I Remember

I got up early today, a small sacrifice. Comparatively. I dressed and took the short drive to the core and stood with hundreds of others around the cenotaph and quietly listened as names were read over a loud speaker. "In memory of..." At one point the speaker cut out or the person speaking was not using the microphone properly. The wind blew across it and it sounded like, what I'm thankfully not sure about, distant shelling. A low rumble. I wondered if the veterans in the crowd were being triggered by it. They all stood stoically, not letting on if it was, or if they were even able to hear it. WWII Vets are quite old, a good number of them probably can't hear all that well.

I stood there listening to the names being read and the families they were associated with. The speaker cut back in so I could hear. And I remembered that some very distant relative of mine died in WWII. The thought just popped into my head. A few seconds later, over the speaker came, "In memory of William Clayfield, on behalf of the Clayfield family." I never ever would have had the chance to know this person. He's a part of a branch of the family that I don't know, but every one of us is related somehow. I just combed through my partially incomplete family tree and I did not see any notes for him, but there were other family members with different surnames that were noted as having served. And even though I have no idea who he was, hearing the name come out of the speaker, struck me. I took a quick breath and my eyes actually welled up with a tear or three.

The names continued to be read. As we approached 11 am and the trumpet began, I felt a small personal connection. I have always been very touched by Remembrance Day ceremonies, even in grade school. I never forget to take my moment of silence no matter where I am at that time of day (at work, driving, I don't care). Since I first learned about this day and why it's important I have had a special respectful place in my mind for those that died. All of them never knowing if they died for a good enough reason. Never knowing if the war would end or knowing their children at home.

I remember in a respectful detached manner. Until today there was absolutely nothing personal connecting me or my family to WWII, not that I knew of. I might have been the only member of the family in that crowd. I hope I'm wrong, since I wouldn't recognize the other branches of the family anyway (my grandfather was one of 11 or 12 brothers).

I refuse to forget.

Good Girls Don't...

There are a number of things that girls are taught to not do, either consciously or subconsciously. We are taught not to want sex. We are taught to want to make babies. We are taught that if we do not have an hour-glass - or these days butter knife - figure we must be ugly and no one would want to be with us so it's okay to just sit at home eating Ben and Jerry's watching chick flicks. We are taught so many things that are frighteningly wrong.

We are taught that it's not okay to be better at something than a guy if you want them to like you. This is reinforced by the idea of being emasculated. Which by definition means to weaken or to water down, the first definition is not to make a man feel like he has no penis or like less of a man but this has come to mean only that a dude is not a dude any longer if a woman is stronger, louder, more talented or smarter than he is.

Thankfully not all men are like this when confronted with someone of the opposite sex with greater skills. My peer group is full of them and that's just one reason why I keep them around. I haven't found many more of them outside of my peer group. I feel like I have a rare and valuable collection of male friends who are confident in themselves enough to not feel like they suddenly have no genitalia simply because I can drive a manual transmission better than they can... for example.

I have lost all contact with a man outside of my peer group shortly after I showed him how his car could be driven. Not should, but could. Without breaking any laws or speeding and with his consent, he let me drive his car. Just around the block. And I got a cheap thrill out of driving something with more than a hundred ponies under the hood (don't get me wrong I love my super small and efficient Fiat, but it doesn't drive like a new Jetta or anything with that many horses).

Allow me to elaborate that I've been driving a stick for a good decade now. I know how it's done. He'd been re-learning how to do this for less than a week. Of course I'm going to be better at it than he was at the time. I wasn't just showing off (only a eensy-squeensy bit), I was just having a little fun. But I had the audacity to be better than him at something that women are supposedly horrible at: driving.

Good girls don't play with boys' toys. Good girls don't show off. Good girls don't boast. Good girls should just pretend to do poorly to let the men in their lives feel like they're better at something when they may not be to preserve ego. Then he'll like you. That kind of nonsense is for good girls, nice girls.

I guess I'm not very nice. And that suits me just fine.

Punching the air

As I write this, Obama leads with 251 electoral votes to Romney's 203. And I punched the air with my fists and shouted, "YES!"

I can't get this excited about politics in my own country because too many people still voted for Stephen Harper. I wept on the last Canadian election day. I'm not American, but what I see in the election results is that enough people care about their fellow Americans and their rights and freedoms.

This gives me a just a little more hope.

Call me premature if you like, but congratulations on your second term Mr. Obama. You've earned it.

Can't stop the signal Mal

Further to my previous post, I bring you an article you simply must read. No matter what your position on the subject, these words are important, and say it much better than I can. 

It's been said before, I'll say it again. We change the clocks back one hour tonight. I hope with all my hope that the US does not turn their clock back 50 years on Tuesday.

I don't think I can express how very much I want Obama to win on Tuesday, the alternative is horribly horrifying. And I don't even live in the US. I keep thinking to my self that Romney is just a cartoon distraction, a place holder because Obama has to run against someone. And the things that come out of Romney's mouth are so ridiculous that I can't believe any American would buy it. This is what helps me sleep at night. I know a number of Americans. They're wonderful and intelligent people. I can only hope there are massive numbers of them on the other side of the border that will turn out in droves to vote on Tuesday and make the right choice.

Good luck America. We'll be watching.

A conversation I've had with myself before.

This was originally posted to my LiveJournal, but that seems to be slowly going the way of the dodo. After hitting "post" the darned thing just kept writing itself in my head while I was trying to sleep. So here you have the much extended version. Hence the inspiration for creating this tiny little space on the interwebs. 

I'm not the greatest feminist at the best of times, but there are sometimes that I catch myself being a truly terrible one and I question myself in the best way. Some people have weasels  some people have cruel Self Talk. My internal monologue can just be very contrary when it suits its needs. 

I'm not a 'down with the patriarchy' kind of feminist. I'm keenly aware of the way women have been conditioned to think about themselves and about everything around them (more about that later, promise) and how hard it is to stop this behaviour. Ever try to brush all the sand off your beach towel while it's still on the sand? Or removing burrs from your scarf while wearing wooly mittens? Yeah, it's like that.

Join me in learning to think differently. It'll be fun, I swear.

So anyways, I says to Mabel, I says...

It's the classic Needs vs. Wants discussion, except there's this new twist this time. I refuse to feel obligated to have certain criteria in one category or the other category. And I'm not going to feel bad about it either. There's this whole notion of guilt in my head that something most people would put in the Want category is a Need for me. Something as supposedly superficial as body type preference. 

It occurs to me that for a long time I've talked myself into putting a lot of the things I feel should be in the Need category into the Want category because … reasons? No actually it's because I'd convinced myself that my Needs were too specific and unimportant anyway and I'd never find that one person who could meet even 60% of those Needs. I convinced myself that I was just being too picky and I should just take what I could get so I don't die alone. Besides, what I Need doesn't Want me anyway…

That's a truly horrible thought. Bad, SelfTalk, bad! *smacks SelfTalk in the nose with a rolled up newspaper* No biscuit for you. 

Screw that. I'm going to be happy dammit. I might not be happy now, but that doesn't mean it's permanent. I could be happy tomorrow (for … reasons) or happier still in a month who the hell knows, right?

Since I've warmed up to the idea that just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I should be ashamed of going after what I want/need in relationships/partners/whathaveyou; that silly notion that I should sit around patiently waiting to be noticed is horse hockey. Absolute bull crap.

It might not always work, I may get a lot of rejection or flat out ignored for… reasons. It's a truly scary thing to embark on too, I could end up very lonely (and acutely once a month) for a long time with this kind of strategy. And at those times I will remind myself of the following: If guys are intimidated or turned off or offended by a woman who's (completely awesome but,) assertive, out spoken and particular about what I Need, well then I don't Want them.

My uterus, my choice

Anyone reading this already knows this about me, but if you're new? Brace yourself for a shock, I am steadfastly pro-choice. For everything related to this topic, from making that choice to have sex in the first place (your partner still has to say yes, and that's a choice), what contraception to use, if something should happen, do you keep it or abort? If you keep it to term do you keep it forever. These are all choices that I fully support a woman making for herself. 

Being pro-choice does not equal anti-life. A woman can choose to keep that happy little accident and I'd be happy for her, because she is exercising her right to choose. For the record choosing to have sex does not null and void a woman's right to make choices about the consequences. So there will be no tolerance for anyone who wants to drop the old chestnut "well maybe you should have thought of this before you opened your legs"(and not just for the obvious reason, but because that opens up a whole bag of slut shaming that's best left for another post (and there will be another post about that).

Allow me to provide you with some back story. I was raised to be pro-choice. Here's why. My Great Grandmother died because of a back-alley abortion gone horribly wrong. She had been left in a country  she wasn't born in (Canada) for an undetermined amount of time with several children to care for while her husband went back to Scotland (for reasons I've never really understood to be honest). She was lonely, she befriended someone, she became pregnant. She felt that she should hide this by having an abortion. This is not meant to cast any shame on her or make any assumptions about any of her emotions at the time as I'm sure they were in quite the turmoil. She made her choices, and though I'll never know her, I respect her choices. 

She died because there were no facilities for such a procedure. It wasn't just illegal in those days, it was taboo, it was a sin. It was a number of things, but it was ultimately not a well-studied and safe thing to do, but she chose to do it anyway. She had to have known the risks and how painful it would be regardless of her risk of death and she did it anyway. 

I am so thankful that I live in a country and an age where a woman does not have to weigh the risks of (possible) death vs. divorce and destitution. When my Great Grandmother died the truth came out. All traces of her were erased from the family home; all of her belongings and every photo of her. Gone. One ugly heirloom remained which I assume my mother still has tucked away somewhere. It was on the walls of the home I grew up in, but I haven't seen it in a while.

When one of my aunts was named after my Great Grandmother, that side of the family refused to talk to any of my mother's immediate family for some time.

This a story my mother has told me many times. She will always be pro-choice because had there been laws to protect this right and the facilities to do it safely, she would have known her grandmother. As would a great number of other children and grandchildren had the matriarchs in their families not been forced to make the choice between (possibly) death and divorce/destitution.

When I hear stores about Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth wanting to open the door to the slippery slope of criminalizing abortion and contraception by granting fetuses personhood, and when I hear news from the US (usually republicans) about the number of ways that the government should get 'all up in women's business' (but not helping in any other way, heaven's no), my feathers get a little ruffled. 

So imagine how ruffled my feathers get when I see that Linda Gibbons and Mary Wagner, were both given Diamond Jubilee awards, for their relentless harassment of women exorcising their right to make choices while they are both in prison for doing just that. By the way, if you feel like I do, that this sort of thing only encourages more violence at abortion clinics, then there's a handy little petition right here to ask that the awards be revoked.

This was taken a couple of years ago for a self-portrait project, it was taken at a time when there was a hint that the abortion debate might be reopened. Pro-lifers had gathered on Parliament Hill, and various Conservative MPs wandered out on the law to join and support them.