Day 540: The Flip Side of Facebook

"Don't you just LOVE meeting new people?
Discussing ideas ... swapping life stories ... learning what makes them tick.
I find it SO invigorating."

Actually, no.
I have never, in living memory, felt the faintest hint of desire to meet a "new person".

When someone invites me to a party.

In fact, my fear scale looks a lot like this:

1. Heights (I sobbed my way through the black course at TreeGO)
2. Meeting new people / having to make small talk with someone I don't know well
...
...
...
...
3. Death
4. Seaweed that touches my legs while I'm swimming
5. Zombies, sharks, insects that might crawl into my ears at night, James Cameron's movie Sanctum, and everything else I can't think of at this exact moment

This is not to say that once I have met the "new person" and gotten to know them a little better, that I don't enjoy spending time together and building a friendship based on mutual interests and respect.

But meeting people is hard.
Especially the cheerful ones.

I tend to repel a cheerful person's advances in the same way a wary child might react when approached by a frightening stranger:

"Who are you, what do you want, and why are you smiling at me?"

The silent, unsmiling ones are okay, though.
In fact, the weekend I met my husband, I don't recall him smiling once the entire time.
I was hooked from that first blank stare.

He does smile quite often now, if you're wondering.

I think this also explains why I like animals so much.

Two things seem to heighten this unfortunate social paranoia.
1. Crowds
2. Pregnancy (hormones ... who knew that they would revert your mental state back to being an emotional teenager?)

This past weekend, I had the brilliant idea of accompanying my lovely mother to a ladies' retreat on PEI. We arrived at the dining hall late on the first evening, and waited for the speaker upstairs to finish her talk before digging into the snacks.

I can't imagine anything more terrifying than sitting at that table, waiting for several dozen good, kind, and cheerful Christian women to come traipsing down the stairs in search of cookies, fresh-cut vegetables, and cheese dip.

I fled five minutes later.

In fact, I fled quite a few times that weekend, once in tears, and spent most of my time in my bunk with my book choice for the weekend, ironically titled, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain.

While it didn't help much with the social anxiety, it did help me appreciate the benefits of being able to crave and enjoy time alone.

Creativity, a character trait that I would scarcely know who I was without it, is one of them.

In a roundabout reference to the famous scientist Sir Isaac Newton, Cain explains that, "...if you're in the backyard sitting under a tree while everyone else is clinking glasses on the patio, you're more likely to have an apple fall on your head."

So while this aspect of my personality certainly makes it more difficult to enjoy socializing, I also value the quiet enrichment it has also brought to my life.

---

The weekend retreat also made me realize how much I depend on Facebook and other technologies like email, texts, and even blogging for initial social contact.

Growing up, I often felt that people were unnerved by my silent, reserved persona. While I wrote pages upon pages of thoughts and ideas in private, I remained unable to string together more than a few sentences in a public forum unless it was for a formal speech or presentation -- ironically, I have no fear of public speaking.

I also found it difficult to shake this image since most encounters with "new people" were in large groups, and I find conversing one-on-one to be infinitely easier and more enjoyable.

Consequently, I learned to carry a book-shield most new places I went and gradually lost interest in forging more than one or two new relationships a year because the amount of effort required was astronomical and it often required me to misrepresent myself as an extrovert -- and therefore lose part of myself -- in the process.

And then Facebook.

There have been a lot of honest and hard-hitting video shorts made recently about the pitfalls of social media.

Parents neglecting their spouses and kids while repeatedly scrolling for updates on a tiny mobile screen.
Young girls feeling a negative self-image because of their friends' unrealistic selfies.
Jealousy and envy and manipulating statuses to get more "likes".
Stretching the truth -- and even outright lies.

All are very real dangers.

But I can't count the number of friendships that have begun or deepened in real life because one or the other of us have added each other on Facebook.

A profile is like a window into a life.
Sure -- most of us make sure that only our clean laundry is visible.
And the glass might be a little rosier-tinted than life really looks like from the inside.

But unless you are one of the silent readers who never posts...

Show me your profile and I'll show you what you value,
...how you spend your time (or at least some of it)
...who is important in your life
...what we have in common.

Then, when I see you on the street, when we have coffee together or go for a walk ... I'll have a lot easier time keeping up a conversation. A conversation that, over time, may even deepen into a real friendship.

And hopefully, the next time you see me ... the strange, silent person hovering uncertainly on the edge of the crowd ... please don't assume that I don't respond enthusiastically to your cheerful greeting because I'm unfriendly or because I don't like you.

Because if you've read this far, you already know otherwise.

According to Susan Cain, one out of every two or three people you will meet today on this continent is an introvert. Others are extroverts, and some are in-between.

Whichever group you self-identify with, know this:
We are not alone.

And so I will continue to cherish my beautiful moments of silence.
But I will keep reaching out to this noisy, sometimes-frightening world in every way I know how.

---

"Whoever you are, bear in mind that appearance is not reality. Some people act like extroverts, but the effort costs them in energy, authenticity, and even physical health. Others seem aloof or self-contained, but their inner landscapes are rich and full of drama. So the next time you see a person with a composed face or a soft voice, remember that inside her mind she might be solving an equation, composing a sonnet, designing a hat. She might, that is, be deploying the powers of quiet."

-- Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

Day 531: Waiting

Being a school librarian is a surprisingly mercenary profession.
At least for one week in June.

If you've ever worked as school support staff, chances are that you remember the horrors of "bumping week". But for the uninitiated, it goes like this:

1. The government cuts positions.
2. The people whose positions have been cut choose new ones, or "bump" in order of seniority.
3. The people who get "bumped" bump somebody else.
4. And so on and so forth...

Until it gets down to me.
One and a half years of seniority.
Three available positions to "bump" into.

(If they're not already gone.)

Two out of the three positions have only two thirds of the hours I currently work.
The other has less than half.

While I love my job and enjoy meeting new peeps every year, it sucks to be laid off each June and spend the summer waiting and wondering whether or not I "did the right thing" by leaving my permanent, full-time teaching job at the private school.

Needless to say, I have been glued to my phone all day.
My heart leapt into my throat when it rang at lunch, only to hear that "...as a preferred WestJet customer, you have been selected to..."

(I hung up after that because I live an incredibly boring life and have not actually flown anywhere in the last decade.)

But sometimes, phones ring with good news when you're expecting bad.

Just after school, I received a text.
A happy one.

After being on display for less than a week, my painting has sold.
To someone who lives in BC.
For $425.

Could I paint another one for the auction?

"Who Has Seen the Wind?"

Aaaaahhhhhhhh!

To say that I am absurdly excited is an understatement.

And so,
while it's still bumping week,
and while I might get a call tomorrow that cuts my September salary in half,
or tells me that I have no job to go back to,

I am reminded that just six days from now,
I will be sitting down at my kitchen table and beginning the first day of two beautiful months
as a full-time artist and author.

May the Force be with us all.

:)

Dave is smiling, too.
But only because he just caught and ate a fly.
Yum!?

Day 526: Changes

In retrospect, I'm not sure which was worse.

A. Knowing there was no way I could make it to the washroom in time.
B. The cats that gathered afterward in anticipation of a (partially-digested) second breakfast.

At least Sam didn't hear me start to hurl.
But if he had ... cleaning up afterward would have been much easier.

Basically, my Monday started off explosively.

The last three months have been an crash course in early pregnancy. The following stand out as among the most useful lessons I've learned so far:

1. M-e-a-t is a four-letter word. So is m-i-l-k.
2. If you can't eat gluten, you will crave gluten, and only gluten. Cinnamon buns, pizza pockets, toaster strudels, and Eggo waffles.
3. But since you can't eat those things ... the thought of eating any food becomes disgusting. But if you don't eat food, you will soon feel even more disgusting. Your choice.
4. Going grocery shopping is basically like walking into a horror movie.

And my personal favorite...

5. Pre-natal vitamins are unbelievably huge and impossible to swallow when nauseated. But ... if you time your gag reflex just right, your throat will open up just enough to choke them down. But if you time it wrong ... terrible, terrible things will occur.

:(

However, since this on-again, off-again blog was ostensibly started to chronicle my journey to becoming an author-artist, that is all that will be said about that.

I am happy to announce that my doctor has vetoed my usual summer job of painting white walls white, and that I will be spending the summer writing and and doing art, and hopefully building my passion into an income that will allow me to stay home at least part-time with my as-of-yet-unborn child once maternity leave is up.

A number of commissions and book reviews have already been booked for the summer months, and by August, I hope to open up a little market booth to sell my artwork and do ten-minute sketches of passers-by.

I am also sawing away at a novel and planning on painting some images for the picture book I drafted back in March. In a perfect world, I would be sending the text and pictures away to an agent by the end of the summer ... but I'm not holding my breath (I am, however, crossing my fingers).

My 1000 days is more than half-finished, and it has been filled with more surprise detours than I ever anticipated.

But every time that life drags me away from art and writing, something pulls me back again.

Creating is something I can't not do, and I am so thankful that I get to spend the summer pursuing my dreams in earnest.

The End.

(P.S. My next post will be less about me and more about drool-slurping cats, disgustingly adorable dogs, and works of fine art).

Of course, tomorrow could also find me curled up on the couch watching Netflix with bucket in hand, and trying very hard not to move.

Because moving makes it worse.
Much, much worse.

Happy Friday!

Day 410: Time

10 000 hours.

That's how much practice Malcolm Gladwell says it takes to master a skill.
Assuming his logic is halfway correct, I am proud to announce that I have hereby mastered the following skills:
1. Sleeping
2. Working
3. Reading
4. Eating
5. Multi-tasking (ie. work + read, sleep + read, eat + read ... you get the picture)

And Gladwell must be right, because I am exceptionally good at all of the above activities. Unfortunately, sleeping, working, reading, and eating does not a fulfilling life make.
But as of late ... it has been my life.

I expect that you have a similar list. And a similar problem.

Weekdays, I work from 8 to 4, then tutor for another 2-4 hours a night. I trundle my tired body home, kiss my sweetie on his furry cheek (darn beard), eat a quick supper, and curl up on the couch with a good book. I also try to spend quality time with my ever-patient husband, take the dog for a walk, and even keep the house from looking like it's been trashed by a horde of angry zombies (who have a propensity for leaving dirty dishes on the counter and dirty laundry strewn about the floor).

But by the time my brain is relaxed, so are my eyelids, and I brush my teeth and slide between cold sheets and double-check my alarm to make sure I'll wake up in time to do it all again tomorrow.

If I could have one wish granted (by a genie, fairy godmother, or other such benign, magical, wish-granting being), it would be for more time. More hours in a day. More days in a year.

Money would be nice too - but only because it would allow me to reduce my responsibilities and free up more time.

Odd, isn't it?
Unlike a paycheck, the time we spend today won't be doled out again next Friday.
Each hour is unique and unrepeatable.
And a minute spent today is a minute spent forever.

You'd think everyone on the planet would be extremely careful about how we spend the days that snowball into years and decades .... and lifetimes. Because how is life measured, if not in time?

But our most precious resource is also one of the easiest things to waste.

I'm not knocking TV laughs or social media or relaxing on the couch with a smartphone and a hot cuppa Joe. Because a regimented, guilt-filled life is as much a waste as one spent chasing pleasure and novelty without a thought for tomorrow.

And goodness knows there are seasons of work or sorrow, when lackluster days stretch long into wakeful nights and we trudge through life in heavy boots and blinding snow ... until the storm ends and the sun shines bright in a blue sky.

But it's easier to creep Facebook than to meet a friend for coffee.
Easier to to watch Hoarders than to tackle spring cleaning.
Easier to open an app than to read the Bible.

I am almost halfway through this blog-project ... and more conscious than ever of how quickly time can slip through your fingers. While I am experiencing moderate success - two completed paintings in the last month and two more slotted for the coming weeks - I still find it difficult to use wisely what time I have.

And I ask you as I ask myself ...
How will you choose spend your next 10 000 hours*?

Of the time available to you, will you master the art of loving those closest to you?
Will you pursue a hobby or passion that has long been calling your name?
Will you carve out of your busy day time to practice what is important?

I know I will at least try.

My painting for the Isaac's Way spring art auction.

* 416 days - about the same length of time as it's been since I started this blog.

Day 348: An Imperfect Tribute

The funny thing about church is that people think it's all about God.

Really, it's more about people.

You can meet God anywhere.

At work or on vacation.

In a busy restaurant having breakfast with a friend.

In a chair by the fireplace with a good book and a mug of hot chocolate.

You can meet him at the dog park or the mall, alone or with friends, morning, noon, or night.

Although quiet places are best, he can also be found in music or chaos or tears.

Love him or hate him, believe in him or not, whether he feels as close as your own skin or very, very far away … God has promised to stay with us through every moment of every day of this journey that we call life.

But people are different.

To find a faith-based community of people travelling through life on the same journey as you?

You gotta go to church for that.

And it's a good thing too, because if people were omnipresent, it would be really creepy.

After Nathan moved to Fredericton and we got married, we decided to find a church where we both felt comfortable worshipping together.

Each Sunday, we donned jeans and a t-shirt and made the rounds of the churches in Fredericton.

Each Sunday, we arrived at a different church … late.

Partly because we wanted to see how people treated casually-dressed latecomers.

Partly because we were a newly-married couple – and y'all know how that is.

One Sunday, we landed on the steps of Crosspoint Church. Late, as usual. In jeans and t-shirts.

But since they have multiple services, you can't really tell who's early and who's late.

And although some people do dress up, even the pastors wear jeans.

My first impression was a voice, hollering across the bustling lobby.

My grade one teacher, Debby. Saying hello. And welcome.

Now before you think this is a shameless plug for my church, let me give you a disclaimer:

From the oldest saint to the newest babe, there's not a perfect person in the place.

Sometimes we say all the wrong things and step on each other's toes.

We make mistakes: small ones … and big ones.

We're not 100% right 100% of the time. Or even 10% of the time.

But, like faith communities all over the globe, we need each other.

Sometimes like Frodo needs Sam.

Other times, more like Frodo needs Gollum or Boromir.

That Sunday was the last day we church-hopped.

That was over four years ago now.

About a year later, we joined a small group led by Debby's husband Conard. Joining meant being quickly enveloped in a miniature community of love. As anyone who has been a part of that small group over the years can attest, we had something special going on.

When CP sent a missions team to Mozambique, Conard encouraged Nathan to join them. He did – and will never see the world the same way again.

We went to small group to learn more about how to live out our faith, but also to share our own thoughts and experiences, and to make memories over laughter and good food.

We were also there when it became apparent that something was dreadfully wrong.

When Conard was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

When Conard and Debby chose to face his illness, not with bitterness, but with courage and grace and dignity.  

When Conard passed away this past Friday.

His death leaves a whole lot of people asking "why"?

Why him?

Why now?

He was so alive.

So loved.

And he had so much left to give.

Any answer I could give you would be pat and useless.

But when God is silent, the church is there to be his hands and feet.

To share memories. To mourn. And to remember that Conard's journey isn't over yet.

In fact, it's just beginning.

Conard loved The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

And so I end this imperfect tribute to a life well-lived with this quote:

"End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass… And then you see it… White shores, and beyond, a fair green country, under a swift sunrise."

- J.R.R. Tolkien

Day 339: Random Thoughts

Random Thoughts

Infinity scarves were actually created as storage facilities for chocolate kisses (and other candy) so you can keep your sugar close while still looking incredibly fabulous.

When you're too embarrassed to wear ankle pants, it's time to shave your legs.

Changing your text message notification sound to the Despicable Me minions saying "bottom" and then laughing hysterically will make you giggle at random times throughout the day. It is not, however, recommended that you leave your phone volume on high while working in a library.

Do not purchase a Newfoundland dog if you don't want to be greeted enthusiastically every morning by a hairy 130 lb beast with the mental capacity of a toddler and globs of drool stretching from its mouth down to its knees.

Cats were invented by the furniture industry in order to ensure maximum wear and tear of their products – keeping you coming back to buy new couches more often without laying any of the blame on them for shoddy merchandise.

NEVER buy white chocolate Toblerone bars. They have an incredibly short shelf life. Even at the back of your freezer where they "should" be forgotten. ;)

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In art & writing news, in the months of January and February, I will be teaching art 3x a week (and doing some math tutoring). I'm continuing to write a monthly review for Thriving Family Magazine, and I'm starting (for the 50 millionth time) to get some writing done for a book.

But the best way to kill an unwritten book is to talk about it.

So (in my best Madagascar penguins voice), "You didn't see anything."

Also, if you are reading this sentence, thank you. The 1000 Days blog cracked 3000 all-time views last week, and I got my first comment from someone I didn't know (on the Nine Newfies blog, which is approaching 6000 views, despite my not adding anything to it for months).

That is, my first comment other than YouTube comments.

My favorite so far is from someone who wrote this gem on my hedgehog video: "awwww the wittle nose! and omg thise [sic] spikes look dangerous… but omg sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff! [heart] so cute"

I didn't have the heart to tell them that Mr. Huffy passed away several months ago after a lingering illness.

:( RIP Mr. Huffy.

---

Feel free to add your random thoughts in the comments section!

Day 337: Dreaming in the Attic

When I was a kid, the thing I wanted most in the whole wide world was to travel.

Aside from reading, writing, and drawing, one of my favorite pastimes was sitting in the attic, making collages from old National Geographic magazines and dreaming of places I’d never been but planned to visit.

The attic wasn't furnished – or rather, it was.

It just wasn't finished.

Our house was almost one hundred years old, and nothing much had been done to improve the attic since the builders – long dead, I’m sure – had packed up their hammers and saws and moved on to their next construction project.

The exposed brick chimney stood in the middle of the room, and the rough, cobwebbed roof joists sloped outward and downward to the dark corners where you could see pink insulation peeping out from behind a misshapen army of boxes and suitcases. The attic floor was made of pallets that my parents picked up for free from behind furniture stores, lugged home atop our ancient station wagon, and dismantled in the backyard. Some of the wood was used for firewood, but the best pieces were nailed together into a tolerable surface so that no one could fall through the ceiling to the rooms below.

I think someone did fall through the hatch once, but I don’t remember who it was.

They were (mostly) okay.

Someone also hung themselves in the basement.

But that was before we moved in.

Dad never told us about the hanging until after we moved out, but it does explain the cold, clammy feeling in the pit of my stomach whenever I raced past the basement door in the middle of the night on my way to the bathroom.

Anyway … we pushed an old wooden desk against the chimney and set up one of those prehistoric manual typewriters – the kind with enough heavy metal to start their own band and moveable arms that swung up from inside and left a faded letter printed on the paper that we hand-cranked, piece by piece, into the typewriter using a knob on the side. We never replaced the ribbon, so the letters got progressively more faded as time wore on, and sometimes the letter arms got stuck together and you had to unstick them and get oil all over your fingers, but at least you never wasted time choosing a font.

Our tiny house was filled to overflowing with life, as our family grew to include eight people, one dog, one cat (and several litters of kittens), two birds, a succession of hamsters, and a tank full of fish that were unfortunate enough to get sucked up into the filter where we didn’t find them until all that was left were their tiny skeletons.

The attic was a pretty nice place to get away from it all. In fact, the attic was so popular that the hatch was always left open and the stepladder beneath it became a permanent fixture.

Even in the heat of the summer, with sweat running down our arms and soaking our hair so that it stuck to our foreheads and the backs of our necks, we played in the attic.

Writing stories.

Trading hockey cards.

Making collages.

Having contests about who could jump over the open hatch … and who couldn’t.

Whoops.

And the dreams that were born in a hot attic, hunched over glue sticks and old magazine clippings, stayed in my heart all through middle school … and high school.

I got a scholarship and made plans to go to university and become a teacher so I could travel all over the world, teaching in different countries, and never staying in one place for more than a few years at a time.

And then I met a man.

Men are game-changers.

We dated for three years, then got engaged.

Several months into our year-long engagement, and only a few months away from my BEd graduation and our wedding, I realized something.

If I got married, my dreams weren't going to come true.

At least not for a long, long time.

It was a dark winter night. Nathan and I were sitting in a parking lot outside New York Fries.

I’d never eaten there before.

I don't plan to eat there again.

We talked.

Should we delay the wedding so I could teach overseas for a year?

If we did, would I come back?

I graduated, a licensed teacher, on July 15^th 2009.

I got married three days later.

I’m glad I did.

Ever since then, the thread that is my life has been winding circles around itself, my days spent wending through the same places, in the same province, in the same city.

Day after day. Layer upon layer.

Growing older but going nowhere in particular.

I’ve worked or interned in every school I ever attended. Elementary school. Middle school. High school. University. I taught in the basement of the church where I got married, and I work in a library with the same (awesome) librarian who was my librarian then and we are separated only by a door from the cafeteria where I held my reception. I live in a house two blocks away from where my grandparents lived almost their whole lives and where my father grew up. I attend the same church and small group as my grade one teacher, whose husband taught my father, whose son taught me, whose grandson I taught in grade 6 during my teaching internship at the same school I attended as a preteen.

The choices I've made have become a big, beautiful knot that ties me here to this place, to these people.

One day, I will get on a plane to visit another country. But it is not this day.

One day, I will visit the Philippines, see the city where I was born, and meet our Compassion child, Johnny. But it is not this day.

One day, I will go to Israel and walk the land that gave birth to my faith. But it is not this day.

One day, I will go on a mission trip, study abroad, or volunteer overseas with an NGO. But it is not this day.

And that is okay.

Because that day will come.

And because I will come back.

The summer I met my husband, I copied this quote into my journal:

“That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”

- Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)

I’m glad to say my chain is forged of gold … with a few flowers sprinkled here and there to annoy me. ;)

And I wouldn't trade it for a work visa, a passport full of stamps, or a thousand airplane tickets to anywhere in the world.

**After conferring with my family, we have agreed on the following information**

1. It was John.
2. He fell on Matthew.
3. Matthew was mad, but otherwise okay.