Family, part III: neighbour's kitten (prospective) - narcissism and hyperextended adolescence

I had arranged to attend the Sunday morning service with my friend S. at his Evangelical Church. I have probably sat through no more than a dozen or two church services in my life, and almost exclusively for either a marriage ceremony or a funeral service. In fact when S. asked me when was the last time I attended one without pretence, I realised after reflection that I probably never had done so. And I had never been to an Evangelical church for any reason before.

I was impressed with the stripped-down parsimony of the service and of the message, and how much simpler it was to comprehend compared to that with which I am much more familiar such as the Catholic service and its elaborate, inscrutable ceremony and symbolism. The worship parts were focussed on a few songs, with simple, familiar arrangements, presented by a three piece band (drums, bass and guitar) with a male and two female singers, and simple, straightforward, modern lyrics projected onto a screen above the performers suggesting the audience to sing along, which they did. And between songs the main performer expressed his thanks and love to the divine with a refreshing and unambiguous candour. No obtuse or obscure hymns in 15th-century English, no lofty organ or rehearsed choir, more like families with parents and children sitting around the campfire.

I had a lot of work I wanted to get done that afternoon so I got myself set up at my desk and went out to get a coffee at the neighbourhood coffee shop around the corner from my house. It was very busy and although I had planned to hole up at my desk for the day, it was turning out to be a very nice day and I was feeling a bit cut off, so I decided to hang around there for at least a little while and work on the Saturday cryptic crossword puzzle. As I looked around the shop I thought again of the crowd at the hockey game the night before, and the crowd at the church that morning, and then the crowd in the coffee shop. The people there were all "grown up", that is more or less my age: late 20s, 30s and 40s, single, and in pairs and threes and fours, but not a single child, no parents, no grandparents, no husbands, no wives. A whole crowded coffee shop on a Sunday afternoon in a trendy "up-and-coming" neighbourhood in a large city, and all of us living these sort of detached, urbane, sophisticated yet leisurely, empty lives. At the table next to me I overhead an obviously gay man telling his female interlocutor "Oh, let me show you this kitten I am thinking of getting", before showing her a series of photos on his iPhone. He went on to describe long lists of pros and cons he had already mapped out before soliciting his companion's opinion of the would-be adoptee. I felt that the inordinate importance that this man put on such a trivial decision as adopting a kitten somehow represented the narcissism of my entire hyperextended adolescence, my entire generation, my entire neighbourhood, my entire city and most of my acquaintances in it.

Family, part II: sister and weaving the strands of the family tapestry

On Saturday I went, with my mother, to my sister K.'s place in a nearby town to see her 13-year-old son (i.e. my nephew) play game four in his team's best-of-five Tri-county hockey finals. It was an exciting game, and my nephew C. scored the final two goals for his team, who won 4-3 to tie the series at 2 games apiece (they won game five yesterday to take the championship!).

K. lives in a smaller city/town about 40 kilometres west of my city, but the scene at the hockey rink might as well have been a different country from where I live. There was a big crowd of parents, grandparents, siblings and friends, all enthusiastic and out to cheer on the home team. My sister knew a lot of the other moms and dads and there was a real sense of community and family to the whole place. And over on the other side was the whole thing repeated for the visiting team, who were themselves from another town about 40 kilometres to the south.

I was struck by the vivid contrast between the scene before me and not only the scene I live in, but also the scene in which I myself grew up. There was a closeness and togetherness, within the families themselves and between the families, a wide, intergenerational community united with a common purpose and celebrating achievement. I longed to trade my solitary existence for such a sense of belonging.

I remember when I was an adolescent how completely disconnected I felt from my family, and how any sense of community I felt was with other dysfunctional teenagers. I recognised that not only did I as a teenager understandably fail to recognise the gravity of the antisocial behaviour choices I made at the time, but so did the rest of what little structure I had of my family, school, community and whatever other feeble forces were or ought to have been acting on me at the time. I played hockey but there was nothing there to weave it into part of the life of our family. There was nothing to weave at all really, just a few ambitious strings here and there, stretching out all alone from a single point to other tiny islands. No fabric. No tapestry.

Family: goddaughter and unconditional love

I had dinner tonight with J., my goddaughter, who got married two weeks ago. A few years ago we got in the habit of going out for dinner once a week, a habit which unfortunately did not survive very long into the S. zone. It looks like we might resume it, even with her now being married and all! I was at the wedding, in fact I walked the bride down the aisle and gave her away - a very proud moment for me. A few years before, J. came to me when she was struggling and needed help, with few places to turn. At the time I was no longer seeing her mother and was not really in touch with either of them, but nonetheless I stepped up and supported her with whatever naïve support skills I had at the time. Little did I know at the time not only how much I would come to cherish that girl, but how much she would come to support me when it was my turn to struggle. Little did I know that it was from this adopted family member that I would finally learn about unconditional love.
She has grown into such a fabulous, caring and insightful woman, while still maintaining the zaniness which makes her unique. I love you J.!

I remember

I remember the first time I felt this inspired was when I first started working at a successful but somewhat dysfunctional restaurant chain in 2005 and I suddenly felt like I understood shit and that with this understanding I could really contribute to turning around an organization which was otherwise very troubled and really could have used (and still could use) some serious, steady outside help.

I met a couple of people there, including L. (whom I had actually met before and who was to become a very close friend), whom I felt recognised the value of a fresh perspective, and hopes were raised, but not much came of it and within months they were both gone from the company, I had lost my inspiration and next thing I knew I had my head right back up my ass where it had been so comfortable for so long. And where it stayed for quite some time.

The next time I remember almost resurfacing was in late summer 2008 when I got a bunch of my ducks lined up and again felt like I got it. I hosted my usual summer BBQ and booked it around when L. could come from Calgary, which she did. Notwithstanding whatever forgettable things happened that night, firmly planted in my memory is a walk we took the next day on the beach. I am not even sure how to characterize that conversation but it was kind of like me telling L. that I felt like it was time to grow up now, and L. agreeing, encouraging and approving.

And it went very well for a while, I did a very good job of focussing on grownup things and I was just together enough for couple months and then I met S. I thought I had it figured out but the thing was, I was missing some crucial understanding and that doomed the whole thing to the disaster that it turned out to be.

But without that disaster where would I be?

Part three is now, when I have the mature perspective, and the mature reaction formations.

Fast Forward

Fast forward to today. I met LB for lunch at a trendy brewpub in the downtown west end, her pick, which happened to be one of my crowd's favourite watering holes back when we were still scheming how to get served without valid ID. I had chased her down and she is as busy as I am but I just knew there was something there from that one convo we had that day and I was not to be disappointed. Except for a quick hello at one campaign event I had not seen or spoken to her since that time we met and canvassed together last year. But she put me at ease right away. And she knew everything I was going to tell her before I could even annunciate it, it was uncanny. I even told her the ice cream story and it was not like I telegraphed it to her but she saw it coming when I started and what that made me realize, along with a few other clues I picked up on, was that this just gets better, because if I stick with this it will not be long before I am less fascinated by cheeky stories about buying ice cream for cashiers and more focussed on how I can grow into the next level that I know I am capable of.

Holding Pattern

One Saturday morning last September, I spent a few hours going door to door dropping off pamphlets for a municipal political candidate in my riding. This was not the only few hours I spent doing this kind of work, as I wound up being very involved with this campaign, but it was the first, so it was all new to me on that day. I was coming in pretty green, I had never met the candidate before that day, but I was happy to support her, and looked forward to doing my bit, mostly out of my revulsion for the sitting councillor against whom she was running. We were outfitted with buttons and T-shirts, armed with our stacks of material and sent out to hit the streets in pairs. I was teamed with LB, another woman I had never met who bore something of a resemblance to the candidate, and together we set off to our station which turned out to be a somewhat neglected part of the riding, including a large public housing project which we almost missed canvassing it was hidden so well.
Our conversation became very candid, very quickly, yet at the same time very casual. In short, we hit it off, but neither of us was shopping for a partner, so it was not hamstrung by that kind of tactical manoeuvring.
S. and I were going through the roughest bit we had been in, and in fact I had tried and failed to end it not long before. LB was single and seemingly happily so, and I somewhat teasingly suggested that she were somewhat deluded, what kind of a woman is happy alone, etc., all in good fun. I explained to her my situation with S. and that I was trying as hard as I could to make it work but that I felt like I (and my relationship) was in a holding pattern. Sometimes an airplane approaches its destination but it cannot land because something is not ready on the runway, and diverting to an alternative landing strip is inconvenient for the crew, the airline and the passengers, so the pilot elects to fly a holding pattern near the destination, hoping that the problematic weather or ground situation or whatever it is will clear before the airplane exhausts so much fuel that it can no longer afford the luxury of choosing a between a convenient landing site and an available one.
But as cynical as I was about my situation, as I explained it to this sudden, new friend on this unexpected and intimate level, I still felt like I was doing the right thing, and that LB's attitude was selfish: what kind of thirtysomthing woman could be happy alone, I mean come on? That is a thing about a holding pattern, it is an expression of hope that conditions will improve. But sometimes they do not, and you have to be ready to cut your losses and head to the alternative landing site, before you run out of fuel.

Random act of chutzpah

The best thing that happened yesterday however was when I checked in to the a large bookstore downtown to pick up a Julius Knipl book which I had meticulously researched before heading out. When I went to check out, I found myself at the cash with about five idle, smiling, young, female cashiers and while I conducted my purchase with one I could not help but overhear one talking to another about ice cream. When I engaged her on it she explained that she was a bit of an aficionado, although her nut allergy got in the way and she in fact preferred to make her own which got us talking about that. In any case I left and unlocked my bike but then I remembered there was a fancy grocery store in the basement of the office/shopping complex across the street, and I got a funny idea. I crossed the road and locked up in front of the mall entrance and went down to the grocery store, which was open on a Sunday, and scanned the ice cream section. I inspected a few tubs and discovered that the majority of the dairies appeared to blanket label their products with "May Contain Nuts", regardless of the flavour. But then I spotted some kind of organic ice cream and picked up a small half litre tub of cappuccino which had no nuts and no mention of nuts and i grabbed five bowls and five spoons from some kind of soup thing they had, and I had to talk (and buy) my way through that one where the cashier suggested to me that the bowls were "very expensive". I suggested 20 cents a piece and she countered with 25, and I was not going to argue with that I mean this was a stunt but there was no going back. After all was said and done I actually asked for a bag - in a town where conventional wisdom has  equated the plastic bag with Satan's chariot - and while I was digging around in my pocket for the requisite nickel you need to dispel his wrath, she actually found a paper bag and handed it to me, gratis, hallelujah, into which I loaded the icy treat and bowls.

There is a prior version of me who would not have found the courage to carry out the final part of this story, but we are not talking about that me. I walked across the street, sober as a churchmouse, with a paper bag of organic ice cream and bowls and spoons, and walked into the store and put it on her counter. She was a bit stunned and shaking but in a good way, and opened the bag and announced "Oh my God, it's ice cream", and I just kind of looked left, looked right, a split second with one girl and then the other, looked her in the eyes and wished her well and instructed her to make sure she shared her gift with her friends, and then I left.

This is the part when I think maybe I was a bit weak. I fled the scene a bit too quickly, the young ladies were just gaggling over me, I might have stuck around, even if it did not mean it was going to make something big out of it, it still might have been worthwhile to see more of their smiles, they were really touched. I really wished I had had my business card with me I could have put it in the bag and then it is up to her and them if they want to thank me personally or whatever. I did not notice that I did not have my cards with me until after it was already over and I was on my way home and then I realised that I could not have put a card in the bag since I did not even have one with me, but whatever. I made their day, their whole weekend, a whole pack of pretty young friendly women, and all it took was chutzpah. I remember from the moment I thought of the idea until I delivered the gift, it was just balls, the whole way, it seemed so crazy but oh my god those happy young women were so bowled over it was amazing.

Another good night

I had another good night tonight, at a different east end Irish pub, this one just down the street from my house. I sat at the bar and wound up in a wide-ranging conversation with an interesting gentleman who himself was a lawyer, although the conversation actually started out being about ice sailing, and then sailing in general and went on from there. I equally enjoyed trading smiles with Brenley the charming barmaid.

Last night was more of the same, except you can't call it more if it predated the other more, at yet another Irish pub in my neighbourhood, this one with an alluring industrial vibe and oysters. I enjoyed a modest half dozen on the half shell with a couple of pints while watching my beloved (and decided underdog) hockey team defeat an ancient east coast rival.

Afraid

I am almost afraid to jinx it by saying that things are going so well, but nonetheless things are going so well. I almost feel like for the first time in my life I get it, I know how to deal with everything. My job is to work on myself and make myself the best man I can be, and to present and promote that man to the rest of the world. I am proud of the man that I have (finally) become, and am ready to make a difference for my family, my community and my country.

St. Patrick of Greektown

Last night was St. Patrick's Day - well I guess it was really all day. It turned out to be an unforgettable one. It started out normal enough, working from home and specifically trying to help out my new developer C. He suggested we meet for a beer in the Greek part of town and even though I knew I had to be at a board meeting at 7:30 at nearby community centre, I took him up on that. We had a blast and ended up downing a coupla heavier drinks, one round we bought and one foisted upon us by the congenial scottish-irish bartender. I was late leaving for my meeting and on the way out tipped a roond for the friendly aforementioned Anthony. and his attractive team of bartendresses Jasmine and her just as pretty colleague whose name now escapes me.
I hurried to my board meeting and arrived so late that they had actually filled out a delegate form for me which we were to submit for the national policy convention which I shall be attending in the capital in June. There was one slightly awkward bit at the end where our erstwhile candidate took the floor to elucidate his displeasure at feeling like he had been thrown under the bus not only by national but by the riding association as well, and he did so without looking me or the other member of the candidate committee in the eye. Awkward but over, and hopefully past us. Nothing to suggest that our recommendation was anything other than well thought out.
But the real fun started when I left there and got a call out of the blue from my friend M., calling from a lineup outside an Irish pub back in Greektown. This was doubly surprising but on one hand he had been out of town for several months on work, and in fact I had had no idea that he was even back in town, plus the fact that he and his girlfriend N. were anywhere in the east end of town, because he has always been strictly a west end boy. I did not have to be asked twice and headed straight there. When I got there I ended up in line behind a couple of nice ladies named Becky and Diane, and I chatted with them and the door man while we wiled away our wait. When our turn came, I made a spontaneous decision to spring for the cover for my new companions - a gesture which they accepted gratefully. They were both spoken for, but I did not care about that, I was just having a good time and wanted to share that feeling. When we got inside I found M and N in the dense crowd, and we mingled with our fellow honorary Irishmen and women, including I remember one Russian gentleman with whom I chatted in my badly broken Russian. While this was happening, suddenly a pint of beer arrived over the crowd from the other side of this little wall, being handed from hand to hand, with the message that it was for me. It came from one of the girls I had met in the line. A girl I did not know bought me a drink and sent it across half the bar. Welcome to my new life! I ended up talking to a whole bunch of men and women, and at some point I could not find M. or N. and just had to go home and did so, alone, but content that I had found my way out of the horrible forest that had kept me so lost for so long.

A Sense of Purpose

I was at an upscale coffee chain outlet in the financial district yesterday when this mind-blowing song came on the sound system. It is hard to believe that I had never heard it before, considering the genre is directly down the middle of my favourite 80s angst pop paradigm. The chain has been real good to me lately, playing a delicious mix of 80s indie gems, both known and unknown. Who knew I would be getting into more music from 1982 here in 2011, but it is what is.

Sense of purpose is maybe a tiny stretch, but I really feel like I finally understand something important that has been eluding me for so long. The dissolution of my most recent (and most significant) dysfunctional relationship somehow lifted the cloud that has been hanging over my head since who knows when, forever really. Best case I am dealing with a real sense of purpose. Worst case it is a sense of understanding, and accepting, myself.