Walking a Mile in Ashley Madison's shoes

Seems that the world is preoccupied with the 37 million people in the world who registered for an adultery website whose information was hacked earlier this week. The hackers are threatening to release it, which has many people in a panic, and others laughing at the shortcomings of others.

Many of these people who are quick to condemn the adulterers, cheaters, or whatever other name you’ve seen these people called on the internet, are the same people who believe the church has no right to say what goes on in their bedrooms.

Well guess what? Adultery as a sin is a concept introduced into society by…the Church. It was introduced so that spouses, mostly husbands, would tough out those hard years with their wives while their infant was small, and not run away screaming or be in a hurry to impregnate someone else.

All of these people, and you may even be one of them, who are screaming “Cheating is wrong. Cheating is horrible. Cheaters deserve no sympathy. They get what they get.” have had the fortune to never been tempted to make that decision.

But hey, wait, aren’t you the same people who don’t want the government to tell you what goes on in your bedrooms? In your “love is love” campaigns that had you changing your profile pictures, are you supportive of swingers or do they get excluded because they don’t fit your moral code? Swingers are, by definition, cheaters, albeit consensual cheaters. But “cheating is cheating”, right?

I’m assuming that you’ve never had the misfortune of being in a loveless relationship. You know, after a while, everything gets to be a routine. So much so that maybe your partner is going through some form of depression. They don’t want to be sexually active, period, never mind with you. So you find a porn site, porn mags, think about Channing Tatum or Tatum O’Neill or someone else while you masturbate. Because masturbation isn’t adultery. I mean, you’re thinking about fucking someone else while replicating those actions, and your spouse is the last person on your mind. But that’s not cheating, right?

Or maybe you’re in a mentally abusive relationship. You feel awful about yourself. But you are devoted to your horrible spouse, even if every night they call you names and threaten to or just become physically abusive. Then you meet someone who makes you understand that the problem with your esteem is not entirely your fault. They boost you up and tell you you’re beautiful and give you the courage to stand up to the cruelty at home, and make you realise that you are better than anything you’ve ever been called. And though that person may not stick around for long in your life, by seducing you that one or two times, they’ve given you the courage and strength to get yourself and as much of your family as you can, away from that dank cruelty. But you should never even turn your attention to someone who isn’t your spouse because that’s cheating. You should suffer under the weight of abuse or cruelty.

Even though it may be difficult to imagine at this point in societal development, maybe you are realizing that the sexual identity you lived with all of your life was just a façade, a ruse. Perhaps it took the person you met and had the affair with to make you realise this. You found someone you could open up to and just be yourself. It’s not your spouse’s fault. You know you were lying to everyone, but yourself most of all. It’s a very painful and sometimes a very lonely journey. It causes untold grief and anguish to the person who comes to such a realization. But cheating is wrong. It’s much better to stifle your real self and keep your anguish about your true feelings inside.  

The reason why there’s so much cheating right now is that it has always been easier for us to talk to strangers about the shit going on in our lives than talking to the people who know us. So someone posts a cute profile picture, we are attracted, we talk, we make up shit so people will like us, we agree to meet, we fuck, we keep it going or we don’t. We’ve already done that with our spouse. They know the truth about us, and that sucks out all the excitement. 

If you are one of the 37 million, you have a choice to make right now: do you tell your spouse? Or do you let them find out the hard way?

You would be surprised how far a good conversation can go. Yes, people will get angry. People will cry. People will be hurt. But, as an adult, you know that you will always have to face the consequences of your actions. That’s what you teach your children. So start practicing what you preach. And start communicating with each other. That’s what you promised to do way back when you put on the nice suit or the poofy dress. You could find that it brings back that excitement you felt was missing.

Human beings are not whooping cranes. We do not mate for life. If that were true, you would still be with that first person who kissed you in kindergarten. Just become some religious edict that forced people into declaring their bond for each other became the global standard for relationship achievement doesn’t mean that it’s the end all and be all. Humans make mistakes. Humans have needs. Humans want to be loved. And humans believe their spouses should just know all this without talking about it. And we don’t. Otherwise sites like Ashley Madison would never have become so huge. There wouldn’t have to be warnings and consequences in various religious writings about it. Laws are made because people need to be told what the limits are and the consequences if you go beyond those limits.

So when you start with your “OMG if someone ever cheated on me, I would…” why not end it with:“want to talk to them in a calm manner about the problems in our relationship to see if we can resolve them. And if we can’t, then talk about how to end this before one or both of us become more hurt.”

But quit your judging, your scoffing, your glee at pointing out the faults and mistakes of others. Unless you’ve been in that situation, and have had to live with the consequences of your actions, all you’re doing is haranguing someone about whose life you know nothing.  

The Coolest Kid of All

My son and I went to the park today. He’s 9 now. And yes, I still go to the park with him. Why? Because if I don’t go, he won’t go. He would gladly spend 30 hours in a 24 hour day playing Minecraft or watching YouTube videos of people playing Minecraft.

So after dinner tonight, I suggested that we go out for a walk.

“Only if we can go to the park,” he said.

Absolutely. Park time, play time, 60 minutes of required physical activity for each child per day time. 55 minutes of mandatory staring at my phone time for me.

We saunter down the big hill, upon the top of which we live, and arrive at the school yard which leads to the park. Because I’m a little crazy and a big proponent of barefoot walking now, I take off my flip flops and walk barefoot through the grass, newly damp from the thunderstorm we had two hours before dinner.

From a distance, I see them. Sitting on the playset near the slide. I try to guess how old they are. They’re at least 11. They’re not in high school; they’re still too small.

“Ok, see those kids,” I tell my son, “They’re not going to want to play with you. They just want to sit and hang out. So don’t worry about it if they don’t talk to you. Just do your own thing.”

“Ok, Mommy.”

And I’m praying to all that is holy from the soles of my feet mushing into damp clover to the dark roots of my bleached hair that they’re not smoking. Because I don’t want to end up being angry, screaming, psycho mom today. I just don’t have the energy to yell at other people’s way-too-cool kids.

“Oh hey, Jimmy!”

It’s my son’s best friend with those kids (Jimmy is not his real name, and I highly doubt his mother reads this blog, but on the off chance she does…).

“Oh hey.”

And I see it on his face and I hear it in his voice. The last person in the world he wants to see right now is my son. His “special friend” with the “special needs” who makes him laugh and does silly fart noises and makes up Lego worlds and acts out cartoon heroes with in after school daycare. Because he’s embarrassing. Jimmy will never fit in with the cool kids by being friends with my son. Fact.

My son, being the friendly, outgoing kid he is, goes up to the cliquey clique and starts asking for names. There’s someone already calling him “kid”. There’s another who is ignoring him. There’s another who’s telling him to stop making pig noises. And the girl is too busy bragging about having a boyfriend at age 12 to care that someone is trying to say hi to her.

“You’re a weird kid.”

They only say that because they know I’m standing there. If I wasn’t there, I know the R word would have been thrown his way 10 times already.

“Yeah, well we’re going to be swearing a lot, so you might not like that.”

“Mommy?” my son calls over, “Is it okay if I listen to swearing?”

Some of them guffaw at this kid who is asking his mommy for permission to say bad words.

I eyeball all of them. “Dude, you have said words that are worse than any of them could ever think of. So you tell me. Are you okay with listening to them swear?”

Because if I hadn’t been there, and he was being pushed out of the group, and they hurt his feelings, neither Jimmy nor anyone there would be able to rein in my son’s temper. The joys and perils of being a spectrum kid. If he learns to harness that temper and use it in situations like these and say “fucking stupid motherfuckers and assholes” to their faces in his lost-all-control voice, those way-too-cool kids would probably shit their pants.

I call my son over. He’s trying too hard to fit in, the only way he knows how – by humour, talking, and being charming. They’re all ignoring him. Especially Judas, er, Jimmy, who, at this point, had home to get freezies for everybody.

“Dude, they don’t want to play with you. Like I said earlier. So, ignore them and do your own thing, okay?”

“Yeah, they’re kinda weird.” My son goes off to do his own thing, and doesn’t react when Jimmy comes back with freezies for all of them except him, then tries to dictate what they’re going to do next.

“Nah, I think we’re just gonna eat freezies and take off,” says the girl who is now bragging about how many boyfriends she’s had since she was eight.

So I watch my son go over to Jimmy, after all of that, and offer him one of his cars to play with. Jimmy looks mighty uncomfortable when he refuses. Not because I was there. But because he’s now stuck between a rock and a hard place. The bribe for the cool kids backfired. Yet, he still can’t let himself be seen with the weird kid, who, when nobody’s around, he calls his best friend.

My son decides to play on the slide and it’s taking every single ounce of control for me not to go over and start smacking kids on the head or giving my son a hug.

“Mommy, why do you look sad and pissed off?”

“I’m okay,” I call back.

He runs off to the other end of the play park, and horses around on the swings by himself. I’m listening to these kids try to outbrag each other, and I just want to tell them off for being assholes in general. But that’s not my place. If their parents aren't concerned about their 12 year olds talking about crude sex acts with their alleged boyfriends and girlfriends, I'm not going to devote my energy to being concerned, either.

And then I see her. She’s about nine, maybe ten. She has the cutest polka dot skirt with a pink blouse and is being pulled along by a medium-sized dog. The dog pulls her right up to my son, who starts talking to the puppy and asking the girl what the puppy’s name is.

Soon, my son is doing what he does best – chatting up a girl and making her feel special. And the gang of kids? They’re too busy using Jimmy for snacks, and Jimmy's too busy letting them. 

Chopsticks (or What Does Your Child Know Part 2)

My son and I had a very interesting conversation today. It all revolved around chopsticks.

I asked him to set the table tonight. We were having Asian-style noodles (and I mean that – there was fish sauce and soya sauce and oyster-flavour sauce and sesame seed oil in them) and I asked him if he wanted chopsticks or a fork. He chose the fork, and I chose chopsticks.

“Mommy, are you using chopsticks because you’re Japanese?”

The question coming from him makes sense. You see, my brother-in-law, who shares my last name, married a woman of Japanese descent, so his sons are half-Japanese and also share my last name. Plus, I eat sushi and know bits and pieces about various animes (thanks in part to my twenty- and thirty-something male friends). In his nine-year-old mind, this is Spockean-style logic. 

“No, I’m using them because I’m part Chinese.”

“Wait a minute.”

My son stands boldly in the kitchen. “You’re part Chinese? But you don’t even speak Chinese.”

He’s got a point. The five Chinese words I know I learned from watching episodes of Ni Hao Kai Lan and listening to actress Shoshana Sperling in her Chinese clown character speak rapid Mandarin when we were in Clown Through Mask class together.

“Yes, I am part Chinese from my grandfather, and so that makes you part Chinese.”

“Hang on.” He puts on a serious voice. “But you told me I was part Irish. My name is Irish.”

“Yes,” I said, handing him the cheap blue China bowl with the noodles and siu mai meatballs piled high. “You are part Irish. Your name is Irish. You got that from your father. You got Chinese from me.”

“Whoa whoa whoa,” he said, setting the bowl down on the counter. “So I am Irish and Chinese?”

I smiled at him.

“My son, let me tell you something. You are made up of every single person on this planet. You have parts from every country in the world. You are a very special boy. I mean, I have a lot in me, because my parents had a lot in them. But then I met your dad, and he added to the mix. You have African (“What?!!”), Asian, Caribbean (“It’s Carib-BEE-an, Mommy!”), South European, North European, and Aboriginal blood in your veins. So you are unique because you are everybody. You can be whatever you want to be. And if someone tries to tell you you’re only one thing, don’t listen to them. You are everything. You cannot be labelled down to one thing. Other than unique.”

“Cool!” With that, he bounded across the kitchen and gave me a hug that almost knocked me over. Then he took his plate of noodles, sat at the table, refused to eat the coriander because they’re leaves, and ate dinner.

And that, people, is why I am loathe to ever “identify” with any one side or one affiliation. When you “identify”, you give people a label to paste on you. You may recall what happened the last time the world posted labels on things. They started to put the word “NO” before those labels or the word “ONLY” after them.  We cannot go back there again, yet in times of economic hardship and social unrest, society tends to devolve into labelling others so that they can blame one group or several different groups for the problems they face. Oh, except you, of course. You’re not like “the rest of them”. You’re okay for a [insert label here].

So there is the ammunition I have given my son to fight against all of the hatred coming out of the woodwork. I don’t make him identify with one group. And I’m sure he’s going to go through the same stuff that I did. “What are you, anyway?” “But you don’t look Irish.” “Oh wait, I see it, yeah, in your nose.” (yes someone said that to me once)

He’s going to be all of them. People will have to deal with it. He will be able to move through groups, and even bring groups together. That’s what we should all be able to do. So don’t put up barriers by succumbing to labels. Hang out with people. Find out what they’re about. And learn about yourself. Because we all came from the same amoeba, and that’s how we should all end up just before the sun takes over the earth. 

How I'd Kick It In The Head When I Turned Forty-Five

Don’t get me anything for my birthday.

No really. I’m not fishing for gifts.

Please don’t go looking for something ideal that will surprise me and be just what I’ve always wanted.

Don’t buy me a beautiful and fragrant dozen red roses. Their scent will turn rancid. Their smooth petals will dry and wither. Their thorns will get sharper as their stems turn wooden. They will droop and collect dust, until the dry petals flutter to the ground, one by one by one.

Don’t send me on a trip to Fiji or New Zealand or Santa Monica or New York or Galway or Morocco or Sweden or any of those places you know I long to visit. I will only find temporary reprieve and happiness walking the streets and capturing each pixelated memory. It will all fade from my mind when I take that return flight home. As the days, months, and years pass by, I will lose the sights, the smells, the touches, the sounds, and the tastes of all I experienced. It will only leave me wasted and worn and longing to return.

Don’t find me my soulmate. The one who lulls me to sleep with the perfect melody and understands my every whimsy and mood, who will hold me close or give me distance, only needing a glance and a vibe from me to know which to choose. I will just find their one fault that I cannot ignore and it will overshadow all of the good that they provide to me. I will drain their soul of all that is precious and loving, like I have done so many times before with other soulmates. I cannot ruin another life.

Don’t find me a man with the hairless, Adonis body and the arms that could bear me up into the clouds. It may end up being only one night but that night will make me crave more nights until I could no longer bear the thought of being without him. I would ruin other lives just for physical satisfaction.

Don’t give me a 1969 Aston Martin DBS. I couldn’t afford the insurance, the gas, the maintenance, so it would just sit in my driveway and look stunning while it rots.

Don’t build me a 7 bedroom, 2 wing 4500 square foot home on a 30 acre lot with a quiet ravine on the back of the property near a forest. I would have to clean it and pay taxes on it and furnish every room. I don’t have that much patience for shopping.

Don’t give me an NAD direct digital sound system with all the accessories and add-ons. Then I would hear all the imperfections in my favourite pieces of music, and I could never listen to those songs again.

Don’t whisk me off to the finest five-star rated restaurants with the top chefs in the country and their stellar wine cellars. Something would be too sweet, too salty, too bland, too rich; the wine would oxidize while we chatted about some inane, unimportant subject, and the dessert would be finished too soon.

Don’t buy me the perfect emerald pendant laid in 18kt gold with matching earrings, bracelet and ring, or any one of these pieces on its own. Inevitably I will lose part of the set, or I will be too afraid to wear them for fear of losing them, and I will hide them away in a secret drawer that I will forget I use.

Don’t give me a handful of gift cards or the one perfect gift card. Whether you realise it or not, you’ve put a value on me. I fear that you may find me worth more than I find myself.

Don’t throw me a huge surprise party and invite all my friends and make them sing that Mildred and Patty Hill standard and then have them shower me with practical gifts or prank gifts or combinations of both, ending the evening with a large cake with at least one candle for me to blow out while everyone cheers. If all my friends were to gather in one room, I guarantee at least one felony homicide would take place, but at the very least, I would spend all night worrying one would. I would never be able to speak to each person there, and I would want to. I would end up exhausted and despondent.

So please don’t get me anything for my birthday.  

Besides, you’ve just given me the one present that I needed most.

You listened to me. 

Happy Mother's Day. Because we're selfish.

I feel like the most selfish person in the world.

It’s possible that may even be a true statement.

But my selfishness is a direct result of my instincts. You see, when it comes right down to it, the instincts of every living biological creature, animal or plant, protozoa or virus, directs us to one thing.

Reproduction.

As higher-living organisms, we have been able to direct our urges towards other methods of satisfaction – everything from self-satisfaction (practiced by all primates and possibly some cetaceans) to barrier and chemical methods of birth control (practiced primarily by humans, although this may also be practiced by cetaceans) – but the genesis of sexual desire originates in our instinct to reproduce.

As a biological female in this cycle of reproduction, there are certain instincts that humans with this chromosomatic skill set also enact (though some are better at suppressing this instinct than others*). We must care for and protect this little creature who changed our own chemical makeup, leeched nutrients and vitamins and minerals and nearly every single part of its genetic makeup from our bodies during its term inside of us.

Once we have borne this creature unto the planet, we may continue to follow these instincts and reproduce more of these tiny creatures. But once we cease our creation of more creatures, our work is complete. Yes, we have to tend to these beings, nourish them, defend them, guide them through the perils and pleasures of the planet, but in essence, our work is done. We have left a piece of ourselves to remain here long after our journey down long road to our ultimate demise begins.

But we don’t think about it that way. We make this all a wonderful thing – we meet someone, we fall in love, we get pregnant, we have child or children, love them, and make sure that we raise them to be the best human beings they can be.

All we are trying to do is just live forever. We leave a piece of our DNA, just as our parents left theirs through us, and their parents through them. So that someone can know what becomes of the world after we have left it, whether our time ends at the moment we birth our child, a century after, or somewhere in between.

Those of us who choose to have children are often accused of the ultimate selfish act: bringing a baby into a world where there is nothing but discord and strife, hatred and violence. A world that is broken and seemingly irreparable. Those who choose not to have children often wonder why anyone would ever want to bring a child into such a place.

We do because our instincts command us to be selfish. We want those qualities of ours – kindness, generosity, benevolence, love, happiness – to stay on this planet forever. And we are leaving them here the only way we know how, the only way that has seemed to work for millennia.  We put our same qualities into those children that our instincts gave us the desire to create, love, and care for. As humans, we have learned how to easily control our instincts. But sometimes, when we make the world all about ourselves, we just want to indulge those instincts because we know we can make this world a better place.

To those of you who loathe this day because it serves as a painful reminder of what you have lost, remember you are the bearer of history. You are the eyes and ears and thoughts and tastes and smells of your mothers. By living your life, you are communicating all that she is no longer able to experience. You have not lost her; you have rebuilt her within you.

*And to those of you who no longer have any emotional ties to your mothers although she remains alive, you have been given the gift to make the world an even better place. You have halted the cycle of emotional destruction. You have the freedom to create your own cycle, and distance yourself from her malevolence. You are key people in the evolution of humankind. Celebrate this day by welcoming the changes you have brought, and relieve yourself of any guilt or hatred. You are too valuable to allow yourselves to be consumed by the hatred derived from your biological origins.

Hey cancer, please stop taking our friends away, kthxbye

Today is a strange day in and of itself. 

It’s May 7th, the day before May 8^th, which was my best friend and fellow Taurus Klaus’s birthday. It’s been 18 years since he passed away but I always remember him every year on this date, since he was exactly one week older than me. And he never let me forget that!

I also got word today from my good friend Jeanette that her best friend Bridget had passed away earlier this week. I had met Bridget on several occasions through Jeanette, but my favourite memory of her is this:

I was almost five months pregnant at the time. Not quite showing and unable to drink. But my friend Jeanette was getting married. So I went out for her hen night/stagette/doe night – whatever you want to call it when you take the bride-to-be out for her last night of debauchery, instead of sitting around opening up presents with prissy ribbons and wearing hats made out of paper plates and ribbons and bullshit like that.

It was in December, because she was getting married in January. There were six of us. Had to be because we all squished into a boat of a vehicle. One of those Cadillac/Lincoln type deals from the 80s that had bench seats in the front and back. We all had nicknames – I was Preggo, of course. And we met at Bridget’s house.

Bridget was married with two daughters who were extremely close with their mother. Bridget was warm and welcoming and made me feel at ease about going out with a bunch of drinkers and being one of two people who weren’t imbibing (the other being the designated driver). She took the time to make me feel special by getting me to talk about what was going on in my crazy life and how I was doing and would I be ready to travel the following month for Jeanette’s wedding. So we had our drinks, we had our name tags, Bridget gave her daughters one last scolding before bed so they wouldn’t give their dad a hard time, and we went out into the frosty, dark night.

Squished in the back of this massive boat-like vehicle, Bridget was telling us about these wonderful new Cadbury Christmas Elves that had pop rocks in them. So we had to stop at a gas station and find them. They were weird because your tongue would be coated in Dairy Milk richness when all of a sudden, the pop rock would explode and stick to your tongue and the roof of your mouth, sit there, and crackle. Once you got over the weirdness, they were the best damn Christmas candies on earth!

Thanks to pregnancy brain, all I remember about the ride to where we were going was that it was long, and dark, and cold, and full of pop rocks. We got to some building in the East end of Toronto and had to climb a steep flight of stairs; absolutely perfect for a pregnant woman with a fear of heights. We seemed to be the first people who arrived for the 11pm show. Lucky for me, they made virgin vodka crans.

We were laughing and chatting and having a grand old time, watching the club fill up with nothing but women. Not one gay man. Not one man dragged along by his wife. The only men were sound guys and barkeeps.

And then the main attraction men came out to your typical cheesy songs, dressed in chaps and cowboy hats and leather and the like, to hoots and hollers and whistles. You would never hear anything like that in a club featuring female dancers.

Then the strangest thing I have ever seen in a club, strip or not, happened. Women from the audience left their tables and went to stand on stage. I was looking around to see if they had been selected by staff, because of course we would have put our doe on stage with the rest of them. But no, these women seemed to just volunteer and walk up and knew what time to stand on stage.

Then we started to squeal in shock, horror, and hilarity. The male strippers went up to each of these women standing on stage and dirty danced with them, while the women pawed the well-built, washboard-abed, smooth-chested specimens of the male sex writhing against them. Some of them even kissed. It was just nasty!

It was that night when I decided I would never visit another male strip club again. 

Bridget's daughters are a decade older now, and they won’t remember the night that they almost got in big trouble just before their mom went out with a bunch of crazy women.

What Bridget and Klaus had in common is that they were both fighters until their bodies could fight no more. They both wanted to live as long as they could, through the pain and drain and the visits by friends and families, faces unrecognizable behind masks (which we took off when the nurses left the room), capped & gowned to the nines, as if we were at the Center for Disease Control.

Yet sttill, at the very end, each of them would have given you the nightshirts off their backs if they saw that you were shivering at the side of their bed.

Rest In Peace, Klaus. I miss you terribly, my friend, even if we never did do Remingtons together.

Rest in Peace, Bridget. Thank you for your kindness. 

Words and Music and Why You Matter

A couple days ago on Twitter, I posted this:

You do matter to someone else on this planet, even if you have yet to meet them. You will make a difference in someone's life. Yes. You.
— Naomi Mesbur (@woobiesmum) April 21, 2015 

Before you think I’ve started writing for hanging cat posters or Hallmark cards, I’m actually speaking, or Tweeting, from experience.

Two years ago, in April 2013, I felt like my life was coming to an end.  My soon-to-be finished relationship was being kept alive by artificial support. The one thing that had kept me going to the next day was writing, the art that I had stopped for almost 5 years after my son was born. But when my world was falling down around me, I found myself back at the page. I could express myself in written words without having to explain myself or worse, explain to anyone else. I didn’t just feel alone. I was alone.

Then I stumbled across this article by James Rhodes. His words grabbed me by my artist's throat and shook the fear out of me. There was also a link to a piece on his Soundcloud, Orfeo & Eurydice by Gluck. It had been years since a piece of music had moved me to tears. Having been turned inside out by this combination of words and music, I knew what I had to do.

I had seen an ad for the Ontario Writers Conference which was taking place that May at a location about 10 minutes from my house. I emailed to find out if they were still accepting registrations, and they were.  I signed up immediately, and met several writers who had a great camaraderie and seemed larger than life. Because (to me) they were authors. I was just someone who had written a few 200-300 page stories over the course of my life, which, even though I had let other people read them, had ended up in boxes and drawers and floppy diskettes and CDs.

While I was there, I noticed that the OWC had been sponsored by a group called the Writers Community of Durham Region – the WCDR - an organization which meets monthly 10 minutes from my house in the opposite direction. So I joined the WCDR, and found out that some of the authors from the OWC were just regular, crazy writers like me. More importantly, they were welcoming and encouraging, so much so that in June 2013, I did my very first ever public reading of a piece I had written, and I chose a piece I had just finished in April. If I was going to do this writing thing, then I was going to tear through all of the fears and insecurities I had had about it, and go out there and fail spectacularly.

Only I didn’t. Instead, I was asked to compete with that piece in the WCDR Slam that took place in July, and ended up as a finalist in the competition.

I continued to do spoken-word readings (and still do). Just because I didn’t win a competition, I wasn’t discouraged from getting up there again. That was another first for me, who was used to retreating and hiding at the first sign of not being good enough. At the winter reading I did that year, I was complimented by a fellow writer named Dale Long, who had read from his powerful Christmas story, The Good King, a fictionalized account of the adventures of King Wenceslas’s brother, on the same night. At that same Words of the Season, Dale and I had had a good chat about Warren Zevon and lyrics and music. Good talks like that always remain bookmarked in my mind.

Also that winter, Toronto’s favourite EDM son, Deadmau5, had just started his new paid and free subscription fan site. We were told that if we paid, we’d become VIP members and have access to all kinds of cool and free stuff. So of course I signed up, and had access to a chat room with other VIP members. It's always interesting to be a part of a fanbase, because people believe that the common thing that brings you together, in this case music, should automatically bind you together. And I did meet some cool people who could hold a conversation and do so quite well. But most of the people who had joined the site and the chat fancied themselves as sophisticated music producers. From the 14-year-old kids who had just figured out how to work a Launchpad app to the nearly-50-year-old men who are grasping at their one last dream to be Rick Wakeman or Keith Emerson, to the spoiled twenty-somethings who cry to their parents to buy them every piece of expensive music technology and software, almost everyone in that chat was a “producer” and believed their music sounds just as good as Deadmau5’s, or maybe even slightly better. They posted links to their music in the chat room and on the message boards, and it was like wading through the garbage disposal in Episode IV to try to find something decent to listen to.

So I was rather hesitant when one of the more intelligent and entertaining people in the chat room, Moblyn , sent a link to a new track he’d created and produced. In spite of my hesitation, I gave his track a courtesy listen.

I practically jumped out of my chair. I couldn’t believe that someone in that room was making music of that quality and sound. It was different, unique, and had that something that was similar to what I had felt in Orfeo & Eurydice even though it was EDM.

What really ties all of this together was my participation in the Muskoka Novel Marathon in July 2014. I was locked away for 72 hours with 39 other fellow writers, and each of us had to write a novel in that time to raise funds for YMCA literacy programs. I was a first-time participant, as was Dale. Writers put themselves under enough pressure to finish a piece, but when you find yourself in a a situation like that, the stress is magnified about a thousand percent more. There is an actual deadline, and you're racing against other people as well as yourself to finish on time. In the middle of the marathon, I got a message from Moblyn saying his new album was ready and would I take a listen.

I downloaded it and did nothing but listen to it for the remaining 36 hours after while I finished my Marathon novella. Any writer worth their mettle who needs to dig deep will be hard-pressed to describe what they find in the middle of an inspirational and driving piece of music. But we can show you the end result. The right music allows us writers to listen to the words behind the sounds our ears hear, and put them down on the page. I got through, finished my piece, which was in a genre and style I had never written in before - satire. In September, when we had our reunion, Dale won an award for his novel. I did not. But I did get high praise from the only Brit on the judging panel. If you can impress a Brit with satire, you know you've done something rather special.

At the end of the year, I was invited to my first in-home Christmas party in decades, hosted by Dale and his lovely wife Sue, whom I had met at the Muskoka Novel Marathon reunion, and attended by the same group of writers whom I had spent most of the last year with at both the WCDR and the shared Muskoka experience. I was the last to arrive, and Dale and Sue and their daughters Emily and Rebecca were kind enough to let me usurp their time and company long after everyone else had left, the way that friends do. We had a grand old time just chatting about, what else, music.

So here we are in April 2015 - two years from the first paragraph above. Two years from when my life was coming apart. I guess I can now look back and see that I was emerging as something. In the middle of it, it didn't really seem like it. But the people I met along the way of this journey - people who did more than just say hello, people who became friends - inspired me to do the one thing that I'd always had difficulty doing  – just be who I am. It’s easy to put on a façade and a smile and deflect shyness with humour or sarcasm. It’s difficult to relax and just be your unconfident self in a room, whether it's a real room or a virtual one, of artists whose creative souls are as open and vulnerable as yours. I wanted and had to thank them for all they had done for me, who I've become as a writer, as an artist, and as the person I am right now sitting here telling you this (even if it meant I was part of a collective group of jerks). 

We all have days where we feel awful, alone, at our wits end. But if you ever have a day where you feel like you're losing yourself, or you don't think you matter, you do. You matter to someone now (even if you don't think anyone's around) and you will matter to someone you may not have even met yet (even if that person is waiting to emerge from inside of your current shell). And while you're waiting, listen to the music around you, let it turn you inside out, and let it give you the courage and the words to say something for yourself.