Memory – Page 8 – Rant and Roll

Our time across the pond

Currently I am missing Birmingham, UK something fierce. In the fall of 2009 my husband and I spent four months in the city. I was on academic exchange for my graduate program, and during our time overseas I attended classes, travelled the country, taught English at a school for young Afghani asylum seekers, spent a week in Switzerland – in short, I had the most amazing and profound adventure of my life.

As we crawl closer to September – the month we departed for the UK – I cannot help but reflect on our time spent in Brum.

Here is a brief snapshot of the start to what ended up being a truly brilliant, beautiful, and life-changing time:

Day three/four in Jolly Ol’ England. Baaaaaahhhh.

Yesterday we moved into our new place. The night previous Marc had seriously destroyed his stomach (the tragic mistake? Purchasing a can of Carlsberg lager on our way home from dinner as an accompaniment for six individually wrapped cake pastries that were amazing, yet deliriously rich and quite heavy on the tummy) and spent most of the night in agony, pacing around the hotel room. This, coupled by the fact that we had spent a good portion of the day walking around the city left us completely knackered (in the parlance of our times, or at least country) and we managed to not only sleep in past breakfast, but past check-out.

Stress was had.

And we had ALL of it.

Also I’m not sure I would do very well as a regular student at the University of Birmingham. The campus seems to be run in a “laissez-faire” kind of way, which does not sit well with neurotics and obsessive compulsives (aka-me.)

I met today with my tutor, who was lovely and personable and we discussed my course sign up, but mostly we chatted about the campus and how easy it is to sit in on other professors’ courses as long as you contact them first.

There is a PoliSci introduction this Friday from 11-12 that will cover everything course-related and although I didn’t want to make her go through everything that I would be hearing in two days’ time, it was all I could do not to jump up from my seat and yell out “WHY THE CAN’T WE DO ANYTHING BY A STRICT SCHEDULE I AM NOT GOOD WITH BLURRY LINES.”

She was so calm as she sat there telling me that as long as I had signed up for my courses by the second week of term (bloody October 10^th or there around) I would be okay.

My guts were roiling just thinking about this.

The campus is phenomenal, with lovely red brick buildings that stand in sharp contrast to the velvety green of the grass that spreads around the campus like a deranged serpent in pursuit of higher learning (or maybe just to munch on the ankle of an undergrad or two.)

I am excited to explore the European Research Institute and attend the guest lecture series available to all students.

I am excited to attend classes where I will actually be interested in the material in hopes to rediscover why I actually fell in love with academia in the first place.

I am excited to ride my bike along Norfolk Road wearing my chunky boots and pink tuque, daydreaming about the city’s Christmas market while trying not to get killed each time I forget which way the cars are coming.

Birmingham Adventures 040 — Christmas market!

I cannot believe that Marc and I will be here for but four months. The city is powered by a maddeningly seductive electricity that I have yet to discover anywhere in Vancouver. This spark runs through the multicultural signposts standing at each street corner, and in the form of head scarfs and turbans and skin colours that range from the palest pales to the deepest blacks. It is present in the bustling how-to-do of New Street and the downtown core, in the cheap but flavourful takeaways that take up space on most street corners (and often in between), and the men selling fresh dairy products down at the open air market, bellowing over and over about their jumbo sized eggs, sold either in a half or one dozen cartons.

This country is also bloody fantastic due to the amount of candy available EVERYWHERE. As I sit typing this I am eating a package of “Quarter Pounders” drinking a class of Diet Cherry Coke.

I feel a bit of existential angst every time I set foot in a grocery mart: there is so much to choose from I find myself asking “what’s the point? I’ll never be able to try all of these products!”

Further, I used to think that I drank quite a lot of tea and only now realize how silly I was in my naivety. M and I drink somewhere between eight to ten cups of tea a day, more on days that we spend time in the company of friends. It will be running through our veins in no time and I’ll find myself transformed into Kevin McDonald’s Tetley addict, imagining that Dave Foley dressed as a giant tea bag is chasing me around my flat shouting “COME ON…DUNK ME! DUNK ME!”

Birmingham Adventures 114 — Rugby game tea!

I may need help.

Or at the very least, another cuppa.

Tea?

Tis the season

I’ve been thinking.

It’s funny the memories that stick.

No matter how hard I try to focus on one single moving, sentimental, emotionally wrenching moment that my sisters, mum, and I have shared, the first thing that always pops into my mind is this: a snap shot of us sitting on our the living room floor, parked in front of the roaring gas fireplace, Christmas day eve.

My little sister is eating a bowl of bran buds cereal.

She sits cross-legged on a lavender and brown floor rug, her roomy sweatpants covered in cat hair. What is left of her Christmas day finery is swamped by a large, black hoody and the thick, knit scarf she received in her stocking earlier that morning is looped loosely around her shoulders and neck.

A Christmas cracker crown sits on top of her head, lopsided, sagging slightly to the right side, like the droopy smile of a dreaming child. Her back rests up against the steamer truck my mother uses as a coffee table and she is laughing so hard, tears repeatedly spring to the corner of her eyes; one after the other the come, each taking the place of the others that are now streaming down her cheeks and dropping to the floor.

Her face flushes deep scarlet and as the trill of her giggles descends in pitch from high heehees to low hohos, I catch an eyeful of all the freshly masticated bran that sits dead square inside of her mouth.

My mother, my older sister and I are all laughing as well. Jessi has been complaining for a couple of days that she hasn’t had a good “go” in almost a week, and is worried about the lack of fibre in her daily diet. After a solid twenty-four hours of hearing about our sibling’s lack of progress in this sensitive, intestinal department, we’ve decided that the digestion of one big bowl of roughage should not only help her out, but should also be a family affair.

At first reticent to the idea, as clearly emphasized by her emphatic “don’t-look-at-me!” pleas, Jessi eventually wholeheartedly embraces this experience, and even acts the color commentator to her progress, using her spoon as microphone.

(All of this happens in-between her bursts of gut-busting laugher.)

As Jessi slowly makes her way through her late evening snack, she pauses a moment, dries her eyes, and lets us know, unequivocal in her sincerity, that she really hopes that this endeavour will work in her favour.

We let her know that we too, are rooting for her.

And she’s set off again, laughing so hard we have to give her a swift whack on the back. Little flecks of bran that originally flew down the wrong tube are quickly assigned a new trajectory, and their landing pad sits clear across the living room. A bedazzled reindeer get the worst of these food fireworks.

Our cat Simon, skittish on a good day, beetles quickly under the nearest sofa, spooked by Jessi’s demonic half-cough, half-cackle. His increasingly whacko behaviour has me more than certain he is only half-cat.

After a few sips of water and a more tempered back rub, Jessi picks up her spoon and takes another bite of her now soggy, limp buds.

“That was a little scary, she says. She pauses before continuing. “I would never want to die constipated, full of bran.”

Oh how we roar, alongside the flickering flames of the festively-decked fireplace, on that Christmas day in the evening.

The naked truth

So here’s a thing.

Up until two days ago, I wore foundation or concealer (or some combination of both products) every single day (give or take a glitch or two in the algorithm that is my life) for the past fourteen years.

FOURTEEN YEARS.

That is over 5000 days of wearing makeup; makeup that covers up and paints over my natural skin tone, my freckles, my pimples – everything that makes my face, my face.

I wore this makeup on runs, to the beach, to work, to work out, to school dances, to graduations, to family dinners, to the grocery store, to job interviews – I wore it everywhere.

And two days ago, I stopped.

I thought – enough is enough.

I am twenty-eight years old.

It’s time.

This is very representative of how I operate in life. I won’t do something until I have completely made up my mind.

However, once the decision has been made, I will never renege, and I will never look back.

I first started wearing “pressed powder” when I was thirteen years old. I had just started grade eight, and I was very self-conscious of the patch of acne that had sprouted atop on my forehead over the past year.

I wanted to make a good impression, so what better way to do this that spackle six dollar Cover Girl all over my skin?

(The answer: be really, really funny.)

Grade nine brought even worse skin, so I graduated from just the powder, to bottle foundation (that I supplemented with the powder.)

Looking back at photos of myself from that time, I can only laugh. I wore so much of this product that I looked practically a ghost – pale as anything, with super dark red lips, and thick black eyeliner.

I was pretty much a dead ringer for one of the Twilight kids, only ten years too early.

Over the years, my use of foundations and concealers has waxed and waned.

I wrote previously on how this tied directly to my eating disorders – in times of health I used less because my skin was much clearer, and in times of sickness I used much more.

But even at my happiest I always used it.

Everyday.

But two days ago I was out at the park, running myself ragged, doing my favourite combination of sprints, push-ups, pull-ups, squats (and all their ilk) and I just felt so incredibly strong- so alive and powerful.

So confident.

So much so that when I arrived home and showered, I stood in the bathroom and just stared at myself for a long, long time.

For many years, I would do this same thing, but in a highly critical sense. I would scrutinize everything about my body – my skin, my hair, my teeth.

I would pick myself apart, and leave the pieces scattered, broken on the floor.

But this time, however, I marvelled.

At the strength of my muscles, and the glow of my skin; the length of my hair, and pulse of my heartbeat.

And I thought – I will face the world as I am.

Which is not to say that I won’t wear any other makeup ever again.

I love playing dress up too much for that.

But I won’t wear any more skin cover up products.

I’ve got a strong enough foundation as it is.

IMG_20130710_105752 — Today. Post-run. Strong.

Love, love me do – you know I love you

Friends.

This week has been absolutely bonkers.

And I am knackered.

BUT!

Some big news:

Today is my last day at my current job. My new position starts July 22nd.

This means I have three weeks of relaxation time (with that fab chap of a husband of mine!), before starting what is, for all intents and purposes, my dream job.

I AM SO HAPPY I THINK MY HEART MIGHT BURST.

Also, speaking of Marc, five years ago today this happened:

It was a very good day.

That morning he wrote to me:

I am waiting to see you for the first time again. (It will always be for the first time, every time I see you.)

I love you, until the end of the world.

And I wrote to him:

YOLO!

JUST KIDDING.

I love you with so much of my heart, that none is left to protest.

Tonight we are flying away to New York for my sister Kate’s wedding to her brilliant fiance. I already refer to my soon-to-be sister in-law Mel as my sister (and have so for years!), so I couldn’t be more excited for this marriage if I tried.

What can I say?

I really love love.

I do.

So let me end by reiterating how much I adore all of you beautiful bloggers. Your words, your passions, your love – it makes the world sparkle.

And remember:

We love life, not because we are used to living, but because we are used to loving. – Nietzsche

These summer nights

I am seventeen years old.

My hair is very long, and its natural chestnut brown fights a never-ending battle against the bottle red I desperately want to be.

My sister is fifteen years old.

She also has long hair, much thicker than mine, into which the sun has burnt beautiful blond streaks, evenly, so that it reflects both a silver and gold shine under the street lamps, at night.

It is the last week of May, and the time of day is so late that it is now in fact early, and I am not sleeping. I haven’t slept properly is many weeks.

To keep the insomnia madness at bay, I am reading in bed, curled tightly around myself, like a croissant. My bedroom door slowly opens, and Jessi tiptoes into my room. She is wearing tight jeans and a man’s dress shirt, oversized on her tiny frame.

Tonight her hair sits tucked under a stained trucker hat that she insists on wearing, and indeed loving.

She looks stunning.

“Let’s go for a drive,” she says, as she crawls over my blankets to lie down next to me. I close my book and turn over, facing her.

“Where do you want to go?” I ask.

“I don’t care.” Jessi pauses as she snuggles down into one of my pillows. She rubs her face aggressively into it, like a cat. “How about the airport?”

“Sure,” I say. The airport is a good choice. It means highway speeds and the opportunity to gawk at the perverse grandeur of the wealthiest neighbourhood in Vancouver.

I sit up and put on my glasses; lean over and pick up the sweater lying on the floor next to the bed.

“What are you reading?” Jessi asks. She gets up and walks over to my closet, absentmindedly flipping through shirts and skirts.

“Dracula,” I respond. After I put on my sweater, I pick up the book and offer it to her. She shakes her head.

“Is it good?”

“Yes,” I tell her.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” I say. Come on, let’s go get the spare set of keys.”

…

The warm, wet air whips around the car as we trace the lines of the Fraser River. Jessi has her feet pressed up against the glove box, her knees scrunched up under her chin. Tiffany blasts from the CD player and she and I sing as loud as we can, belting out the lyrics with a zealous, almost manic energy.

“OHHHHH, I THINK WE’RE ALONE NOW.”

I know the words much better than she. She mumbles her way through the bits she is unsure of, only to sing twice as loud during the chorus. I call that “pulling a Mr. Bean.”

“It’s not that I don’t know the lyrics,” she tells me as she shifts herself around in her seat, tilting her face up, so she can meet the rushing night winds and the rushing night, head on. “I just like mine better.”

She cracks herself up.

It is in these moments that I feel what can only be described as complete love for my sister. I want to wrap up my soul with hers and drive on, keep moving past the trees, mountains, water, and stars, until we might float up and away. Away from our earthly bodies, gravity-bound, held down.

Growing up, our mother would always tell us the story of how when we were small, she visited a psychic with a friend. The first thing the woman told her during her reading was that she had borne twin girls. When my mother told her no, the woman was confused. Instead of continuing with the reading, the woman reiterated her previous statement. In response, my mother stated that she had three girls. Her two younger daughters, born two years apart, almost two years to the day, who were birthed at the same hospital, on the same floor, in the same room, assisted by the same doctor. The psychic nodded and smiled. She now understood. These were her twins of which she had spoken.

We were her twins.

One of us had just waited a little longer to come out and play.

As we pull up to the international departures drop-off, I look over at my twin, a girl sewn up in a beauty intricate and rare, bronze skin, eyes of onyx, fingernails of jade, and all I want to do is tell her that I love her.

She looks at me, smiling, her voice feverish.

“I never want to go to school again,” she says. “I wish we could just do this forever.”

I put the car in first gear; slowly ease my right foot off of the clutch, while gently lowering my right onto the gas. I look at her and smile back.

“Where to next?”

…