent, male-dominated place we were in before. And much more would have been lost.

I HATE days off

The minutes are going SO slowly. I feel like I am in a daze. It sucks.

Somebody give me five things that are a matter of life and death and NEED to be done within the next hour. I haven't worked since about midnight last night and I think I'm slipping into a coma. Yuck.

My editor said I need some time off to de-stress after the Burtis story. I say let me work it off. It's not like I have any life other than work anyway. My kids are reasonably self-reliant (I type as Nova gets herself some chocolate milk) and like to do their own thing a lot. We are all good with it if I just put in an hour or so here and there giving them my undivided attention. It's not like I want any life other than work. I'll rest plenty when I'm dead.

If I had my way, I would never do anything but work and work hard all the time. My stupid grotesque body would not need food or sleep and it would mostly go away. I would be arms for carrying my camera, recorder, notebook and laptop (skinny arms). Hands for typing, taking pictures and recording stuff. A head to think of ideas and create stories. Eyes to see what's happening and ears to hear it. My mouth would be only there for asking questions and I would have a foot for driving with. That would be me - oh and I would be mechanized. No other bothersome squishy bits are needed and it would be peachy if they would all just drop of somewhere. I would feel nothing and be nothing but a reporter at work.

Well, I guess I'll go clean my basement a bit, figure out how to finish my desk by myself and wait for another story assignment.

When rage triumphs

A community came together in grief today.

Also, about 50 people came out for a memorial honouring Melody Burtis and her son Harley Baxter-Burtis who were kidnapped and brutally murdered on April 20.

After the event, some of Melody Burtis' friends told me they believe rage is what motivated Albert Ouimet to change the license plates on her car before breaking into her neighbour's house to steal a knife he intended to use in the planned abduction and murder of Burtis and her son.

Her friends said Melody was a very strong, positive and vibrant woman. They said she had gone through some hard times and been the victim of abuse in the past and would have had nothing to do with Ouimet if she had known about his violent past.

According to the Sault Star and other sources, Albert Ouimet was charged and convicted of abducting, forcibly confining and assaulting his ex-girlfriend when she dumped him about a year before this. He was on probation and was ordered to abstain from alcohol and keep the peace because of that incident.

Ouimet was attracted to vivacious, slender and beautiful Melody Burtis and they went out a couple times but Burtis wasn't interested in him. Just like she had told several other grieving would-be suitors who were at her memorial, she told Ouimet that she wasn't interested in having a boyfriend, that there were things she needed to do for herself before she could get involved again.

That enraged him and he began to hate her. Melody's best friend said that Ouimet began to stalk Melody after she told him there couldn't be anything romantic between them. But Melody didn't take it seriously and didn't call the police.

I'm having trouble not personalizing this story. A lot of my experiences with men have been very negative.

Melody's friend said that it was like Melody walked around with saying 'whackos hit here and do as you please.' They said that Melody would have done anything to protect her children and that she was very close to regaining custody of her daughter who is just over a year younger than Harley. But they said that Melody had very low self-esteem and was like a moving target for abusive men.

This is not to say that all the men who were grieving the loss of Melody and her son today were abusive but at least one of them was. It is also not to say that all women with low self-esteem are targets for whackos.

What I am saying is that the rage that I have seen on the faces of some men who have said they loved me made me sure that even one bad apple CAN spoil the bunch. At least for me anyway, and certainly for Melody.

Although I had always hoped that I would some day find a partner I could be happy with, I have come to accept that I will not and plan for a life without a significant other. Stories such as the one about Melody Burtis and her son Harley Baxter-Burtis reinforce that ideal and sadden me greatly.

I feel deeply for Harley and Melody's friends and family. There are many who loved them dearly for their joy of life and beautiful dispositions.

The murders make me very tired. I want to tune out and go away for a while. I want to be blissfully ignorant and enjoy time playing with my daughters. I want to think about nothing more than what kind of cake to bake for Dana's birthday next week or what to serve for dinner when my parents get home from Mexico in a few days. I want to see the inside of my eyelids for about 18 hours and I want to drink a bottle of vodka.

But, on a more positive note, I also liked Melody's friends and hope to see them again some day, but under happier circumstances. I just hope they were okay with what I wrote in the story. They shared much more with me than I reported and I felt like we really hit it off so I didn't want to betray any information they may have come to regret sharing later. It was hard to tell what would be okay and what would not so I hope I didn't hurt them any more than they have been hurt already.

As the father of Melody's children said, "The truth WILL come out."

Maybe my truth is that my ability to become involved with and maintain a healty relationship with a man as a partner was damaged beyond repair long ago but I can still have a happy and fulfilling life with family, friends and work.

After all, why would I let some man interfere with the wonderful relationship I have with my job?

Not that you're detrimental or anything but...

Hopeless... as in without hope. As in not any hope in hell... the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks place. As in no expectations. No ideas of what will be or not be. No notion of what needs to happen or how things are supposed to be. You know that sort of feeling when you are just cool with what ever is happening. Sort of like peaceful or something.

Helpless... as in without help. As in I was helpless to assemble my desk. That is to say, no one was there to help. Does that mean it isn't getting put together? Hell no... as in H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks place no. I am putting it together without help. It's just taking a while, but it's getting done and done right. Right therapeutic it is, too.

Okay, I'm REALLY tired now. It was nice to see an old friend, though. Time to watch some CSI, eat something -- yeah I haven't done much of that lately, and have a drink before bed.