Posted by Amanda on Saturday
Mar 6, 2010 |
Classified as: Everything Else | Sub-Classified as: emptiness, navel gazing
I’ve talked about my hometown before. I’ve sang its praises. I’ve lamented its shortcomings. Mostly, I’ve admired its quiet, gentle beauty and its kind inhabitants.
I went to my version of Acadia before the Olympics celebrations began. My sister-in-law sat in the passenger seat, smiling softly to herself as we drive past the mountain-ridged Costco, past the city’s only octo-plex theatre, past the dotted lights littering the mountains; it was all the same as it had been when I left it at Christmastime. My nieces are asleep in the backseat. K’s black hair matted against her forehead. Z’s blonde curls bouncing with the suspension. Eyelashes flutter in protest as the lights glare into the truck’s crew cab.
After I drop off my sister-in-law and her daughters, I drive along the Halston Connector, eager to get to my parents’ house — my adolescent home — to see them and settle in. This drive is usually filled with happy anticipation. I tried to conjure up these feelings. Of course I was excited to see my parents but that was… that was it. I wasn’t at all interested in seeing anyone else or doing anything other sitting at their house — my Kamloops home — and getting work done.
The summer was my greatest challenge of 2009. I was lonely. I was miserable. But I was still happy to be in the beautiful little city that helped raise me. When I sat on the bed in my bedroom, reading the cards and listening to Marianas Trench, I came to a frightening conclusion: this city isn’t mine anymore. I may know the streets. I may be able to walk around the downtown core blindfolded and still be able to pick out where every store is and what it sells. I may even have retained a few friends and connections to my home, including my family and Mike’s. It was a rude awakening.
The first time I moved away from home, I was eighteen. I went forth into the hell-hole known as Fort McMurray: the booming oil sands hole-in-the-wall five hours away from anything resembling civilization. It was never home. Last year, I moved to Burnaby with my husband, my brother, and another couple into a big house in a cute neighbourhood. But that wasn’t home either. When I finally moved back to Vancouver after my long summer in Kamloops, I was skeptical that I’d found home. True, the apartment was beautiful. True, the apartment building was six months old and was surrounded by shopping, restaurants, and adorable thrift stores. True, it had a rooftop garden and gym.
Okay, truth: I was in love with the apartment.
But was that enough to call it home?
The transition was slow enough that I wasn’t aware of it happening until I went back to Kamloops at the beginning of February. When I walked down the streets, it didn’t feel right. My heart wasn’t there anymore. It was back in my beautiful apartment with my handsome husband in the bustling heart of Richmond. I was lonely in ways that I had only associated with being away from Kamloops. Loneliness while at home with my parents, friends, and dog was… terrible. I withdrew inside myself. I stayed in the basement, parked in front of the flatscreen, and attempted to get some web design work finished.
I was uninspired.
I paced around relentlessly, trying to fill the emptiness that plagued me until I finally opened myself to it. I felt better but not whole. I cried to my mother. I cried to my husband. I cried myself to sleep almost every night that I stayed in Kamloops. Everything that was familiar was haunting.
I talked to Mike about when I got home to Richmond. I asked him how he’d dealt with this change. He told that since he’d never really been anywhere but home in his heart — especially since he met me — that it wasn’t something he’d actively thought about. But he assured me that home isn’t where we think it is. Home isn’t even necessarily where your stuff is; it might not even be where your heart is.
Home, to me, is wherever I can get up from my chair and dance wildly at the drop of a hat. Home is where I can sing loudly in the shower without fear of disturbing neighbours or roommates. Home is where I can walk around the neighbourhood at night and not feel uneasy. Home is comfortable. Home is beautiful. Home is solace.
Home may not be where I remember it to be but it still exists all the same.
Posted by Amanda on Monday
Mar 1, 2010 |
Classified as: Everything Else, Personal Development | Sub-Classified as: beauty and body image, navel gazing, style, the feminine
It wasn’t an unusual thing for me think. I guess that’s why I’ve been thinking it for the past three years, ever since my weight spiraled out of control. I walked into a club on Sunday night and realized that while I may be comfortable with my physical self in theory, in practice it’s a different game entirely.
So I asked myself the age-old question, “Am I beautiful?”
For my trip to the Gossip nightclub here in beautiful Vancouver on the very last night of the Winter Olympic celebrations, I traded my normally casual style for something that was all drama: a BCBG Max Azria tunic paired with zippered leggings from Aldo and a pair of six inch heels from Spring. My short, black hair was pliable and styled. My vintage jewelry from the 1970s was all flair. But I walked into this bar and even though my attire was killer, my body apparently wasn’t.
Vancouver is full of rail thin women. Beautiful, rail thin women with long, luxurious hair complete with huge, bouncing curls. I walk around the downtown core of Vancouver as often as I dare during the day. The women are in perfect three piece suits with perfect Prada pumps. I pull the zipper up on my hoodie to hide the fact that I hadn’t done laundry yet. I look at them intently, drinking in their fashion and coveting their fashionable success. I search their faces for the glimmer of happiness I was sure they would possess. But instead of virile women, full of life and happiness, I see twentysomethings with fine lines from anxiety and stress. I see thirtysomethings with a twitch that was reminiscent of my brush with anorexia. I see fortysomethings that held their bodies together with plastic surgery and a fake smile; their eyes were broken and empty.
In spite of their perfect appearances with their perfect attire and perfect bodies, each one of them was as unhappy with their bodies as I was with mine. But do we unite in the face of such adversity? No. We nitpick. We judge. We preen ourselves with such ferocity that it borders on obsessive. We are brought up on a steady diet of heavy sex appeal, the pull of celebrity, and the need to be perfect: perfect in body, health, and mind.
The perilous pursuit of perfection.
I walk into these nightclubs and expect to turn a few heads. Hell, why shouldn’t I feel like that from time to time? I seek approval from the young men (and women) that don’t find my particular brand of physical beauty to be worth noting. I could outwardly exude confidence until I’m blue in the face from the lies and still manage to find a way to be a wallflower. While preaching that I don’t need the approval of people, I try to dress well when going out. I never leave my apartment without (at least) foundation, most times more. I am a fucked up dichotomy in action: I want to flip off anyone who requires me to be status quo but damn it, I want to be pretty too. Even if I’m happily married, I bitch and moan that no one notices me.
I concede.
I’ve fallen into the modern trap: strength in value but value through conventional beauty.
The girls that throw themselves into tight dresses and high heels at these clubs speak of the beginnings of a descent into the maddening pursuit that is perfection. They are reinforcing that you can’t be beautiful unless you’re the status quo. I hate that damn status quo. I’ve been after people to break it down and burn it since I was a kid. It drives my Dad crazy.
So why, oh why am I stuck fighting the status quo when I wish that my body would just be what it used to be: muscled and toned? I want to be normal. But not. Ah damn. I’ve gotten myself in a right pickle.
Is it possible to accept your size? If you accept your size for what it is, can you love it? And after you accept and love your size (no matter if you’re a 0 or a 22), what then? Change? Designer clothes that you can’t really afford but need to have in order to feel like you mean something?
I grew up in a small city in BC’s Interior. Its style seems to be ten years behind. There are still 1980s haircuts running rampant as you walk around the downtown core. But let me tell you something about my hometown: those women were confident. They strutted their stuff down Victoria St and let nobody tell them that they were caught in a time warp. So what? They loved themselves and the way they looked. It gave them a confidence that I never had. I may rock the latest short hairstyles that are popping out of Europe. I may even rock some modicum of fashion sense here in Vancouver. But I’ve got nothing on those brilliant, out of style babes hanging out in Kamloops. They let you know that even if they’re not fashion forward or rail thin, they’re beautiful and that’s all there is to it.
Moral of the story: it doesn’t matter who you are, how you dress, or what you look like; happiness is not your pant size and confidence is not found in designer labels. It’s all about how to rock your frock. The rest be damned.
PS. Happiness is Not a Fish You Can Catch is my favourite Our Lady Peace album. It’s good sound, if you haven’t heard it before.
Posted by Amanda on Monday
Mar 1, 2010 |
Classified as: Everything Else | Sub-Classified as: navel gazing, olympics, scanner personality type
Greetings, happy Violet Zombies.
Did you miss me?
I missed me too.
Yesterday was the grand finale for the Winter Olympics here in Vancouver, BC. I’ve half had my head buried in web design, projects, and hockey to notice too much else around me. But today? Today is a new day. A day for more projects. For video games. For zombies to give brains back and stop chewing on the tourists. And, to mark such a special occasion as the return of my sanity, I’ve hunkered down at Quest for Balance.
Ever struggle with finding your One Passion? Yeah, me too. At twenty-three (!!), I’ve already managed to dabble in a variety of careers, jobs, and hobbies. I’ve wrestled with the voices in my head that tried to demand that I submit to the One Passion. The trouble was that I didn’t have One Passion. I have Many Passions.
I wrote about it on Quest for Balance: The Myth, The Legend: One Passion to Rule Them All.
Posted by Amanda on Sunday
Feb 14, 2010 |
Classified as: Everything Else | Sub-Classified as: olympics
So proud of my city — my country — for pulling together and creating this electric atmosphere.
violetminded will return to sanity tomorrow.
Happy New Year. Cheers, Alex.
Posted by Amanda on Thursday
Feb 4, 2010 |
Classified as: Everything Else | Sub-Classified as: love
You’re my world
The shelter from the rain
You’re the pills
That take away my pain
You’re the light
That helps me find my way
You’re the words
When I have nothing to say
And in this world
Where nothing else is true
Here I am
Still tangled up in you
I’m still tangled up in you
Still tangled up in you
You’re the fire
That warms me when I’m cold
You’re the hand
I have to hold as I grow old
You’re the shore
When I am lost at sea
You’re the only thing
That I like about me
And in this world
Where nothing else is true
Here I am
Still tangled up in you
I’m still tangled up in you
How long has it been
Since this storyline began
And I hope it never ends
And goes like this forever
In this world
Where nothing else is true
Here I am
Still tangled up in you
Tangled up in you
I’m still tangled up in you
Still tangled up in you
Tangled Up in You – Staind (The Illusion of Progress)
I found you in the most unlikely place, almost five years ago. This love thing; there’s nothing quite like it.
Posted by Amanda on Saturday
Jan 16, 2010 |
Classified as: Everything Else | Sub-Classified as: family, health, love
Truly, she is the most wonderful woman I’ve ever known. Do you see her smile? Do you see mine (and yes, that’s me with long, blonde highlighted hair)? She does that to me every time I see her. A full-on guffaw, head thrown back and all.
I’m no stranger to death. I’m certainly well acquainted with chronic illness. For the twenty-three years that I’ve been alive, the woman in the picture – my mother – has fought to gain a foothold against her ever-growing list of illnesses: Cushings Syndrome, Nelson’s Syndrome, and Growth Hormone Deficiency are the longest standing.
I spent my childhood wrapped in tales of Middle Earth, trying desperately to escape from our tortured version of reality. It was fiction that brought us together, even when things looked bleakest; when the doctors told us that there was nothing they could do for her, short of experimental medical procedures (and thank the fates for Canada and our medical system).
Lesser people would have given up this fight. Lesser men would have left her to deal with her own problems. But my family – though flawed, just like everyone else’s – has proven that it takes more than illness, desperation, and sadness to tear us apart.
Family is the most important part of life. You fight to keep it together. Without it, life’s pretty much meaningless.
Chris Hoffman, my Dad
Standing at the Tunnel’s Mouth
Just before my wedding in the summer of 2008, her condition began to change. Her health had been relatively stable. But then her eyes began to tear up uncontrollably. She began to find it hard to breathe.
By the time November rolled around, she was diagnosed with a new disease: sarcoidosis. Sarcoid manifested itself in pronounced scar tissue on her legs and the formation of nodules in her lungs, which we thought was due to the plethora of medication she’s taken over the years. So, the doctors put her on corticosteroids, namely prednisone – a particularly nasty steroid that my niece was on to fight off infection during her chemotherapy.
We thought that by the time December 2009 rolled around, her lungs would have made considerable progress toward better health. Her neurologist in Vancouver had told her that if her lungs were under control by 2010, we could put her into Growth Hormone treatment, which had been a dream until now. In spite of our medical system, Growth Hormone is still considerably expensive.
However, much to our surprise, her lungs hadn’t changed at all. In fact, they’d gotten worse.
Adding Another to the List
I got the news last night that the worsening condition was due to a new disease on the block: pulmonary fibrosis, which means that the capillaries in her lungs are twisting and hardening. This can lead to lung failure, heart failure, and eventually death.
Last night, my heart was completely shattered by the news.
Today, it really sank in.
I did my research this morning. And then I broke down into uncontrollable tears. I’ve been faced with the notion of mortality many times before. On some small scale, I’ve even tried to accept it.
I really fail at accepting my parents’ mortality.
No child wants to accept the fact that, one day, her parents will die. In spite of overwhelming odds that she might not make it through the next surgery, she has lived. I’ve taken that as the rule, not the exception.
Every illness, including the new kids on the block, cannot be explained. We don’t know how she managed to get Cushings. We know that Cushings lead to Nelson’s. We’re not sure how Growth Hormone Deficiency played into it. And sarcoid is a mystery. Hell, even the pulmonary fibrosis is a variable to which there is no quantifiable answer.
Amor Vincit Omnia, Even Illness
Love conquers all.
When I was in school, the teachers would ask: “Amanda, who is your hero and why?”
I would say, without a hint of irony, “My mother. Because she doesn’t survive. She fights. She lives. She is my sunshine at the end of a dark tunnel.”
The kids would laugh at me. None of them understood the magnitude of her heroism. In response, I would tilt my chin defiantly and stand by my words. I knew her strength just as intrinsically as I knew my own. Her strength fed mine just as mine fed hers. We were are a team.
Today, when people ask me that question, the answer is still the same. It’s not a celebrity, or a historical figure, or even my beloved Shakespeare. No, it has been and always will be my mother.
Her heroism, as I’ve called it, can be defined as nothing short of superhuman. Others would have stopped living and only managed to survive.
Instead, she smiles. She laughs. She bakes marvelous cookies and sends them to us in Vancouver. She shops. She listens. She hears. She is concerned. She loves.
She isn’t prepared to give up without a fight.
Neither am I.
Posted by Amanda on Thursday
Jan 14, 2010 |
Classified as: Everything Else | Sub-Classified as: #haitiblogchallenge
Kelly lit a fire under my ass tonight about Haiti.
I’m going to light a fire under yours.
I will donate the value of my Bad-Ass Design Package ($300 value) to the Red Cross on behalf of the next person who talks to me about it. Email me for more details.
How To Join the Help Haiti Blog Challenge. What You Can DO.
Remember Gwen Bell’s Best of 2009 Blog Challenge? It brought a LOT (700+) of people together. Which got me thinking…a blog challenge is a way to rally together and have a big impact through a lot of little actions.
Hence: The Help Haiti Blog Challenge. Let’s do it.
Here’s how we can share, together, so we can give, together, to our people who need and deserve help in Haiti.
- Sign up for the Help Haiti Blog Challenge (below). Write about it on your blog and tag it “Help Haiti Blog Challenge“. Ask your people to join you and do the same.
- Add the Help Haiti Blog Challenge badge to your blog.
- Make your offer: I will donate ________ dollars to _________ on behalf of the next person who buys _________ from me.
- Make your donation and tell us how much you donated.
- Tweet about it using the hashtag #haitiblogchallenge. Update your facebook status with a request to pass on the message and the call to action. Send e-mails. Everywhere you are, online, talk about the Help Haiti Blog Challenge, tag it, and call your friends, family, colleagues – your people – to action.
Let’s gather our online people to help our real-life people.
You can do this. We can do this. And it will be bigger than anything we could have done alone.
Pass it on.
Posted by Amanda on Tuesday
Jan 5, 2010 |
Classified as: Design, Everything Else | Sub-Classified as: scanner personality type, web design
See something different here? It’s temporary. I’m working on a brand new look for violetminded. It’ll knock your socks off. Enjoy the minimalism for the next few days. <3
Posted by Amanda on Tuesday
Jan 5, 2010 |
Classified as: Everything Else | Sub-Classified as: #mindfulist
What was your first thought as you powered on/opened up your computer today?
“I wonder if anyone liked/read/hated my post on Death.”
And then I checked my email. Another potential contract coming down the line. I have a few new Twitter friends. I made a few more connections on Facebook. People were genuinely concerned about why I was back in my hometown, sitting on the edge of a hospital bed, contemplating death and mortality and my navel.
I am mindful of the world today.
Posted by Amanda on Monday
Dec 28, 2009 |
Classified as: Everything Else | Sub-Classified as: #best09
{Participating in Gwen Bell’s “Best of 2009″ Blog Challenge. Y’know, in case you were wondering.}
Stationary. When you touch the paper, your heart melts. The ink flows from the pen. What was your stationery find of the year?
During my twelve hour Boxing Day shopping extravaganza, I met my brother and his girlfriend at Metrotown Mall in Burnaby sometime around 8:30am. I’d already been up for a little over three hours, so I figured that braving the crowded mall during Boxing Day might just be the challenge I’d been looking for.
Thankfully, it wasn’t nearly as busy as it could have been.
The two couples (Steven & Bailey, Mike & me) had long since agreed to not buy the other couple any Christmas presents. Mike’s family consists of two sisters, a brother, three nieces, two nephews, and two mostly brothers-in-law, not to mention his parents and three grandparents. Our budget for Christmas was tight. So, we decided against buying presents for Steven and Bailey. They agreed. We usually end up celebrating Wintereenmas anyway.
I digress. Curses.
The two of them met me at Millenium, which sold me my last pack of Tarot Cards and sells me all of my incense. Turns out they’re closing, which makes my heart sad. Steven and Bailey come out of the store and present me with my early Wintereenmas gifts: a leatherbound Phasha tome and a smaller, ceramic bound Book of Shadows. The Book of Shadows will most certainly be put to good use in the new year but the Phasha… now that I had an immediate use for as my Scanner Daybook.
It’s wonderful. The pen glides across its supple pages like it was made of liquid adamantium. I can’t imagine having my Daybook in any other journal, even though I own many, many others. In fact, if you took a look inside any given drawer in my writing desk, it would be filled with unused and partly used journals. I have a serious problem with collecting notebooks and journals. My loved ones know this. They don’t stop me. They buy me more. The people who know me best (my parents, brother, husband, and April) buy me the best ones.
So this year’s best of stationary was most certainly the sexy Phasha. I will love this baby until she has no more pages to write on.
