Random Acts of Kindness

The sun was barely peeking over the nearby buildings when I got downtown to wait for my connecting bus. There were four of us at the stop. Myself, as usual, clutching a pen and jotting ideas and dialogue in a notebook; a man staring disinterestedly at the road; and two older woman leaning against a brick wall, smoking and chatting with each other.

A young couple in their early twenties walked up to them. The  man asked if they had a lighter he could borrow and the one of the ladies, wearing a uniform from a national doughnut store chain, reached into her purse and handed it to him. She commented on how glad she was he hadn't asked for a cigarette, she was getting asked all the time and couldn't afford to give them to everyone, she could barely afford them for herself.

The four of them commiserated briefly about the price of smokes and how frequently people asked for them these days then the young couple turned to walk away. They took one step then the man turned back and asked, "Do you play the lottery?"

The woman looked confused, then nodded and agreed that she played when she could. He smiled, told her today was her lucky day, and handed her a crisp new twenty dollar bill, before walking away. She stared after him in astonishment, barely managing to stammer thanks.

I think, when random acts of kindness are mentioned, we end up thinking we can't do much. The little we can offer is just a pittance. After all, when you get right down to it, what could twenty dollars do?

I got on the bus with that lady, who was quite overcome by the money. She was in the last week of her job, going on sick leave in a few days. She's suffering from severe pain caused by bone growths in her knee and just can't handle working eight hours on her feet anymore. All that helps is expensive pain medication. She'd just run out and didn't have enough money to buy her new prescription. That $20 covered the gap.

I don't know how that young man felt when he handed her the money. Hopefully pride that he was able to help but he'll never know how much it meant to her. All he heard was her startled "thanks" before he walked away. It was the people on the bus who discovered how much this meant to her, not him.

That's the thing about random acts of kindness. You don't know. You have no idea what it means to the person you reach out to. It might mean nothing but then again, it might mean the world. It's random. I think the most important part is to reach out and do the best you can with what you have. We're all a candle in the darkness and it's up to us to share our flame.

I want to be a writer

I want to be a writer. I am determined to be a writer. I sit at my computer and edit and tweak my latest novel, Piece of Mind, every single day. I revise conversations, tweak descriptions, and edit transitions. I carry a notebook in my purse so I can jot down ideas when I'm out. I have a two hour commute every work day (an hour each way) so have lots of time to think. My cellphone is handy too, I was walking on the treadmill yesterday, writing conversations into my notes.

I want to be a writer. These days I don't just read novels for pure enjoyment, I look at how sentences are formed. I notice how the author sets a scene. How the author explains who's speaking. How often they have characters speak versus describing what the character's experiencing.

I want to be a writer. I think regularly about my novel and try to sort out what to write in my current chapter. I talk to my children about my novel and use them as guinea pigs.

Writing is one of the hardest things I've ever done. I love to write. I love when I get a sentence phrased exactly right. I love when I read aloud to my kids and they laugh themselves silly at a part that's supposed to be funny. I love that point when my kids start talking about my characters like they're real people who just stepped out of the room for a minute. I hate when I'm sitting at the computer and my latest attempt at conversation sounds like bored actors reading a weak script. I hate when I have a thought in my mind and the words just won't go down the way I want them to. And, conversely, I love when I move to another paragraph then come back and tweak and, suddenly, changing a word opens up new ideas and the thought just pours onto the page.

I imagine writing is like building a house. I start with the foundation and throw it up. There's a basic shape but not much else. Then I go back and add the essentials. Soon I can see what the house will look like but it's rough, unfinished. Then I go back a third time and add all the little details. The descriptions, more conversations, little things that I was thinking that somehow missed getting written down. After that I drag someone else through so they can see if there's anything I missed. And that's as far as I've gotten.

Right now I'm about three quarters of the way through Piece of Mind and have a couple of chapters to tweak in Small Dreams and then I'm onto my next writing adventure, writing query letters.

I wrote the first chapter of my novel Small Dreams into my blog back in 2011. Now I'll share the first chapter of Piece of Mind. I hope you like it:

“And I woke myself up by screaming.” A rivulet of sweat trickled down my back as I described my latest nightmare.

Nicole looked up from chopping veggies for our morning omelette and grinned. “Maybe Santa will bring you a boyfriend for Christmas,” she remarked. She brushed her straight brown hair behind her ears and turned up the radio.

“This is my favourite carol,” she added as Eartha Kitt brazenly asked Santa for a fur coat and a car.

I stared at her blankly, unable to grasp the connection between my nightmares and needing a boyfriend. Then again, talking with Nicole always left me feeling like I was following half a conversation. “Why a boyfriend?” I asked nervously, the thought filled me with dread. When I was a bit younger and my parents were still alive, the thought of having a boyfriend was interesting but after a month of rape dreams, that interest had waned. I figured I was only a nightmare or two away from showing up at a mental hospital and asking to be admitted.

“Maybe you’re lonely,” she replied. “The dreams could be your mind’s way of telling you that you want some male attention.”

Chills ran icy fingers down my spine. “Seriously, I’d rather be single for the rest of my life than be with someone like that!”

She shrugged and went back to her vegetables. I carefully measured out the coffee then added it to the machine; coffee was the only thing Nicole would allow me to make. She took pleasure in her assumed role of big sister, cooking breakfast every morning before she went to bed and dinner every night before she left for work. She tried packing lunches but stopped when I insisted I could manage that; I'd made my own sandwiches when I was still small enough to need a footstool to reach the counter.

“It could be worse,” she said, obviously trying to cheer me up. “Your nightmares are here in private, unlike mine.” She sighed then added, “I'll never be able to see a movie again.”

I had to chuckle. She'd just broken up with her boyfriend at the premiere of the latest chick-flick. From what I heard, he thought they were going to be watching a movie with lots of guns and cars, not one where the male lead cried tenderly. Apparently the fireworks were so spectacular people were buying popcorn then heading back outside for the show.

Nicole munched a piece of pepper then said thoughtfully, “I wonder if you're having nightmares because you know you’re home alone. If you’d get a job where I work, then we’d be on the same shift and you wouldn’t have to worry about being home alone at night.”

“I’m not old enough to work where you do,” I reminded her yet again. I’d met Nicole at hair dressing school but she’d dropped out and got a job at the local casino instead. She was just barely old enough to work there, which made me five years too young; something she managed to forget at least once a week. Nicole’s thoughts centred completely around her. It wasn’t that she was mean or totally selfish, she simply forgot anything that didn’t directly have to do with her and assumed that everyone wanted to be just like her.

She swirled the eggs around the pan then poured the veggies on top. “Is the coffee almost done yet?”

“It's pretty much done,” I replied, glancing at the pot.

“Good,” she said while reaching into the cupboard. “I'll just get the sugar and... oh...” She grabbed something and pulled it out.

“Tamara?” she asked curiously. “Why are you keeping pregnancy tests in the cupboard?”

I looked at the box in shock while Ella Fitzgerald crooned about how she wanted to go on a sleigh ride.

“I didn't put that there,” I stammered.

The top of the box was open and Nicole tipped the contents into her hand.

“Eww,” she said as she dropped the tests on the counter then wiped her hands on her jeans. “One of these has been used.”

I picked up the used one and looked at it.

“Nicole,” I said, confused. “This test is positive.”

“That is seriously creepy,” she said. She didn’t sound creeped out at all though. She sounded excited, like it was some mystery to solve and Scooby and the gang were going to show up to help her explore for clues. I, however, wasn’t nearly as thrilled.

I started to shake. “How could this get in there?”

“Maybe...” she started to say then stopped. “Could you have left the door unlocked?” she asked hesitantly.

I shook my head. “I never leave it unlocked, ever. You know that!” I replied. “You’re the one who nicknamed me little Miss Paranoid. I always use the door lock, the dead bolt and a chain. And we’re on the frigging sixth floor so it's not like someone just climbed in a window.”

“Those were locked too by the way.” I added. “And I had to unlock the door so you could come in this morning.”

Last night I’d checked and triple checked the locks before heading to bed. I’d looked every conceivable place someone could hide and even some inconceivable ones. When I caught myself peeking behind the toilet I knew I’d moved from cautious into the realm of paranoia. That still didn’t stop me from checking in the bathtub and the overstuffed cabinets under the sink.

I pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat down with a thud. “One of the weird things about the dream last night is I heard a voice,” I said, struggling to remember. “I opened my eyes and saw these green eyes and heard a voice.”

I fell silent. I could see those cold green eyes in my mind. Felt the weight of his body above me. During the dreams I could feel the heat from his body but looking back, all I felt was ice.

“What did the voice say?” Nicole prompted, staring at me intently.

The coffee finished dripping but we ignored it.

“Nothing that made any sense at the time. He talked about farming and how he’d planted the field but still wanted to plough it.” I replied. My mind flashed to early childhood and my Mom explaining how Daddy makes a baby by planting a seed in Mommy. Seeds… fertile ground. An image of an old-fashioned plough digging into the ground the way he pushed himself into me. I picked up the unopened test. “I think I'm going to take this,” I said while heading to the bathroom.

Less than a minute later I had a second positive test. I leaned against the counter, my legs too unsteady to hold me, and stared at myself in the mirror above the sink. My reflection gazed back in shock. I always looked a bit young for my age but terror made me look about twelve. I wondered about the man who apparently thought that was enticing. My stomach twisted and I spent the next minute trying desperately not to vomit.

Nicole knocked on the bathroom door. “Tamara? Open up.”

Shaking, I opened the door. We stood there in silence staring at the plus sign on the second test. I felt as calm as the eye of a hurricane, eerily still and quiet with devastation looming in all directions. I was single. Completely, utterly, single. There was no way I could be pregnant… except if the dreams were real.

“What are you going to do?” Nicole asked looking about as shocked as I felt.

“I’m getting out of here,” I said grimly, trying my hardest not to cry. “I have no idea how he got in here and there's nothing stopping him from coming back.”

A Thousand Little Lies

I moved in with my fiance in my early 20's. Until then I'd lived at home with my family. My Mom had struggled with weight issues for most of her life and worried about me. I felt like everything I ate was watched and measured, that if I ate just a little less... weighed just a little less, I'd be so much better. I found it overwhelming and was relieved to discover my fiance simply did not care what I ate. Tub of chocolate frosting for dinner? Go for it. It took me years to realize that not caring was not a good thing.

The novelty of eating a tub of frosting wore off pretty quickly and I soon began pouring though easy recipes. I'd become a vegetarian in college and was basically learning how to cook from scratch. I grew up in a home where meat was the centre of the meal and veggies were an afterthought, boiled and placed on the side of the plate. I've always been interesting in cooking healthy food and soon worked out several recipes we enjoyed. Nevertheless I slowly grew fat under the weight of a thousand little lies.

It's easy to lie to yourself. Easy to let things slip past. I'm young, I don't need exercise. I'm busy chasing after the little ones all day, that's enough exercise. I deserve a treat after the day I had (totally ignoring the fact I'd already had several "treats" that day). I'll exercise tomorrow. Sure I've gained weight but it doesn't show. It's just PMS weight, it'll be gone soon. A life without chocolate isn't worth living. Maybe my life will be shorter but it'll be a good life with food I love and enjoy.

My favourite treat was milk chocolate. I'd buy a bag of milk chocolate chips to mix into brownies. Then I'd have a little bowl as a treat... and another... and another. Within a day or so I'd need to buy a new bag so I could make brownies. Days later, when I finally made a pan of brownies, I'd have to buy yet another bag. But the brownie mix made two batches and, while I only needed half a bag of chips per batch, I'd usually snacked enough that I needed another bag in order to make the second batch. And so on.

My daughter commented once that brownies weren't a treat when we had them all the time. At the time I was annoyed because I still felt they were my treat but she was right. A treat is supposed to be something special and out of the ordinary. I was making two batches of brownies every single week. And eating other treats besides.

Then came more lies. It's just that one pair of pants that don't fit. Elastic waistbands are more comfortable anyways. That photo was simply taken at an awkward angle (same with that photo and this one). If I stand at this exact angle with my head tilted just so, I look fine.

There's only so long I could blame the camera and/or crop photos so that all of me wasn't in the shot before admitting it wasn't the camera, it was me.

Now I'm working at telling myself the truth. The more exercise I do, the better healthy food tastes. I crave junk food less when I take care of myself more. There is time every day to exercise. We all have 24 hours and it's not hard to squeeze in 15 minutes to a half hour. Cooking a pot of rice, lentils, garlic, and herbs while tossing a salad takes just as little time than popping a frozen pizza into the oven and is infinitely more satisfying. If you have 15 minutes, you have time to cook a healthy meal. If you routinely don't have 15 minutes, you need to organize your time better.

The one I'm struggling with right now is exercise. Now that I've moved, I need to leave for work just over an hour in advance. I start as early as 6:30am and, when I'm up at 4:30am and walking out the door just before 5:30am, it's hard to get up a half hour earlier to exercise. And it's equally as hard to come home and exercise after working on my feet all day. Plus I need to be in bed around 8:30pm those nights, leaving little time to work out after dinner. This week, however, I start at 7:30am every morning. I'm hoping that a solid week of daily workouts will help get me into a routine of regular exercise again.

As for today, I've been out for a walk, exercised with the Wii My Fitness Coach, and am heading downstairs for a half-hour on the treadmill before dinner. No more lies, no more excuses. It's time to shape my life and be the me I want to be.

Cats and Dreams

I have a reoccurring dream. In it, something wonderful is happening, something rare that I want to take a picture of. I find my camera, focus, and hit the button. But the camera just won't take the picture. Seconds pass and the opportunity fades. By the time the camera will actually take the picture, the shot is gone.

Last night I dreamt I was standing in my living room talking to my Mom on the phone, when I looked out the window and noticed we were having a lunar eclipse. I ran and grabbed my camera, only to realize the eclipse was happening super quickly and would be over within seconds. I snapped a picture right away, knowing I wouldn't have time to change the settings and knowing the picture wouldn't turn out, then raced to get the camera on the right settings... in vain. I got the camera set just in time for the moon to go back to normal. Normal still looked pretty neat so I snapped a couple of photos anyways. When I went back to view my photos, I discovered my first photo turned out amazing. I'd got the shot I wanted, even though I worried I hadn't.

That's life. Sometimes you try your hardest only to watch an opportunity slip away, despite your best efforts. And sometimes, when you least expect it, the opportunity you thought slipped away turns out to be there after all. I love surprises like that.

I also wish that picture existed because it was an amazing shot. But considering it was a cross between a lunar eclipse, a solar eclipse, and something off SuperMario Galaxy, I don't think even Googling would come up with something similar.

I woke up around 1am to find our cat Blackie snuggled up beside me. I had my arm stretched beside me and she was using my upper arm as a pillow while she purred like an outboard motor and gave my arm a lick every few seconds.

Blackie can be needy at the best of times but this was beyond her usual needy behaviour. She was so happy to see me, but me being in bed asleep in the middle of the night isn't exactly an unusual occurrence. Then it dawned on me. The last time she'd ever seen people packing for a move would have been with her previous owners, the ones who locked her in a shed and left her behind. Even though I couldn't sleep through her "OMG my Mommy is still here!" snugglefest, I let her cuddle and purr for about 10 minutes before rolling over and giving my arm a break. So far Oreo is oblivious to the move and Angel thinks the boxes are an amazing jungle gym. But neither of them were abandoned like Blackie. In three more weeks we'll already be in our new place and she'll have lots of new corners to explore.

Dancing through life

I saw this picture on Facebook this morning and it speaks to me. This is my basic philosophy towards life. We don't always get what we want (or what we need for that matter). Sometimes life just plain stinks. But there is always a positive.

I can assure you that when I was a teenager, my life's ambition was not to be a single mother of two children on the autism spectrum, serving coffee at a doughnut store, while living in a high rise complex. I was going to be a writer living in a loft in downtown Toronto (complete with a fireplace).

Life is what you make of it. My marriage was not a success but I ended up with two wonderful children out of it and great friends I never would have met otherwise. I've made good friends in both apartment buildings I've lived in over the past 14 years... and at my job. And I'm happy.

There is always a positive to life, no matter how small. There's always a sunrise... a rainbow... a singing bird... a laughing child. And, when we're focusing on the negative, we miss those opportunities to laugh and dance.

We're all twirling around together... spinning through the universe on the same tiny ball. We're all here for a brief time. It doesn't matter if we expected to be someplace else. We're at this party and we might as well dance.