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Look hard...

I saw them.

Five or six of them, together, hiding in plain sight in the sunlit underbrush. I thought I'd heard them earlier, farther away, back on a quieter street, but here they were. Hanging out in a gang, furtively watching me as I walked past on a loud busy corner. They were back.

Turdus migratorus. Harbingers of the second season. Eaters of still-sleeping invertebrates (although only 40% of their diet, I have since learned). Squatters on eavestroughs, poopers on lawn furniture (get that baby a diaper) and a true sign that even though it is -11 C this morning, the White Witch is retreating.

Robins. Red-breasted, the lot of them. I swear it's true. I saw them. All in a posse.

I heard a woodpecker, too. Brownie's honour.

Turn Left

Do you ever wonder where you'd have ended up if you hadn't taken the route you're on? There are so many "turn left" moments in life (hats off to Doctor Who) that it's hard to know what the big missed opportunities are. In retrospect, we often do. Hindsight allows us to see the missed chances that either caused us to despair or made us work twice as hard to compensate for the gap. We can also see those choices that made us different; ones that were risky or frightening but pushed us in the direction we're now going. And here we are. For better or for worse, it's where we've landed.

But what about those little things? The smile you didn't give someone who really could have used it? Not holding the door open for that exhausted mother with the stroller because you, too, were tired? The time you gave someone you didn't like the ice treatment but that "one time" has become a habit, a knee-jerk, so that now you are always aloof, a snob, a cold wall? If you'd never started on that path, you wouldn't have to work so hard to right it. But right it you should.

Try to identify the number of times in your day that you could choose the kinder word, the extra effort, the risky push, the unselfish choice, but are tempted to not. Which will it be?

Push yourself.

A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links between Leadership and Mental Illness

I know it looks like a creepy book—the Frankenstein’s monster effect of combining three portraits of Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy doesn’t help. Even Nassir Ghaemi’s premise at first read seems chilling: some of the best leaders in the western world suffered from mental illness, and at times were completely incapacitated by their maladies.  However, Ghaemi’s compelling and well-argued thesis is that “the best crisis leaders are either mentally ill or mentally abnormal…[and] the worst crisis leaders are mentally healthy.”

This is a scientific yet highly readable book, adeptly written by Dr. Ghaemi, an expert in the field of mood disorders.  When I say expert, I mean, he is the Director of the Mood Disorder Program and the Psychopharmacology Consultation Clinic at Tufts Medical Center and a professor at Tufts University School of Medicine.

Just to set up Ghaemi’s approach, he uses the term “madness” very loosely, almost with a note of sarcasm for the term. Most of the men (as they all are) suffered from forms of depression; either straight-up classic depression, bipolar disorder or what Ghaemi calls “hyperthymia” or a personality type that errs on the side of manic. In most cases, the subject is deceased and Ghaemi is gathering evidence from his four-part assessment: symptoms, genetics, course of illness and treatment. Using his subject's personal correspondence to family and friends and finding evidence that relatives also suffered similar sounding maladies, helps to contribute to his post-mortem diagnosis.

Ghaemi starts with depression. In this category he includes General William T. Sherman (American Civil War), Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln. All three men came to power in times of great crisis, specifically war. All three men had episodes of depression during their lifetimes that completely debilitated them, but who had gained other qualities like empathy, resilience and “depressive realism”. They could press through the difficult times without knowing the outcome, and subsequently lead others to do the same.  People spoke of Lincoln’s “gravitas”, Sherman’s empathetic savagery, and Churchill’s unwavering spirit in the face of adversity. Ghaemi makes a good argument that their depression forged this way for them.

As evidenced by the cover, he includes FDR and JFK in his mentally unhealthy categories because of two reasons: both men suffered from lifelong chronic illnesses, both had hyperthymic personalities--all energy and drive (including sex drive) and little downtime. JKF also was misdiagnosed for much of his life and as a result had peculiar treatments for his Addison’s Disease. In this illness, the adrenal glands do not produce steroids, which compromises the immune system. So JFK was on multiple steroids and was frequently fighting massive infections. He apparently took amphetamines and barbiturates as well. Somehow, his doctors managed to get Kennedy to an acceptable balance much of the time.

Not the case with Adolf Hitler. Hitler suffered from bipolar disorder and was on increasingly bizarre combinations of drugs to keep him on the manic side of his disorder. By the end of the war, Hitler was on steroids, amphetamines, barbiturates, narcotics and while experiencing mood swings that seemed to range only between depressive and manic, with no relief between.

Ghaemi makes a strong case for mentally stability for Richard Nixon, George W. Bush and Tony Blair, which proved how their normality was their downfall in times of crisis.

The epilogue is one of the most satisfying chapters. Ghaemi writes it like an academic essay, allowing detractors of psychological history to give their case and he to refute. I can’t say I’m on board with every one of his historical assessments but he really does build a strong case. Dr. Ghaemi does not feel that mental illnesses should be hidden, maligned or seen as shameful and this book is proof. He cites Aristotle in the author’s note and it is very apt:

“Why is it that all those who have become above average either in philosophy, politics, poetry or the arts seem to be melancholy?”

Firefighter-- Short Story

I can see her sitting by her twilight cooking fire, listless and alone. Her tarp, half-heartedly strung between two incongruent trees, would have her backpack carelessly stowed under it. I would walk into the clearing with my own pack and stand before her, illuminated by her fire. She'd look up at me, surprised, and then she would smile. Not her world-shattering, dizziness-inducing smile, but a greeting. I would be welcome. 

"Did you forget something?" she'd ask, guardedly. She would be afraid to have to say goodbye again. There had been too many endings too recently for her. 

I would walk around the fire, set my pack down beside hers and sit beside her before I spoke. "I came back for something, yes. But there was no forgetting." I would look at her steadily, I think, wanting her to sense my resolve. 

I would figure that she'd be a bit dulled by her grieving and stare unseeingly back at the fire, accepting my presence instead of questioning it. After a while, she would sigh, long and painful. I would inch closer and pull her into my arms. She wouldn't resist me. Her head would rest against my shoulder and I would hold her, breathing deeply to slow my racing heart.  

"Have you eaten anything?" I would ask her, eventually.  

She would murmur, "No." 

"I can make--" I would offer. 

She would shake her head and put her arm around my waist to keep me with her. "No, Paul." At this point she'd tilt her head back to look at me and I'd smile down at her. "Are you...staying?" she would ask, starting to comprehend. 

I see myself smoothing her hair, brightened to a fiery orange by the firelight, or stroking her cheek with my thumb. "Yes," I would reply.  

She'd sit upright, still in my embrace, still with her arm around me, but now her hand would be on my hip and I'd have to do more measured breathing to keep myself together. Her green-eyed stare would be hard to return, but I'd try, so she'd know I meant what I was about to say.  

"As long as you want me." I would swallow before clarifying. "To stay." I know I would start staring at her lips but it would be too soon to kiss her.  

Here's where it's all less clear. She could curl in closer and fall asleep in the safety of my arms. Or she might begin to cry, grateful for my friendship. There's the chance she might stand and pace, and begin to curse me, insisting I shouldn't be here, but knowing full well she needed me. And I know she did. But she had to love me, not just need me. For that, I figure I would have to wait. 

But I'd killed this dream. This beautiful scenario that I replayed far too often in my head was never going to happen, as close as it had been. I could have had it, but I gave it up for higher principles. I gave her up to a better man than I was. 

Now it was a forbidden game I'd been playing, for my own private torture. But every night when I closed my eyes, I was there, sitting by her fire.

Enough of this torment. I needed to find her.  

I needed her to prove to me that I was the only who tended the fire.

Originally posted on Wattpad

Parenthood is fleeting

Like Clark Kent and Superman, my husband and I are almost never in the same place at the same time. Our lives are in a state of perpetual agitation. We have three children; two in school and one chomping at the bit for JK.  We also have far too many extracurricular activities for all five of us. Like grocery shopping. A snapshot of our lives this morning would capture potty training seats, mile-high stacks of laundry and a front hall containing a minefield of rubber boots, running shoes and gym bags.  Everything feels unfinished, untidy and chaotic; even breakfast this morning had all those elements! 

It’s hard to pull back and see the whole picture when I’m only looking at the messy bits all over the floor. What will the image look like a couple of years from now? Will my sunny eldest have become adolescent and gloomy, or dyed her beautiful red hair? Will my level-headed, centered six-year-old have become less confident and more impulsive?  Will my son have finally relinquished his profound love of dirt or will that be a lifelong affair? How do I slow it down, to enjoy more fully these brilliant streaks of light and energy that are my children?

This particular morning, in our usual haste to get out the door to school, my almost four-year-old son whacked his face and came to me for comfort.  He crawled into my lap, looked at me with his big teary eyes and said: “can you hold me like a baby?” I lifted his legs, cradled his neck and shoulders and pulled him up close. I kissed his forehead. “Now rock me like a baby,” he instructed. His older sisters broke into a teasing version of Rockabye baby, but he and I had a private, eyes-locked moment while he sucked his thumb (still a constant companion) that sent me straight back to babydom.

Three years is not very long, but it felt like a lifetime ago when I held my son as a baby in my arms, and he perused my face with those serious baby eyes, drinking me in as I did him. Eternity unfolds in those moments and you let it wrap around you like a cloak.  You savour it, probably because it is 4 o’clock in the morning and you’re too dazed to do much else, but because you savoured it, you can remember it years later when you need it.

The nature of babyhood so enthralls parents that we have no choice but to spend a lot of quality time with our child, time that might otherwise be used for inconsequential things like sleeping, eating or taking a shower. These other activities become downgraded temporarily, just so the baby can stop crying and get a clean diaper, or feed for two minutes and take a five minute break and demand to be fed again. We don’t realize it, but it is training for later in that child’s life, when we assume he is more independent of us, but he still needs to know that we do hang on his every word, and that we are deeply satisfied with every one of his successes. And that we still do feel every one of his boo-boos.

How do I cause the slowdown of time? I need to make sure I see who my child is in her own life and what the world looks like from her perspective.  I need to remember each set of serious baby eyes as they were at 4 a.m., but I also need to see the sparkles that each bit of maturity brings. I need to regularly, daily, make time for each of my kids, individually.

Did I take the time this morning to soothe my child’s hurt and clear space for him to be comforted “like a baby”? Yes, I did. Did I worry that we’d be late, or that the kitchen was a wreck or even that he was being a tad manipulative?  Well, perhaps a little, but I still did it and we were not late. Maybe I do have the power to stop time, just long enough, when it’s needed. Superman did!

2011

One Summer, America 1927

In 1927 America, Prohibition is in full swing, as is Babe Ruth’s big fifty-four ounce baseball bat.  Charles Lindbergh flies across the Atlantic and inadvertently launches a celebrity cult that would rival any in the 21^st century.  It was a time, as Bill Bryson says, that “[p]eacefully, by accident, and almost unnoticed, America had just taken over the world.” One Summer, America 1927 is Bryson’s meticulously-researched ode to giddy post-war, pre-Depression America.

Already having proven himself adept at social history with At Home and A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bryson works hard to set the reader right down into the world of 1927. He outlines the summer in question month by month, May to September, feeding details to the reader as if we are living in the midst of it.

Time, not theme, governs Bryson’s approach to this book.  In the section on the month of May, Bryson tells us about the murder of Albert Snyder and the subsequent arrest of his wife Ruth and her lover. We hear about them again intermittently throughout the book as they rise and fall in the public interest, usually competing with Lindbergh for press coverage, but then do not learn about their ultimate fates until the epilogue.

This time-dictated method is usually very successful, but there are places where Bryson tries to fit in too much.  He wants to lay the groundwork as well as give us the 1927 particulars.  Parts with pilots competing for successful Atlantic flights, or baseball players with differing fates, or bombs blowing up anarchists and politicians, are often needed to be read more than once. You know; to clarify which politicians use spit-ball pitches to protest which air flights…no, wait; that’s not it. You get the idea.

How does one end a great summer? With a dose of regret, I guess. With this great big ball of momentum, the end is a bit of a fizzle.  Bryson does do a good job of tying up all his loose ends--in this case, all his loose ball players, pilots and politicians--but his enthusiasm has weakened.

I must confess; I do thoroughly enjoy Bill Bryson’s  upbeat and droll writing style. At last count I’ve read nine of his books, which, for a working mother of three, that’s a miraculous number of books by any one author!  My favourite is At Home: A History of Private Life, the premise of which may sound deadly boring (except to a social historian like me), but in the hands of Bryson, any topic is transformed into high entertainment. One Summer, America 1927 is no exception.

Originally posted on the Nonfiction Book Club Blog

O Inconstant Spring

As I find myself looking longingly for spring, when there is none to be found, I can only look back to find it. A few years ago, we were guilty of fleeing the drab and chill of a Canadian March and heading south to the near-tropics of Florida. We fled for a week to a land of white sand not grey snow, of warm breezes not cold rains, and a place with birds whose calls we did not recognize, and with flowers of fantastical shapes and hot colours.  We enjoyed it thoroughly, with bare feet, sunburned noses, and that crunchy salted flavour that all picnic food gets at the beach. Then we had to come home.

My three-year-old made a valiant attempt to convince the rest of us that we could stay in Florida. He was certain that Grandpa and Grandma’s tiny condo could hold all of us indefinitely.  I did long for my own bed, but I admit that there seemed to be little else drawing me back to the North. We returned home at night, stole out of the car in our spring jackets and hurried into our cold and darkened house, quickly crawling into our fleecy pyjamas and under our heavy blankets. Canada could wait until morning.  

When morning arrived, it did so arrayed in dazzling sunlight. We realized that spring had almost arrived in our absence.  Nearly all of the ice patches had disappeared. Clusters of tulip leaves were breaking through the soil. Brave crocus buds, filmily hinting at brilliant colour to come, stood in the garden. And we heard a new yet familiar sound—then we saw them;  the returned robins, hopping along our back fence, calling to each other as they waxed nostalgic about their summer home.

No trip to the south, to an unreal summer, can replace the stirrings of hope and the thrill of discovery that a spring in Canada bestows. It carries the same excitement that the first snowfall brings in November and, in their turn, the first truly hot day in May, and the first fully-turned maple tree in September.  Having just returned from warmer climes did not make us immune to the charms that lay half-hidden in the mud in our own backyard. These were harbingers of beauty and warmth yet to come and they were hard-won.

The weather did not hold. A couple of days after returning, we were again boot-deep in snow, topped by freezing rain. Springtime in Canada never progresses predictably! Undaunted, the kids pulled out the sleds and enjoyed the icy speed of the newest white covering while it lasted. This was not long-- it all melted in less than a week.  Melting--I can only imagine!