The Fog is Lifting

For the past while, I've been trying to figure out what the hell my problem is. Yeah, there have been deaths - most recently one of our furry felines - and stresses of other sorts, but I knew deep down that wasn't it.

Recently, I landed a freelance piece with an editor I used to write for on a regular basis. I haven't written for her in about three years, not since I returned to working full-time after my maternity leave. Anyway, there was a story idea that had been nagging at me that would be just perfect for her publication. (I'm not giving more away until the story has actually gone to print. Call me superstitious.)

I finally pitched it. She said yes. I did an interview with my story's subject. It went well, we flowed well together, interviewer and interviewee, which makes writing a profile on said interviewee that much easier. Afterwards he noted how easy it had been talking to me. And I remembered a former colleague having said I was good at putting people at ease. "Yes, I'm back!" I thought to myself. I was pumped!

And then I waited. My editor is away on vacation and told me to have my completed story in her in-box in three weeks, in time for her return. Then life happened. Specifically, I had a terrible couple of weeks. I had to make some stressful grown-up decisions that just about sucked the life out of me. Forward to one week shy of my editor's return and I figured I was actually going to have to write this thing. After procrastinating further by going for coffee with a friend when I was supposed to be writing, it was time.

It was slow going at first. I flipped through my notes and cued up my digital voice recorder. I reheated my coffee. And then it came. I actually remembered what it was like to write a journalistic feature story. I didn't have to start at the beginning, I just had to start writing and I could reorganize everything - descriptions, anecdotes and quotes - however I see fit. Hearing my interviewee speak I had that, "Holy shit, THIS is what my story is really about," moment and damn, did it feel amazing. I realize that when I write this way, I have the control I have been seriously lacking in other areas of my life lately.

Yes, folks, I'm going to have to do this more often. It's been way too long.

Finding the Words

Lately, it seems I've been signing an awful lot of sympathy cards. Deaths in families (my own and those of friends), a devastating miscarriage. And death brings with it plenty of opportunities for awkwardness. The awkward in-person, "I'm sorry."

And then there's the sympathy card or letter if you're trying to communicate the appropriate expression of grief to a friend or family member who is far away or if you're simply someone who is the card-giving type. The problem starts right from the moment you select the card, as noted in the above video by Lynn Harrison. Then comes writing in it.

I likely put more pressure on myself because I write for a living. But to be honest, in most cases, I have to keep emotions out of my professional writing.

If I'm writing a story for a publication, I'm being paid for an impartial, "just the facts, ma'am" account of events. As noted before in this blog, it's part of the reason I never had an interest in being a reporter on the daily city news sort of beat - sometimes keeping emotions in check, particularly when writing about death, can be a challenge. Passion can certainly drive a story, but emotion is supposed to remain locked out. Unless you're a columnist.

These days, my day job has me writing about software. No worries there about having to pour my heart out and feeling all weird and exposed.

But acknowledging someone's grief in a way that may help them for a moment feel some sort of peace? That's hard. And maybe it's not even the purpose of sending a sympathy card or note. Write too much and you're in danger of making it all about you. I distinctly remember the intense sorrow I felt when my mother-in-law died, the feeling of being cheated of getting to know her better, etc. And now you see? Yeah, that's all about me.

Write too little and how does it come off? "So sorry. Please let me know if I can do anything." Empty. Because any of us who have lost a loved one know that those who truly will drop their lives to "do anything" will simply do it, not say, "Tell me when." But what's the happy medium?

I googled "bad sympathy cards" and got a few links to sites that essentially give you fill-in-the-blanks suggestions for what to write. It seems wrong, but maybe this is one case where what you say doesn't really matter. Damned if I know.

Mystery of the Biaxin Sumo Baby

So I was getting my son's antibiotics the other day and noticed a picture of a sumo baby on the box. "Weird," I thought. I took a photo of it and posted it on facebook. My friends agreed.

One speculated that the meds taste like dirty sumo thongs. It only took a simple wikipedia search to find out that Clarithromycin (of which Biaxin is one of several brand names) was invented by a Japanese drug company.

I have to admit I was hoping for something a little more intriguing that actually involved, well, sumo wrestlers. Why not Mount Fuji? Or a Geisha? Sashimi? But there you have it.

Now I'm on a search for other odd logos and the stories behind them. Any suggestions?

Writers' Inspiration

Some Things Aren't Meant to be Fixed

I'm pissed off.

I recently went to Ottawa to see the fam and friends. My cousin T, who fits into both categories, came from Toronto to visit for a weekend. And my mom dropped the bomb.

"Your mom and I went to the farm the last time I went for a visit," my mom said to T.

"We went and peeked into the windows. They bricked over a bunch of the windows on the front. I don't know why they would do that, I mean, who would bother to come up and look into them?"

"You mean besides you and Aunt J, you peeping Toms" I said to my mom in an attempt to make light of what she had just told us.

My mom and her siblings grew up on the above-mentioned farm. My grandma was born on the farm. She moved out about a year after my grandpa died. The above picture is of T, me and my sister, M, in front of the house.

When I was a kid, I spent many a hot summer day reading in the house. Though my love of reading had started when I was little, I think it was cemented by all the time I spent reading in that old house. There was a synergy between the house and story-telling in general. Old homes have stories. Old homes know all the family secrets.

My great grandfather, Saville Simpson, enjoyed writing, particularly poetry. I never met him as he died before I was born, but his photos hint at a kind, gentle spirit. My mom's stories of him confirm this.

I have long wanted to write a novel with that house as its inspiration. More than the short stories I put together a while back for grandma - something major. Something with depth that gives that house the respect it deserves.

But now I feel just about as ripped off as I felt when I found out the house had to be sold to strangers. How can I be inspired when I know the windows at the front of the house have been bricked over? I'm fully, painfully aware that the farm no longer belongs to my family. But what reason could there be to cover perfectly good windows that bring light into the house? Who the fuck wants a dark living room? Seriously folks, some things aren't meant to be fixed.

Unless it means they ripped down the wall between the living room and what was later, during my lifetime, grandpa's bedroom. The same room that I cried myself to sleep in, breathing in his scent as he lay dying of cancer in a hospital. It just gets worse, doesn't it?

I certainly don't think I had the closest relationship with my grandparents and I haven't deluded myself into thinking my mom, aunt and uncles had a perfect life on the farm. Far from it, in fact - it was a tough life.

The funny thing is, many of my memories of being there are of the house itself. I can hear the sound of the gravel road under the wheels of my parents' car as we drove up to the house. I can feel the wood of the sturdy kitchen table under my palms. I can hear the water splashing in the basin as grandpa washed up before lunch, back in the days before they installed plumbing. And any time I read a book that takes place on a farm? I picture at least parts of it looking like the home on RR1, Glencoe, Ontario.

Someday I will write my own book. I'm just going to have to do it before my memory starts to fail me.

Why I could never be a daily reporter

I loved being a reporter. I loved the buzz of getting a story done on deadline, finding a new spin on it, getting the perfect source to give me the juicy tidbit no one else had. A lot of people asked me why I stopped doing it on a full-time basis.

Out of j-school I landed a news editor's job, followed by a reporting job on Parliament Hill. Then I moved across the country. I started freelancing for niche publications - community papers mainly, various magazines. Why not be a reporter full-time?

Well, the natural step would have been to start hunting down a job at a major daily. Better money, greater recognition. Sounds just about right. Except for one thing. In most cases, you don't start with a sweet little niche. You start with general city reporting. City Hall I could handle, I'd done the politics thing. But the guy goes crazy and shoots his entire family? It's that kind of shit I couldn't handle.

When I was 12, there were a few missing-kids' cases in Toronto. I won't forget Christine Jessop. Her body was found on New Year's Eve. My dad was a TV reporter. He got the call shortly before midnight that a body, likely hers, was found. It was confirmed the next day. I honestly don't know how my dad did it without it destroying his spirit. And reporters will continue to do it for many years to come. Not me though. I have issues with death and remaining detached when I write about it simply doesn't happen.

Some of you may already know how upset I was by the passing of a teenage boy, Edward Sun, who drowned at Alice Lake last weekend. I won't ever forget seeing his feet and swimming shorts as two people performed CPR on him. He looked so small (simply my perception, only being able to see the bottom half of him) that initially, I thought he was a younger child. I hope this picture I found of him tonight will help me erase that image.

When we left the park, I handed my son to my husband and cried. I didn't want to hold my son as I wept because I was worried I would scare him by squeezing him too tight as I bawled. I couldn't get it out of my head: he was somebody's child. Not mine, but somebody's. When I heard that he had died the following morning, I just kept thinking about his mother. How dare I claim such sorrow. How must she feel? The friends who were with him that day?

I'm certainly not saying the daily reporters who can do it are heartless - my dad continued doing it for more than a decade after Christine Jessop died, though he did move on to cover politics. He can be grumpy, but he's certainly full of heart. I am saying I can't do it. I'll write promo stuff, I'll blog, and I may write for papers and magazines again about causes that move me. But I'm simply not made of the right stuff to make a go of the mainstream dailies.

Freedom of the press? Not in Toronto.

(photo from The Globe and Mail)

Rights and freedoms in Canada

1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

Fundamental Freedoms

2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association.

Sounds pretty straightforward, doesn't it? Apparently not. At least not when it comes to gatherings of international leaders in Canada like the G20.

Now I'm not all normally, "Fuck the police," but this is out of control.

Check out this video by journalist Brandon Jourdan. According to the description on youtube, his arrest begins at 1:08. Unfortunately, it's not embedding properly on my blog right now, so live with the link please.

The Toronto Star reported on what 20 people identified as protesters, bystanders, walkers-by and yes, reporters, experienced. And it wasn't pretty.

Said Amy Miller: "'I was throttled at the neck and held down. Next thing you know I was being cuffed and put in one of the wagons.' She says she was threatened and harassed by police at the Eastern Ave. detention centre. 'I was told I was going to be raped, I was told I was going to be gangbanged, I was told that they were going to make sure that I was never going to want to act as a journalist again.'”

Adam MacIsaac - Alternative Media Centre, Independent Journalist from Darren Puscas on Vimeo.

She was there with Adam MacIssac (seen in the above video), also described as an independent journalist, who The Star reported: "Police began kicking him in the ribs and stunning him with a stun gun. 'I have a pacemaker!' he screamed repeatedly, but says they didn’t listen." He was later told by the police that they had no idea where his $6,000 worth of camera equipment was and that he should file a complaint.

Now I'm not sure if there's a difference between an independent and freelance journalist. I've worked on staff and I've worked freelance. And I'm not going to debate whether one is a 'real' journalist over the other - I'm sure many already are. But once we start doing that, it's a slippery slope.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter because a Globe and Mail staffer, Lisan Jutras was caught in one melee. Though she didn't have credentials to cover the G20, her tweets were used by the Globe as she first attempted to get out of the crowd and was eventually arrested.

So I guess we're free to report. We just have to be aware we may be arrested, beaten, threatened and have our gear stolen in the process. Duly noted.