Tag Archives: reflection

Commentary, musings, Photography

Pausing My Life, Part Two

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When I left off at the end of part one, my boss was becoming very ill but was still at work.

Her decisions had started to become dodgy and unreliable, a complete reversal of character and ability for her.

I needed a rest from the demanding situation and took my summer holidays, and while I was away, she suffered an embolism and was suddenly gone. It was extremely and very mercifully quick.

I rushed back to a funeral, a dazed and grieving staff, including three new hires, and a huge workload.

Despite the fact that everyone knew she was terminal, people were shocked; many had bought into the notion that she was curing herself through traditional medicine, a modality in which she had such complete faith that it bled over to others. (I believe. Do you believe? Or something like that.) The new hires were more shocked than anyone, since they hadn’t been aware that she was sick.

As a group, we started putting one foot in front of the other, and got on with it, in spite of feeling sad and stunned. We got going again; we had to. The work carried on.

I was placed in an “acting” role and I set about the business of wrapping my head around all the things that needed to be done. There were a lot of them.

In the meantime, however, a coup was fomenting. A couple of people who were “grieving” on the surface were planning to put their chosen candidate into the head role – a chosen candidate whom they could control.

20 days into my new job, I was sitting in my temporary new office at my temporary new desk, bordering on letting myself slide into a private little collapse. I perched on the edge of my seat, white knuckling the desk’s edge, breathing hard and teetering on the verge of just walking away.

I had a few hostile employees who wanted to replace me. Others were angry at my boss for dying, and for telling them that she was getting better when she wasn’t. We experienced all the stages of grief like we were on a rocket sled.

No one had any idea how much had to be done, the timelines involved, and the contingencies needed. People kept materialising out of nowhere, demanding everything and taking responsibilty for nothing. Criticism hung on the air like a fog. And, there was the imposter factor. I kept thinking that I didn’t know what I was doing, that I was a know-nothing kid dressed in her mother’s work clothes, that I was in waaay over my head.

So I did. I pressed pause. I shut the door to my office. I set the phone to voice mail. I sat, and I meditated.

After I got rid of the ex-narcissist out of my life, I had learned meditation from my counsellor, and in this maelstrom of work and emotion, I had stopped doing it. I needed to get back to it.

I took a break, I re-grouped, and I fought my way through it, day after day and week after week.

I focused on what was going well: top notch support from head office, a supportive spouse and friends and faith in myself.

I won the permanent position. I got my staff in line; the ones who are discontented are moving on, and new ones are coming in. But it was a hard slog and I had to get tough. The staff who failed in pursuit of “their” candidate were angry and bitter.

It’s getting better now. The learning curve angle is beginning to soften, and a good team is starting to develop.

But pausing my life? Yes. It’s necessary. Sometimes you have to stop, take a look, and decide if this is where you should be, if it’s for you. A realistic self-examination is key, not just for yourself but also for those you work with.

That’s something that I learned from this, both by watching it and by experiencing it myself. Being able to recognise your weaknesses and consider them is not shameful, and being realistic about your strengths isn’t shameful either.

What is your opinion?

Commentary, musings, Photography

Northern Garter Snakes

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Caution: Just so you know, this post contains photos of snakes. 😳

The red-sided garter snakes of Wood Buffalo National Park are the northern-most snakes in the world.

In April, they begin to emerge from their hibernaculum to mate and migrate across the neighbouring Salt River for the summer.

These little snakes blend incredibly well into their environment.

This area of Wood Buffalo Park is riddled with small caves that go deep underground. The snakes huddle together and sleep through the winter, maintaining a temperature well above zero.

When it’s warm enough outside, they emerge. Over the next few days of April and into May, the males will coil into “snake balls” to mate with any available female.

Can you see the red markings on his underside?

These snakes will then migrate, spend the summer eating, and travel back to the park to give birth before returning to their hibernaculum.

These harmless little guys will stand their ground and hiss at you as did the one pictured above when I got too close. I backed off and gave him his space.

Snakes have gotten a lot of bad press, but in my opinion, it’s the humans you need to watch out for, not them. You can always trust a snake to do what snakes do.

For more information, please see the link below.

https://norj.ca/2014/05/red-sided-garter-snakes-make-annual-mating-appearance/

Greetings from the migrating garter snakes of Wood Buffalo National Park. 🙂

Commentary, Photography

If You Go to Tofino

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As I recently posted, we went to Tofino, British Columbia a couple of weeks ago. We had wanted to visit for a long time. However, this particular visit was very short as we decided to go on the spur of the moment; our plan is to go back at some point because we loved it.

Here’s what we found out:

1. Bring rain gear – a raincoat, umbrella and rubber boots. We had rain and sun, but don’t stay inside because it’s raining – that would be a real shame.

2. Tofino is quite expensive, so going in the low season can make it more accessible. It was low season when we went, but the prices still felt somewhat high. We stayed at the Tofino Motel. It was very clean and comfortable and there was a nice view from our little deck. Accommodations range from the extremely expensive (the Wickanninish Inn) all the way to the eclectic (Wild Pods – geodesic domes right over the water on a dock).

View from our motel.

3. It’s about a four hour drive from Nanaimo on eastern Vancouver Island northwest across the island to Tofino. You can leave from Horseshoe Bay near West Vancouver and take an hour-and-a-half ferry ride across Howe Sound to Nanaimo. The drive across the island is beautiful. There are many other alternatives such as flying over by floatplane, but exploring those would take another post.

4. Bring along a couple of pairs of comfortable walking shoes. Even if it’s sunny out, you may find yourself with wet feet, and you’re going to want to do lots of walking and exploring in this stunningly beautiful place. A second pair is a good thing.

5. We can recommend two restaurants: Shelter, and The Wolf in the Fog. They both have great seafood, excellent service and good wine and drinks lists. We went to Shelter twice.

6. Tofino has everything you might need: a good grocery store, pharmacy, and post office. There are lots of tourist shops and local tour operators.

7. If you can, go down the road to Ucluelet. It’s about 45 minutes south of Tofino. It’s also stunningly beautiful.

We went to the Heartwood Kitchen for breakfast in Ucluelet. Wonderful.

That’s it.

I you’re considering going, I hope you are able to make that happen. It is absolutely beautiful, and so calming and restful.

Commentary, musings, Photography

Pausing My Life, Part One

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Do you ever feel like you need to take a break from your life?

Just press the pause button, sit back with your coffee or tea cup and turn everything off for an hour?

No phones, internet, television or other “urgencies.”

Last year, I took on a high stress position. My boss, whom I got on with really well, had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and she had decided that she wouldn’t take life-extending treatment, as those treatments would interfere with her life quality. She just wanted to keep going to work and living her regular life as long as she could.

I was her number one, the “safety” person who could temporarily take over and run things when she wasn’t feeling up to it.

As time went on, I did more and more of her job as well as my own. It became almost hellishly stressful, especially when my boss suddenly decided that her cancer was cured.

When that happened, I knew that the efficient, I-am-taking-this-in-stride-it’s-part-of-life portrait she was presenting to the world was a big pile of … something.

Day-by-day as I watched her deteriorate, she explained how certain things happening to her – such as the swelling lymph nodes that began to bother her – were signs that her body was expelling the cancer.

She was so invested that I just went along with her.

But when she started convincing other colleagues that she was getting better, and they started believing it, I wasn’t so sure. But still, I said nothing. And besides, it wasn’t my place to say anything anyway.

Then it became worse. Her decisions started to become questionable, and when I tried to offer alternatives and/or cautions, I was met with an incredible wall of stubbornness that I hadn’t encountered before.

I suspected that the cancer either had metastasised to her brain or the stress of presenting a picture of recovering health was just too much.

Maybe it was both.

But the fact was that she was acting out of character and I began worrying about the fallout. Her behaviour was beginning to have a negative impact on our workplace. At that time, the impact was small, but I knew it would become larger.

I saw what she was doing; that she was attempting to think positively in order to remain hopeful of a remission. But her version of that had turned into a very serious case of denial, and that denial was affecting everyone around her.

So, taking a break from my life? Pressing pause and just taking a breath? Right then, I probably would have given an arm for that.

Have you ever felt that way?

Should we say anything to those who are in denial?

What do you think?

Stay tuned for part two …

Commentary, musings, Photography

An Airplane Story

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As Monty Python used to say …

And now for something completely different.

Once upon a time, there was a pilot who had to fly an airplane very far, far north.

The pilot had done lots of flying before, but not very far, far north.

The pilot was looking forward to this trip.

On the morning of the flight, the pilot was up early in the dark darkness of the northern winter. It was very cold, but the airplane was in a warm hangar.

The pilot got the airplane ready as passengers gathered in the waiting room with their bags, boxes, a bunch of freight, two hamsters and one dog.

Now, this dog had to travel in the passenger cabin because … well, because there’s no freight compartment on this particular aircraft type.

This airplane is what’s called a combi – it carries a mix of passengers and freight, all on one level.

The pilot went inside to talk to the owner of this dog. It was a really big dog. A Great Dane. Its hair was really short and it was wearing a coat. It looked cold, miserable and scared.

It was shivering and shaking.

The pilot asked the owner to make sure that the dog had done its business before getting aboard.

It was a three hour flight; it’s not like there would a place to pull over and stop.

The owner assured the pilot that the dog had pooped, peed and burped.

Okay, thought the pilot. Let’s load and get this show on the road, so to speak.

40 minutes later, all was loaded and everyone was taxiing along just as the sun was coming up over a northern winter horizon.

The pilot applied power and started the take-off roll.

A satisfying back pressure as the aircraft lifted off …

Reaching altitude … settling in … And then, and then …

What is that God-awful stench?

If you took one of Lebron James’s basketball shoes after a number of heavy practises, stuck it in a vat of boiled cabbage, buried it under a chicken coop, and left it there for several weeks … then maybe you can imagine this malodorous vapour.

The pilot sent the co-pilot back to investigate.

He came scurrying back, turned green and promptly threw up all over the radios.

Chunks started to befoul the throttle levers as they slowly slid down the panel.

The pilot, floating by now on the ghastliest sea of odiferous gases, directed the co-pilot to do what he could to clean up himself and the cockpit.

With the autopilot on, the pilot went back to take a look, and … almost threw up too.

For there in the first row, the very large Great Dane had pooped a mutant-sized mound of poo. And was sort of standing in it. A baby elephant would have been proud.

The owner sat there, unreactive as the entire cabin starting collapsing into various stages of tummy trouble. He pretended not to notice.

Retching slightly, the pilot told the owner to clean up the mess.

“With what?” he snarled, “My bare hands?”

“If you have to, yes! Don’t you have any poo bags?” the pilot snarled back. “My co-pilot is sitting up there with a major case of the heaves. Now start cleaning this up!”

“I don’t have anything to put it in. I don’t have anything to pick it up with. What am I supposed to do?”

But a chorus, a groundswell, began from the back of the plane. Items starting finding their way to the front. Bags, hand sanitizers, towels and even a plastic spoon.

Sometimes, on your journey through life, you encounter twits with giant mounds of poo. But often, there are ordinary people who will help out with whatever they have, and will give you the hand sanitizer out of their pockets.

(And everyone lived to happily disembark the poo plane.)

You? What poo plane have you had in your life?

Commentary, musings, Narcissism - One Woman's True Story of Marriage to a Narcissist, Photography

Why Do You Blog?

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The idea for this post came from https://anupturnedsoul.wordpress.com who asked this question after being prompted by a blog that she follows: https://aguycalledbloke.blog.

It’s a good question.

Why DO I blog?

Well, for the most part, it started out with wanting to hang a warning sign on the Narcissistic Personality Disordered people among us who go crashing through the lives of the unsuspecting, causing all kinds of damage and mayhem; in some cases even murder.

But along the way, many things changed. In interacting with other blogs and reading the comments, I came to realise a few things.

The first is that I had a lot more to learn about narcissism than I could impart. Intellectually, I knew that before I started, and knew that I could only write what I had experienced. But I also didn’t know it. The “ordinary”experiences and thoughts of others provided a depth and challenge that I wasn’t able to achieve on my own or through just reading the work of professionals on the topic.

Ordinary experiences, as in, “yup, I experienced a narcissist in my office and here’s what learned. I’m not a psychologist and I didn’t have one living in my house. But here’s a piece of the puzzle,” became central to how I thought about narcissism and to how I thought about people.

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So, my idea to write about narcissism from a position of experience quickly became writing about narcissism to help me think through it in a more cogent, spherical way.

It also became a way to think about my responsibility in it. Again, I had recognised that I bore some responsibility, but I needed to explore that. And writing about it, reading others’ writing about it, and considering how they saw it, helped me to place myself, including finally being able to admit that I had been raised by a narcissistic mother. I really began to see how I had contributed to my own issues.

My thoughts about narcissism, how I had been affected by it, and my part in it, were chaotic and driven. Writing about it was therapeutic.

I don’t consider myself to be a writer. I’m never going to write a great novel or even a really good blog post. I dabble in writing because the mental exercise of it has been good for me. And, it’s given me the opportunity to read some really good stuff by other bloggers who are far more talented than I am.

Reading blogs about narcissism lead me to other blogs that weren’t about narcissism, and now I follow and randomly read lots of blogs that have nothing to do with it. I have branched out in my own posts. Sometimes I still write about narcissism, and I definitely still read about it, but it’s not the main theme any more.

For me, blogging has become, for the most part, about exploring others’ ideas, humour, travel, photos, musings, reflections and food, just to name a few. I love that I can read a blog about exploring Dorset (https://thedorsetrambler.com) – whose author/photographer writes about his explorations in the most gentle and lyrical way – and then switch over to see what’s going on in someone’s kitchen (https://fixinleaksnleeksdiy.blog).

In a nutshell, it has become the journey to otherness, the exploration of what’s not-me.

Why do you blog?

A Little Laugh Turneth Away Wrath, Commentary, musings, Photography

The Big Chilly

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Right now I am living deep inside a real big chilly. It’s something like -42 C or whatever. When it’s that cold, does it matter any more? I don’t even check. It’s -40, yada yada.

Up until recently, it’s been fairly easy to live with.

But … there’s always something.

First, my truck wouldn’t start. It was plugged in, but despite heat shots and trickle chargers and a couple of boosts, it protested and said no, I’m not starting. Now leave me alone or put me in a warm garage!

There I was, my whatis sticking up in the wind chill factor while I fussed over an exposed engine, checking oil and fumbling around trying to determine if the the block heater was still working as I invented a totally new dialect composed entirely of vulgarities.

Then my bathtub drain froze.

Yup. My bathtub drain.

I was standing in the tub shower, soaping up and enjoying the warmth when I realised that the water was up to my ankles. It wasn’t a clog, because the day before, the water was draining normally.

But now? There’s no movement at all, not even a trickle.

I have a bathtub full of used water and an open drain. It just sits there, staring stupidly at me while I think about flamethrowers and other incendiary devices.

Then my house door wouldn’t lock. It was too cold for the tumblers to engage. I almost got down on my knees and begged. Really? You aren’t going to lock? Just hang on a sec, I have to go throw a minor tantrum. Waaahh! 🤣

And let’s not forget the head cold. Its onset blended seamlessly with the arrival of several days of major meetings that I had to attend, a tissue box under one arm and a Vicks inhaler lodged, unnoticed, in a nostril.

Of course, all of this happened while my M is away. (Is there a message in that?)

But, an update.

It got warmer. Right now, it’s about -12 C.

I got my truck towed. It got its wish and is in warm garage awaiting a new block heater.

I awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of my bathtub draining. It turns out that all I had to do was wait. Scared the crap out of me though – there I was, creeping into the bathroom with my phone in one hand and a fly swatter in the other. If it had been an intruder, what was I going to do with the fly swatter??? (Oh look, there’s a mutant mosquito in the bathroom – hand me the swatter please.)

I got my hair dryer, pointed it at my door lock and warmed up all the parts.

That worked.

My cold is almost gone. So is a lot of the other cold.

Things are looking up, especially the temperature. (Okay, I’ll stop with the cheesy comments.)

So how has this “polar vortex” (doesn’t that sound like the name of a disaster movie? Polar Vortex, starring Jennifer Aniston and Tom Cruise. Watch if you dare. Because you may never go outside again. 《Sound of loud chattering teeth.》) been treating you??? Among other places, it has hit the west coast of the continent pretty hard.