Monthly Archives: August 2017

You Do Not Own Me

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I wrote this poem last year after dinner with my eldest daughter in Vancouver. She had shared the details of an incident where some men had been cat-calling her as she walked by their construction site.

In our conversation, I shared with her the numerous times I had simply ‘walked on by’ or stood still while some man felt he had the right to overthrow decency with his innuendos and suggestions of sexual possibilities.

I remember when my daughters were little girls and some of the boys in their school (a private school btw) had started reaching up under girls skirts and pulling down their panties — My daughters refused to wear skirts. I refused to stay silent. I went to the school and spoke to the Administrator. After hearing my concerns she replied, “Boys will be boys.”

She got to hear my outrage.

Allowing statements like ‘boys will be boys’ to explain away bad behavior is how boys grow up to be men who think it’s okay to continue the behaviours that denigrate and objectify women — nobody ever taught them better.

Eventually, a group of us pulled our children from that school.

I was reminded of this poem after reading an article about Taylor Swift’s courage to speak out against a man who thought he had the right to treat her body as if he owned it.

She won the case. And my admiration along with the admiration of millions of young girls across the country.

We need to all stand up. To not stay silent. To not just keep walking on by.

Namaste.

What’s your story?

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When my daughters were younger we used to play a game as we drove along city streets. “See that man over by the bus stop? The one walking slowly with his shoulders hunched,” I’d ask. “You’ve got sixty seconds to tell the story of what’s happening in his life.”

Quickly, one of them would ‘write’ the story of his life. “He just came from the doctor’s office. He’s worried because the doctor wants him to go for some tests and he’s scared about what they’ll find. Tests always scare him. Even as a kid, he hated tests. ‘Someone’s judging you no matter what you do,’ his mother used to say. ‘Tests just confirm other people’s bad judgement of you,’ she’d add before marking up his homework with her bright red pen. The doctor told him he doesn’t think it’s cancer. He wants the test to rule it out. But the man didn’t hear the ‘not cancer’, all he hears is, ‘I’ve gotta get a test for cancer’. And he’s convinced he’ll fail.”

And we’d drive on with the story weaving itself until we spotted another person who inspired a different story.

Outside my office window at home the world unfolds every day.

A woman walks past my window every morning. The story I tell myself is that she is on her way to work. Dress pants. Coiffed hair. She has a happy step. A lightness to her gait. She steps onto the heels of her feet, rolls forward and bounces up. Her arms swing. The hem of her 3/4 length dark blue coat with shiny brass buttons swings. The large bright blue bag she carries over one shoulder swings with her.

She walks away and the space in front of my window is filled with a woman walking her Cocker Spaniel on the other side of the street. She too is dressed for work from head to ankles. White running shoes encase her feet. She walks as quickly as her old shambling dog can shuffle. He always stops at the corner where the walk from the white house of the man and lady with the red car meets the sidewalk. He always sniffs. She always waits a moment then tugs gently on his leash to get him moving.

An elderly woman walks by. Bright pink coat. Milk white hair spilling out from the edges of her cream coloured hat. It forms a halo around her face as she steps into the sun streaming towards her from the east. She walks quickly. A purposeful stride.

The story I tell myself…Morning exercise to stem the flow of time eating at long lost youth, curbing ages erosion of her well-being. She’s committed to good health. Good eating. Good living.

Outside my window, the world flows by. I like to make up stories about the people in its flow.

Sometimes, most times, I tell myself stories about all the happenings in my life. Sometimes, I’m right. Sometimes, my emotions, my memory, my experiences cast a light on the story I’m telling myself that isn’t true about the other people in my story.

Life is made up of stories.

I can make up a story for anyone, but the real stories that make a difference in my life are the one’s I tell myself that make a difference in how well I pass the time of day loving, caring and being with the ones I love.

The real stories are the one’s I’m willing to tell that bridge the gap between what’s going on, and what I tell myself is going on.

Sometimes, those stories are absurd.

Letting go of the absurd, I get real with  my story. And when I get real with my story, I get real in my life.

Who do you choose to be?

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No. 35 #ShePersisted series.
http://louisegallagher.ca/shepersisted

I read the news today, oh boy. (Thank you John Lennon and The Beatles)

About nuclear weapons, loaded and locked.

About a car crashing into a crowd.

About Taylor Swift’s court battle.

And about so much more of what is wrong in our world today.

And I felt sad. Upset. Helpless. Alone. Frightened.

I do not live well in those spaces.

I do not feel the pulse of life calling me to create, to dance, to laugh and sing when I am reading the news.

I think I’ll give up reading the news and do what Margaret Wheatley suggests in “Who do we choose to be? Facing reality, claiming leadership, restoring sanity.

“Who do you choose to be for this time? Are you willing to use whatever power and influence you have to create islands of sanity that evoke and rely on our best human qualities to create, produce and persevere?”

Hell Yah!

Reading the news gives me too much room to dive into the insanity. Creating opportunities for the news to be filled with hope, love, joy, caring — now that’s the kind of island of sanity I want to create.

I am not powerful enough to stop nuclear bombs from flying.

I am powerful enough to give my voice to those who would ban nuclear weapons from our earth.

I am not powerful enough to stop a car crashing into a crowd.

I am powerful enough to speak up in the face of discrimination, misogny, brutality, and all forms of racism.

I am not powerful enough to stop every man from raping women, whether in peace time or in war.

I am powerful enough to stand with my sisters, my fellow human beings who believe we each deserve to be treated with the same kind of dignity, respect, kindness, compassion and love we give to others.

I am powerful enough to create an island of sanity in my world where love, hope, joy, compassion exist for all.

And in my standing up and creating such a space, I connect to those who are doing the same, and our ripple will become a tsunami of love, hope, joy, compassion for all the world to know and believe in and live in.

And no matter how many people say, it just isn’t so, I shall persevere. I shall persist.

Namaste.

 

 

Defining Moments

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The first time I remember feeling the bitter sting of being judged harshly I was eleven years old. We had just moved to a new city in France. It was my first day at my new school. Grade seven. Because of the move we were a week late for the beginning of classes. Groups had been formed. Allegiances made. I walked into the schoolyard that morning feeling like an outsider.

I stood alone, waiting for the bell to ring inviting us in. Not far from me stood a group of girls. They kind of looked like the cool kids and I thought I’d like to be part of their tribe.

I smiled tentatively at one of them and she turned away.

I looked away too, not sure what to do.

They whispered among themselves and I could feel them looking at me, eyeing me up and down. I wanted to say Hi. I wanted to be part of the group. I wanted to make friends but was a little afraid and intimidated by the group. And then, I overheard one of the girls say to another as she glanced at me. “What a snob.”

Ouch.

I remember feeling the sting of those words. I remember thinking, “But you don’t even know me.”

It was a defining moment.

I had a choice to make. Let their judgement of me become my truth, or not. I could retreat behind a wall of resentment and attitude, or, I could step out and be known for who I am, not who others perceived me to be.

I stepped out. I decided to introduce myself to the group and not be the snob they’d judged me to be without even knowing me. (I think I may have also done it out of a bit of ‘spite’ too! How dare you judge me! I’ll show you!)

Stepping into that group I didn’t know that the girl who made the comment would become one of my very best friends. We are still in contact. A few years ago she came to Calgary and we spent a four day weekend catching up on thirty years of living. We had a blast.

And as to my defining moment?

It didn’t have a lot of impact on them. In fact, when my girlfriend and I talked about it later, she barely remembered the moment.

I told her how it was one of my defining moments. How, because I never wanted anyone to think I was a snob, I decided I could not act like one.

For that group, my stepping up first paved the way for them to see I wasn’t being standoffish. I was just feeling intimidated and scared — there I was at a new school, the new kid. They didn’t have to invite me into their group, but once I stepped up and showed myself to be who I was, I made it easy for them to let me in.

I didn’t understand that then. I didn’t see how I could be a threat to them or that they didn’t need to invite me in.

French author, Honore de Balzac wrote, “The more one judges, the less one loves.”

My happiness comes from loving, not judging. From seeking first to understand, before being understood.

When I stand in love and allow compassion for my fellow human beings to be my guide as well as the measurement of my happiness within, the world around me becomes a better place for me to stand in. In Love, anything is possible.

And the best part is…. The less I judge, the more I am buoyed up to live, love, laugh my way through every day!

Love yourself first.

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When you’re angry with yourself, when you feel like you’ve made a mistake and are busy chastising yourself for something you’ve done that didn’t work out the way you planned, what do you do?

Do you get angry and fill your head with negative self-talk about how stupid you are, or ridiculous, or what a loser?

You’re not alone. The world is filled with human beings who have made mistakes. Many of them are filled with anger because of the mistakes they’ve made.

It’s nice to know you’re not alone in your self-misery, but it still doesn’t make it healthy for your well-being.

We all make mistakes. We all fall down. And we all talk to ourselves in ways we’d never talk to another human being.

What if, instead of giving into self-anger and loathing, we all gave into love? What if instead of telling ourselves all about how horrible we are, we chose instead to Love ourselves first?

Think about it. Imagine what would be different in your life if you chose to, Love yourself first.

Yeah. Yeah. I know. You love yourself. Maybe? Well sort of. Except… for that piece of flotsam from the past that doesn’t want to lay quiet and is always poking holes in your peace of mind. Or, that place where you did this or that, and keep telling yourself you can’t forgive yourself for doing this or that.

What if instead of carrying anger and unforgiveness, you chose instead to Love yourself first?

Would that make a difference in your life?

I know it would in mine.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love myself. It has been the journey of my lifetime, getting to this place where I can look in the mirror, look deep into my eyes and say, “I love me. Just the way I am. I am a miracle of life.”

But…. And there’s always that but. When I mess up by doing something that upsets my peace of mind, I tend to fall into my default position, chastising myself with the words that play in my head whenever I slip out of esteem. They are not words of support or understanding. They tend to be the words that remind me why I am ‘unworthy’, a human being of enormous flawed proportions. A big mistake.

In my angry state, I focus on the things that are wrong with me, rather than seeing all that is right.

We all make mistakes. We can all learn from our mistakes because, there is always another way of doing something, of doing anything, different.

It’s the way of the universe. It’s filled with limitless possibilities. Unfortunately, when I leap into my “oh my gosh, I’ve just destroyed everything with what I did” thinking, possibilities for better vanish as my self-criticism falls like rain on a hot summer’s day — it’s a welcome relief from the heat. But man, it sure can turn a backyard party into a pity party.

In choosing to Love myself first I do not have to fear myself, or the angry voices in my head. Instead, I get to see myself through the power of love to transform anger, into love. Hatred into kindness. Self-pity into self-compassion.

And when I transform my inner world, the world around me changes too.

On becoming me.

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When I was a child my mother said to me, ‘If you become a soldier, you’ll be a general. If you become a monk, you’ll be the pope.’ Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.  Pablo Picasso

When I was a child, my sister and I spent hours re-enacting scenes from our favourite movies. Gone with the Wind. The Parent Trap. We knew all the characters, all the parts and we each had our favourites.

It didn’t matter that our stage was a stretch of lawn or that Tara was a sheet draped over a tree or that we each had to play three or four different parts, differentiating the characters only through our voices as we didn’t have time to change wardrobe —  we didn’t really have any wardrobe to change into anyway. This was a low budget reproduction — very creative, just not very accurate.

But none of that mattered. What mattered most was that we spent the time together. Laughing. Sharing. Creating.

When I was a child, I liked to draw. To sing and dance and to play piano. I liked to write and make up stories. To play dolls and the now politically incorrect, “Cowboys and Indians”.

It didn’t matter to me what the game or activity. What mattered most was that I was being creative. Expressing myself through arts of all nature.

And then, I grew up.

I still liked to write. To create. To make something out of nothing.

But the tone was different. There was something lacking in my creation.

I kept thinking it needed ‘A Purpose.’

To create for creation sake just didn’t seem to be viable, make sense, have meaning. If I was painting, there needed to be a reason. If I was writing, there needed to be an audience. And, if I was dancing, there needed to be ‘the right steps’.

I’ve grown beyond those ‘grown-up’ days of believing I need ‘A Purpose’ to my art. I’ve grown beyond thinking there are right steps, wrong moves, perfect brushstrokes or perfectly turned phrases.

I’ve grown into being me. Creatively. Expressively. Passionately.

Today, I know that at my core I am a creative being. That life is an act of creation.

Today, I express myself in ways that fulfill on my belief, and need, to create beauty in the world around me.

Today, I let go of the right steps and move with grace and ease into being each step I take to create beauty in the world around me.

There’s freedom in each movement. Freedom in being my creative self.

And, there’s joy in knowing every breath I take is an act of creation. Every step I take is an expression of the beauty I want to create in the world and each brushstroke, each word written are all an expression of me.

In-to-me-see

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I am standing by the Navel Orange bin, focused on picking just the right ones when I feel someone watching me. I look up and see a man walking towards me, his eyes focused intently on my face. I recognize him as he approaches. Smile and give him a wave.

“I know you,” he says. The rubber stopper on the bottom of his multi-coloured metallic cane makes a soft thump as he plants himself in front of me. “Why do I know you?”

I know him from the homeless shelter where I used to work.

In a public place like a grocery store, it’s not always caring of the other to tell them that.

“I was the spokesperson for the DI (the street name for the shelter where I used to work),” I tell him. “I was on television a lot. Maybe you recognize my face from there?”

He gives his head a quick shake from side to side. Then nods it up and down. “Yeah. That’s why I remember you. You were one of the nice ones.” He pauses, lifts his cane and thumps it on the ground. Not loudly. Just a gentle statement of fact to punctuate his words. “I didn’t like it there. Who could? Full of drunks and drug addicts. And the staff…”

He looks away.

“Glad I’m out of there now.” He finishes his statement and looks me in the eyes. “I’m gone you know.”

“So am I,” I tell him. “How are you doing?”

And he rushes into a story about an accident that broke his hip. A two month hospital stay. A landlord who ripped him off and a host of other sad events that have brought him down.

And  I listen. It is all I can do. Listen. Deeply.

It is what he wants. Someone to listen to him. To give him space to give voice to his pain, his fears, his sorrow. And, his possibilities.

“I worked construction you know,” he tells me. “That’s over with now. But I can cook. Got a friend who’s got a friend who owns a restaurant that’s just opening up. Gonna go submit my resume. You could come visit if you want.” And he gives me the approximate location of the restaurant. “I can’t remember the name. But I’m sure you can’t miss it. It’s the pub right beside the gas station.”

I tell him that I’ll check it out.

“What I really need is better housing,” he says. “Someplace where I’m not sharing space with others. I talked to Calgary Housing but their wait list is too long.”

“Have you visited SORCe?” I ask.

“What’s that?”

And I explain about their ‘one stop shop’ concept of many agencies working out of one location to connect people to housing programs and services in order to end homelessness. I find a piece of paper, write down their number and pass it to him.

He’s excited. Another path to explore. Another possibility opening up.

We part and I am grateful for our encounter. He has reminded me of the importance of looking into someone, not just at them. It is a form of intimacy or, In-to-me-see. A way of honouring the human being through creating space for story-telling to happen, of listening to the stories that are shared with an open mind and loving heart and a belief in the sacredness of honouring the truths that are revealed when we take time to see and listen to the story-tellers.

I met a man at the grocery store.

He shared  his story.

I listened.

We parted, richer for the encounter.

______________________

This post is an edited repost of a blog that I wrote in 2012.

When the only answer is, I survived.

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No. 37 — #shepersisted series
http://louisegallagher.ca/shepersisted

A woman arrives at Inn from the Cold, the family emergency shelter where I work, seeking refuge. She is pregnant, alone, scared.

Her life has not been easy.

Poverty. Abuse. Addictions.

They’ve all taken their toll.

She’s had other children. All have been apprehended by Family Services.

She desperately wants to keep this one. She desperately wants this time to be different.

She has known no other way than the hard road.

Will she find a softer landing this time? Will she find the help she desperately needs so she can proudly call herself a mother, without the shame of the past haunting her?

Will she be able to hold her child in her arms? Watch her go off to her first day of school, graduate from high school, go to college, get married? Be there for the significant milestones? The milestones at which no one was ever there for her.

There is hope.

For this mother and so many other mothers like her who have only known the hard road and are now, finding shelter, sanctuary, healing at The Inn.

Every day mothers like this mother, and fathers and grandparents too, who have not had an easy road find their way to the Inn seeking that one thing they seem to have lost completely, hope.

And at the Inn, they find it. Along with the possibility of a better tomorrow for them and their children.

It’s not easy work. But then, being born into poverty, moving thousands of miles from a war torn land only to find yourself destitute, without a place to call home, is not the easy road either.

See, we all want to be good parents. We all want to believe we are doing our best to provide for our children, to create safe and loving homes where they can grow up knowing life is not as hard as we’ve known it.

We all want to believe.

And then life hits. And we stumble and get back up. Sometimes, if we don’t have the resiliency to withstand life’s stumbles, the getting back up is not far enough to bring us out of where we were. And we stay trapped.

And then, as we struggle to rise up, judgement from others hits too.

It’s your own fault, they say. You’re an addict. You have no education. No skillset. Look at you. What have you done to improve yourself? What have you done to make it better? My parents were immigrants, they managed. Why can’t you?

Sometimes, the only answer is, I’ve survived.

I’ve survived to this moment, right now, where I am reaching out for help.

I’ve survived whatever life has thrown in my path until this moment, right now, where I am able to see the possibility of a different path.

I’ve survived, war, famine, terrifying journeys in a small boat where I had to pay my entire life savings to cross an angry sea so that my family could have hope for a better future.

I’ve survived. And now I’m here. Can you help me?

Every day, children and their families come to the Inn seeking hope for a better future.

They’re not seeking fame and fortune, the keys to the city, a pulpit to stand on.

They are seeking hope, possibility, a future.

And everyday we provide shelter, sanctuary and healing so that better is possible. So that the future is not as grim, or hard, or bleak as the past.

We take the long-view. The view that says, to create better we have to start with the small steps right now that will move a family back home as quickly as possible without too much disruption to the delicate fabric of a child’s developing mind and body. From the sanctuary of home, we can work together to create healthy relationships, healthy parenting, healthy eating habits… whatever is needed to create a healthy environment for children and their parents to thrive and live without the fear of homelessness rearing its head on some dark and terrifying horizon.

For that mother, the one who yearns to see her child grow up, hope is there. Possibility exists. But only if we create a path for her to be safe at home without fearing the past will always be her future.

She’s at home now this mother, but there are hundreds more like her, yearning to revel in the joy of watching their children grow up free of the past that brought them to their knees.

We can’t do this work alone. We don’t. There are others working with us, committed to making a difference. Committed to helping children and their families find their way home.

Everyone can help. Everyone can make a difference.

It begins with changing our minds about why people fall, because if we believe it’s their fault they fell, whose fault is it they survived?

 

Change is here to stay.

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Photo: The 5 Cheese board at Divino

It was not news we were expecting.

My youngest daughter and I regularly meet for dinner at Divino Wine and Cheese Bistro downtown. We’ve occasionally tried new places but always we come back to our favourite.

It’s been that way for over 10 years, “Ever since I reached legal drinking age,” she tells our server last night as we shared our favourite meal.

We’re regulars. We always get the same table at the front, by the big windows that lead out to their small curbside patio. We also always share the same meal. Haricots Verts. 3 Cheese Plate. Mussels. The only thing we change up are which 3 cheeses we share and, if dessert is also on the evening’s agenda, our go to is whatever the chef has created as the Trio of Macaron.

It isn’t that we don’t like change. It is that for my youngest daughter and I, we like the familiarity, the rhythm, the feeling that this is ‘our place, our thing’. And we know the food is great, there service stellar and the atmosphere exactly what we want — low key, comfortable, classy.

When her sister is in town, we make ‘our place, our thing’ Cilantro’s. Another restaurant owned by the same corporation, like Divino, it has been in operation for over thirty years. Since my daughters were little girls, Cilantro has been our family dinner favourite. Or, as my youngest daughter quipped last night, “The place we know my sister will always cry in!”

That’s also one of our things, our dinners are not just time to share a meal, they are a time to deep dive into our hearts and share what’s happening, inside and out, our lives.

Fortunately, there’s no news of Cilantro closing.

Divino’s closing is unfortunately, a sign of the times. World slump in oil prices, downturn in economy leads to less corporate lunches and soirees. The downtown restaurants, faced with rising wage costs, carbon tax and decreasing customer base are feeling the pinch.

I just wasn’t prepared for it to be ‘our place’ to close!

Last night as we sipped our wine and shared a bowl of mussels, our server told us some of the stories of the regulars who have been streaming in to visit one last time.

Like the couple sitting on the patio who had their first date in that same spot almost 20 years ago. They’ve celebrated every one of their 15 wedding anniversaries there, and last night was the last one.

There have been a lot of tears, a lot of laughter, a lot of ‘what next?’, she told us. Still in shock, she’s swimming in the five stages of grief. “I’m kind of stuck in denial,” she said. “I’ll probably stay there until the last menu ticket is placed on the counter, the last drop of wine poured.”

I’m with her, and because I loathe to say good-bye, C.C., my daughter, her boyfriend and I will be some of the last guests to bid adieu to one of ‘our favourites’ on Saturday night.

“Change is here to stay,” an old boss of mine used to say.

I just wish that sometimes, it wouldn’t change the places I like to go.

One thing it won’t change however, is my youngest daughter’s and my bi-weekly dinners. We’ll just have to stretch our minds and dining muscles to find a new restaurant to call, ‘our place, our thing’.

Cilantro anyone?

 

What is essential on your journey?

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What is essential on your journey?

That new pair of shoes? Going to that new, hip restaurant? Finding the perfect chair to match the sofa?

Or, is it the people. The experiences. The things you learn, and forget or choose to leave behind?

What is essential on your journey?

This question arose from my sleep. From that place between dreaming and awakening where images and voices filter through the noise of the day to fill the silence of the night. In its arising, I am left wondering… what is essential on my journey?

It is a different question than “what do I believe in?”.

That one is easy for me to answer. I believe in love. In being kind. Honest. In building community. Connection. In creating space for peace. Joy. Harmony.

I believe in doing my best to create a better world around me, a world filled with harmony, joy, peace, beauty. A world where love is always the answer, even when I want to hate, or be angry, or act out.

Love is always the answer.

Which raises the question, “Is love essential on my journey?”.

Is love even a thing I can carry or is it a non-thing best left undone so it can weave its own magic?

Or is love an action I must do to create the more of it I want in my life? I know my friend Mark at  Musings and other writings will have an answer for that one because he always tells me love is a verb, not a noun.

But is it essential I carry love with me, or, does love carry me?

Is it essential I know the answer, or is it essential I trust in Love to be present, in all kinds of weather?

Lovely questions to explore and to let go of as I step into a day where I know love and caring, kindness and compassion will be present in all ways when I trust in their presence and let go of the nonessentials and focus on what is most important to me:

To touch hearts and open minds and set spirits free to dance in a world of harmony, joy and beauty.

Namaste.

_____________________

I should also add that this post/quote was also inspired by the amazing Joyce Wycoff over at Soul of Art who wrote about implementation of practices she learned through a 21 day course on creative expression and Photoshop.