Rainbow Shite

I felt the urge to sing and dance my way through the streets yesterday.  It was the first time in my memory that I have not had to go to school (as student or teacher) or be home for someone that was in school.

At 45 years of age, this was a long overdue thing. So I pranced around Vancouver's Chinatown for the afternoon. 

One stark reminder of reality was when I followed the signs for the public washrooms.  This led me straight up East Hastings. I put away my fancy smartphone in an instinctual move to preserve personal belongings.  East Hastings in broad daylight is just a tad unsettling, to put it mildly.

Living in Toronto and knowing most of the downtown core I really can't think of an equivalent area.  The desperation and pain of the people hanging about in rundown hotel doorways and in the alleyways literally seared my soul. I could almost feel torture oozing out of their empty and junked up eyes.  Eyes that were also sizing up my oh so obvious tourist get up (not to mention having clean clothes and a full set of well maintained teeth).  I slid my phone unobtrusively into my cargo pants and picked up my pace.

As I walked I wondered what kind of a joke the Vancouver City Tourist Office (or whatever it's called) was playing.  I thought of a series of webcams stationed along the route to capture the puzzled, then horrified, and then terrified faces of innocent tourists following these prominent signs out of Chinatown.  Innocent tourists just hoping to relieve themselves in a city sanctioned loo.  And a crowd of staffers laughing all day long at this private network of webcams.

The public bathrooms were below a Community Centre.  The entrances to both the men's and women's facilities were crowded with junkies and alkies.  There was a security guard prominently posted outside the Centre and he silently pointed to this sea of jonesing humanity when I enquired about the public washrooms.  I blanched at the thought of being jumped in the underground bathroom or on the way through the dozens of bodies to the top of the staircase down entrance.

All of a sudden I didn't need to go to the washroom so badly anymore.

I crossed the road and from the edges of Chinatown stood and stared back at the community centre and the throngs of people in various states of withdrawal and desperation.

I had gone from feeling like I was on the top of the world to being shaken to my core and powerless in the face of the bleakness of humanity.  I recognized that there is nothing that I can personally offer these people yet every cell in my body screamed that these people need help. 
Vanxouver's dark side (seen constantly in the downtown core) seems to be a perverse antitheses to the majestic beauty of the sea and mountains that surround it and the exquisite architecture that houses it's more fortunate residents. It's as if, at the end of the rainbow there is a pot of shite instead of gold.  And just like the saying goes, into each life (or city) some rain must fall.  Some of the more fortunate even get to shit rainbows....which is the feeling I had alongside the dancing in the street feeling after traipsing, accidentally, through Vancouver's lower east side.

PS I can't straighten the pic on the blogger Android app. Ugh.

Satisfactorily Single

Myself at Macchu Picchu:  Satisfyingly Single

How many middle aged people get to take off, with a couple of weeks notice, and go on an adventure?  

The look of envy I've witnessed in the telling of my adventure tale of the last few months is curious.  I think all of us retain a sense of the wonder we experienced as a child when many things were brand new to us.  I think also that we are conditioned, as a species, to move towards stability in order to best provide for the continuation of our species.  Nomadic societies are successful but you and I are not likely direct descendants of them.  Our current world is ensuring the complete extinction of any remaining nomadic societies although the final frontier (space) may create an entirely new society of space nomads in the future.

I've spent a lifetime caught up in the mating trap.  I have been heavily conditioned by both nature and nurture to believe that 'every old sock has an old shoe'.  And, if I just went fishing often enough, then I too would land my catch.  I could write a book on my dating adventures (first internet date was in 1996, yes, 1996).  I met one person for a coffee back in the late 1990s and he told me he just wanted to have a viewing of what a woman looked like that would put an ad up in a singles column.  After experiences like that you would think I would have given up but alas, the reproductive mating urge is strong so I soldiered on.

Not once in my quest did I ever stop to think that being single is a viable option.  A viable permanent option.  During periods of not actively searching I would be buoying myself up to launch yet another search for "Him".

A few years ago I came to the conclusion that perhaps I was just too wounded to be partnered and I accepted, if not embraced, that reality and ended the search.  A truism came to life shortly after that decision, I fell in love.  A marvelous love affair ensued and the ending revealed to me that yes, I may be wounded but no, I can overcome that if I wish to.  And a new decision was arrived at:  I am satisfactorily single.  I am not single because I am wounded (all of us have baggage, mine is mostly stowed away).  I am not single because I am damaged.  I am single because I cherish my independence.  I cherish my lack of commitment.  I am single because I am an explorer at heart and to change my marital status would involve relinquishing something more precious to me than even my daughter:  my independence.

I look at the frenzy surrounding The Official Day to celebrate coupledom and think bravo for you if you find fulfillment in a partnership.  I have also found fulfillment there, at times.   But the fulfillment I am experiencing as a single adventurer so greatly outweighs my former aspirations I wonder why as a society we are not offering up this choice to younger people right from the get go.  "Happily Ever After" can and should involve a solo option.

Mayonnaise and Aeroplanes

As of the end of February I will have travelled over 50,000 kilometres around the globe in the past calendar year.


That might seem shocking but chances are, in any given day, the ingredients in the food you will eat and the drinks that you will consume will have travelled much more than that.


How is it that we now live in a world where people don't travel large distances that often but our food does?  


About a year ago I went to the travelling Titanic artifact exhibit in Kitchener and it really stuck me then how many people were travelling a century ago.  Technology had progressed to the point that large luxury liners were being built and people were taking advantage of this and going off and exploring.  And today, with travel technology having advanced to the point that the middle class should be able to well afford travel often, it is not happening like I suspect that our forefathers of a century ago would have predicted.  My grandfather was born in 1912 and three of his far flung children allowed him to visit three continents with regularity, especially upon his retirement.  His passing in 1996 allowed my mother to pass along a small amount of money to me that I used embark on my first solo hostel trek to the Rockies and down 101 to San Francisco.  I chose to do that with his money in order to honour him and acknowledge the tremendous influence he had on my explorer nature.


So, fast forward back to today.  I had the chance to re-watch this compelling video promoting local food consumption in Canada.  Ironically, this video just happens to be made by a food company owned by Unilever, one of the world's largest multinational food corporations.


Re-watching this video and pondering the ethics of a multinational creating a local food promotional video got me thinking of my recent travels.  Especially the travels I've taken since having strict dietary restrictions.  I have been dismayed by many food 'movement' related things.  I think that some of these concerns would be most easily presented in a list form:

1. The westernization of the Peruvian food system:  quinoa, a grain I cook with a lot, is native to South America but I only saw it on one menu down there whereas wheat, a non-native South American grain, permeates their food culture now.  I really expected to see this item (and corn) to be pervasive. But sadly, wheat based products were the norm for breakfast/lunch items that were provided by all of the travel industry hospitality providers (hostels/hotels/plane/trains/tourist delis/cafes).
2. A traditional Parisian delicacy is the macaron.  These are supposed to be made with almond flour.  In Paris I had a difficult time finding ones that did not have gluten-based flours added.  Only the really upscale cafes had them.
3. In Newfoundland it has become a bit of a joke with my family.  The outport stores and restaurants are nearly entirely supplied by Kraft.  And who knows? Maybe Hellman's (Unilever) is hoping to penetrate outport Canadian markets with an ad like the one above....there is only Miracle Whip (Kraft's competing salad dressing product) on the plates for most of Newfoundland and perhaps in other remote locations throughout Canada too.
4. Everybody marvels about the food in New York City so I was surprised at how difficult it was to find food that wasn't laced with gluten and dairy. However, the Big Apple redeemed itself when we found Friedman's Lunch via a Manhattan gluten free search on yelp.  This delicious place is located in Manhattan's historic Chelsea market and I heartily recommend a trip there followed by a stroll along the adjacent High Line if you get a chance.

So again, I ask....how is it that a century ago the western culture was focussed on shipping people around the world and in the span of 100 years we now ship food around the world?  A We are shipping basically homogenized food that is easy to grow, store, and prepare (wheat/soy).  Local cultures are being processed into extinction.  It is readily recognized by every culture on the planet that food is a unifying force and the rituals around food are what bring people together.  If a culture can not claim their own local specialized and easily available food then it is less likely to have a strong community.  

Food is a linchpin in all religions and given the long lasting and pervasive power of all of the major religions I think us food activists could take a page from them.  The more we scream LOCAL the more likely we will succeed not only in community building but also the preservation of localized culture.  And if Unilever, or any other person or organization of power, wants to use food to further their own agenda we should be throwing our hats into the air with a celebratory cheer.  

Me at Friedman's Lunch in NYC December 2011.  Best gluten free hamburger, ever!

My head is bursting.

Me at Machu Picchu, Peru December 3, 2011

I have had two weeks that will change my life.

I know this with a certitude that has escaped me in the past other than yes, I wanted to breed and yes, I would attend university (for much longer than the average bear...as it turned out).

I have no idea how my experiences from the last two weeks will change me.  But, then again,  I didn't know how going to university and becoming a mother would change me also. The uncertainty of the outcome is part of the deliciousness of the certitude.

My linear mind wants to force the experiences into tiny  boxes and, to be honest, on facebook I just status-ed about my 4 distinct vacations/destinations along with a distance count (nearly 20,000 kilometers by plane, train, and automobile).

I think I will allow a few days of processing and leave this post as an indication of things to come.

Loco pero feliz en el Perú

Machu Picchu, Peru

Tomorrow morning I will be taking the train to Machu Picchu.  I am in Peru and have been for the last four days.  The first two days were spent in Lima.  The last two days have been spent in Cusco, acclimatizing to the thin air of the Andes.  I think I am ready to take on MP.

I am a little stunned by the experience so far.  The trip was suggested, confirmed and planned within about 3 weeks of take off and two of my friends are with me.  Two friends that did not know each other before this trip.  Two friends that are now probably life long friends after the last 4 intense days and the remaining 5.

There are internet cafes everywhere in this very tourist centred town and I am sitting in one right now.  A TV is blaring downstairs in Spanish.  A spanish radio station is playing in the cafe.  There are traditional dancers in the small plaza up the road.  I just negotiated two solas off of the purchase of a universal adapter for charging my new battery for my camera.  I know about 20 words in Spanish - which is an increase of about 15 words from 5 days ago....language is not my forte!!  Earlier this evening, we all enjoyed a 1.25 hour long full body massage (without the ´happy´ ending that a young man offered one of my young travelling companions earlier! :).

I am literally overwhelmed by the new tastes, sounds, smells, experiences and interpersonal and individual growth I am experiencing.

I met a 64 year old woman from Calgary at our hostel in Lima.  We felt sympatico in our mutual sense of adventure.  She was about to leave after spending six weeks in Peru, including three weeks homestaying and learning Spanish in the area I am now in.  I feel, like she did, that to pick up and go on a whirlwind cross planet trip (she did hers with six weeks notice for her six week trip) is either a real sign of insanity or of joie de vivre.

Or both :)

Joyous Anticipation.

In a wee while we shall return to courting more frequently.

I will love your early morning kisses. Especially at the bedroom window.

And our late night cuddles with me in light clothing and you and your naked brilliance finally put to rest for a short nap.

Every year you abandon me for another hemisphere.


And I am a microscopic moon, unable to resist your allure when you return.

Since every year you do return, dear Sun.

You are a right rascal for being so reliable.