Author Archives: WendyA

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About WendyA

glass artist, taker of photos, singing my truth following a pagan spiritual path and exploring the landscape that is me

Hope and chocolate-dipped cherries

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When I am having a bad day, I am really not a nice person.

I am easily irritated, grumpy, controlling and, I’m sure, give off an energy of “touch me at your own risk”.

As I learn to not numb out using my addictive substance of choice (food), I am also slowly learning to recognize this about myself and try to “head it off at the pass”. With reaching out to friends, going for a walk, journalling. It certainly has given me some compassion for other grumpy people and for times when others might be just having a bad day.

If it gets really bad, I usually stay home and out of the world. It’s a hard line to balance against isolating myself vs. realizing that it’s okay to tell the world to f**k off. But, better the figurative third finger from home than that actual one, I suppose.

Yesterday was such a day. It was bad. I just wanted to curl up on the couch and repeat “I am enough” until my head somehow convinced my heart. To give up on trying to fake wind in my sails and just accept the becalmed, grey fog and trust that it would pass.

Thing is, this weekend is one of my favourite of the year. I have a group of wonderful women friends and we get together for the whole weekend and make chocolates for holiday gift-giving. A lot of chocolates. Usually about 3500 over the weekend.

This group of women in my life is a gift beyond compare. We range in age from our 30s to our 70s. We are married, divorced and single. Some are childless and some have grown kids, teenagers and toddlers. In less that a dozen women, we are the full range of life.

And, the opportunity to share our stories, to learn from the collective life experience of these women who walk their paths with such courage, to share the workload together, to look after each other (more tea, anyone?!) and to support and encourage each other makes me feel incredibly lucky.

So, off I went, hoping I could keep a curb on my irritability and “don’t touch” attitude, and saying a small prayer that my heart could be open to the love and hugs.

I’m not sure how I did. But, as we were wrapping the cherries with fondant to get them ready to be dipped in dark chocolate, we found this little guy. Still with his leaf attached even after a whole year of soaking in brandy.

Somehow, the hope and optimism in that cherry and leaf partnership lifted my spirits. We shared a laugh and marveled at the leaf, keen to see if survives the dipping process.

Hope is such a precious thing. I am grateful for these women in my life, who give me hope that things will be okay. Who help me refill my sails, even when I’m a grumpy chocolatier.

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A weekend full of wonderful mistakes

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My intermediate glass bead making class on the weekend was awesome. Fourteen hours of making glass beads and I could have kept going!

In fact, on my drive to work this morning I went right past my turnoff and was halfway to the glass studio before my brain kicked in and forced me to turn around. In the interest of paying the mortgage, my grumpy soul obeyed.

In the words of one of the other glass artists, you have to “suck with abandon” doing art. Well, some of my beads really sucked. Some cracked, some were butt ugly and one of my heart beads looks suspiciously like a tooth. I’m not going to tell you what my sister said it looked like!

But, I learned so much. And, some of the beads turned out great. Even some of the mistakes.

I even made a necklace and earrings. By the way, I suck at wire jewellery making, too, judging by the amount of cursing I was doing and the scattershot of tiny pieces of wire on my dining room floor.

Here’s a sampling of the weekend’s efforts. I can’t wait to get back in the studio and screw up some more!

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I’ll take unapologetically self-confident for $1000, Alex!

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This week I was reading about the results of a recent study on the gender difference in the amount of  “uptake” at the end of answers given on Jeopardy!

“Uptake” is when the tone of your voice goes up at the end of a sentence and is associated with uncertainty and lack of confidence.  The  study found that women use uptake more often than men, especially when they are in the lead. The inference is that women are “apologizing” more when they are smarter than their opponents.

As I finish up my less-than-picture-perfect photography class and head off to my intermediate glass bead-making class this weekend, I realize how much this resonates with me.

I was made fun of as a kid for being smart. Well, to be more accurate, I was made fun of for doing well at school. I was good at school. My dad was a teacher and then a vice-principal and I learned to follow the rules. At home, following the rules meant that things stayed peaceful and calm. Or, at least the lid stayed on the tension and stress and did not blow off into a mess of scary chaos and yelling.

But at school I was made fun of for getting high marks.  And, I was teased when I got things wrong, too. Or, when I didn’t get the top mark in the class.  So the message I got was make sure I was extra nice and humble when I did well and don’t take too much credit for my achievements. And, for heaven’s sake, don’t get anything wrong.  Because there is no forgiveness for that.

Kind of confusing for a kid.

But the thing is, neither one of these messages is serving me terribly well as an adult.  On the one hand, I struggle to accept compliments on my photography or glass art and I find it hard to feel that it’s okay to be proud of my work and my art. On the flip side, I am held back by my fear of making mistakes and by the fear that my work is “not good enough”.

I think it might be time to replace those childhood messages with my own confident and unapologetic voice. To remember that most adults aren’t going to act like those few kids who teased me. And, that if I do run into an adult bully, I am so much better equipped emotionally to deal with that situation than my child self was.

To remember that mistakes are part of the learning process and that they are often beautiful in themselves.  Unlike a grade 7 math test, perhaps there are no mistakes in art.

By the way, the study also found that men were no more immune to these gender roles than women.  The research found than men used uptalk more often when correcting a female contestant than at male contestant, perhaps seeking to protect the women from their failure.

So, apparently chivalry isn’t dead yet. At least on Jeopardy! anyway.

I’m supposed to be WHAT?!

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The other day my awesome sister sent me a link to a blog post by a woman who was celebrating her eighth year blogging anniversary. She had a list of “things she thought was supposed to be” eight years ago.

I thought that was pretty interesting so I quickly jotted down my list of “things I’m supposed to be”. I did it really quickly because for an over-thinker like me, doing these kind of exercises quickly doesn’t give the self-editing filters that “protect me from the truth” time to snap into place.

Here is my list –

I am supposed to be married
I am supposed to be thin
I am supposed to wear high heels and dress stylishly
I am supposed to be desirable to men
I am supposed to be moving up the corporate ladder and managing a team of people
I am supposed to have enough money to pay off my mortgage, have nice things and travel several times a year
I am supposed to be happy and attractive all the time
I am supposed to be independent and not need anyone

Holy crap!! Literally!!

Where did all that come from?!

Add to the list that I must do all these things perfectly and it’s no wonder that some days I don’t feel like I’m enough. That I struggle with feeling like a failure. That I want to hide before someone calls me out as a fraud at life.

Some of these messages clearly come from our culture – movies, TV, advertising. Who knows where I picked up the others – childhood, irrational emotional self-defense, other people.

And, while I imagine I probably have things in common with other people’s lists, there are also things that don’t appear on the list that could easily do so – supposed to have children (not in the cards and that’s okay), supposed to own a house (no, thanks, too much work), supposed to be a good cook (ugh, the kitchen). And, none of those things bother me or make me feel like a failure.

So maybe today is a good day to call bullshit on my list. To take the weight of it off my heart and my spirit. To accept that I am what I am supposed to be as I am right now and that it’s perfectly okay to strive imperfectly to be the kind of person I want to be in the world.

The kind of person I want to be; not the kind of person I think the world or my inner gremlins are telling me I should be.

I’d be interested to hear other people’s lists, if anyone wants to share. And, I think I’ll check back in next year at this time and see if my list has changed. I’m hoping it’s at least smaller.

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Embracing my inner Princess

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A few weeks ago I fell at work and hurt myself a bit. Actually, I fell twice in the same spot. More proof I am slow learner but probably also a result of some combination of the awesome shoes I was wearing and the 70-year-old flooring at work.

Which to me clearly says that someone needs to replace the flooring in that spot because I shouldn’t have to go to work in anything less than awesome shoes. Just sayin’.

I am happy to report that I did not fracture my kneecap. Actually, I am very happy to report that I did not fracture my kneecap! Although I did have the realization that I probably need more sleep when I actually dozed off for a moment lying on the x-ray slab waiting to see if the radiologist was happy with the pictures. I couldn’t help it; it was so quiet and peaceful and cell-phone free at the clinic. I wonder if you can rent space there. But, I digress.

My knees are almost back to 100% after a week of avoiding stairs and another few weeks of going slowly and using the handrails. No biggie. Except maybe for the fact that the weekend after I fell I had to go to two sporting events at BC Place, Vancouver’s stadium. Which has more stairs than one of those M.C. Escher prints.

Which is ironic since there is an amazing statue of Terry Fox at the Stadium, a guy for whom a ramp was clearly okay. It’s like they’re saying, “Listen, Terry Fox ran halfway across Canada (a marathon a day), on one leg with cancer.  Now, get your ass from gate B to gate E without so much bitching.”

My knees have bounced back nicely for which I am grateful. What is taking longer is my back, my lower back. I think my back muscles were all like WTF?! It’s healing but it’s still sore, especially if I sit for too long or try to lift something heavy from ground level.

In my new spirit of awareness that “asking for help does not mean sacrificing your independence on the altar of weakness”, I have had to ask for help with the lifting and carting that comes with daily life.

Which has left me feeling kind of like a Princess because I don’t really look like I need help, and I can lift things above my head and carry stuff. I just can’t really get it from ground level to mid-level.  At least with my knee limp I looked like I really should be taking the elevator. Or, creeping along by the railing at a snail’s pace at BC Place. Again, my thanks to that annoying charming streak of stubbornness that I have.

And then there’s that part of me that says “wow, you can ask for help and people are nice enough to help!” Which has been lovely but maybe dangerous because I’m a bit worried that I’ve awakened my inner Princess and that things could easily get pretty ugly pretty fast. I can see how really rich people can just get used to having people do things for them. Cook, shop, drive, tweet. Whatever.

I’d be more worried except that while I’m lucky enough to have friends who will help lift things, these are also the same friends who will say, “yeah, you can totally do that on your own and I’ll be right here on the sideline cheering you on”.

I just hope they’re there the next time I have to get from gate B to gate E.

Casting shadows

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I took this picture of some fall flowers the other day. What strikes me is how the beauty of the colours contrasts with the dark of the shadows.

As these days get shorter and the darkness of the winter season settles in, I am feeling the shadows.

While there are the bright moments of times with friends, hard-fought progress at work and time at the torch or behind the camera, there are the still quiet moments of sadness and alone-ness.

I wish I didn’t have to live with the shadows. To feel what lies there. It would be nice to numb out the feelings – with food, with TV, with busy-ness, with whatever.

But, then I don’t get to feel the light, the sunshine and the colour. And, I don’t want to be numb to that.

So, as I head into the darkness of winter, I am going to try to remember to be in the light but also just to let the shadows be. To accept the sadness so that I can also accept the joy. And to be thankful that I am alive in the feeling.

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