Shoes off! Please

Last night I was reading Ali Wong’s book Dear Girls and bumped up against a cultural habit that I have struggled with for most of my dual American/Canadian life; the removal of shoes upon entering the house.

Wong, who is an outrageously funny stand-up comic, wrote that she preferred to date Asian men for many reasons, one being that she didn’t have to act as a tour guide through Asian culture for them. Dating white men in America, she said, always meant working through a few simple etiquette lessons including taking off your shoes when entering a home.

If she was dating Canadians, I don’t think she would’ve encountered this problem.

I grew up in Nova Scotia and we always took our shoes off when entering the house; there is often a whole room just for this purpose called the porch or mud room, depending on the season/family culture.

But I noticed early on that my American relatives didn’t take their shoes off in the house; not in their homes in America and not while visiting our homes in Canada.

My first thought about this cross-border, cultural contrast was that perhaps it was a division between town and country. I grew up on a small farm and nobody wanted to track the barn into the house. But on second thought, some of my American relatives had farms; they didn’t track farm crap through the house, but when wearing everyday shoes, they’d leave them on indoors.

Next I considered that it might just be a Maritime thing—but no. I have lived in four provinces and everyone seems to follow the unspoken shoes off rule.

I should be clear, if footwear is visibly muddy, full of snow or clearly going to make a mess of the floors; my observation of Americans indicates that they pretty much all remove footwear inside the home. But it’s the walking on the street, clean looking soles of sneakers that don’t require removal in America.

But the truth is, those shoes aren’t clean. You’ve walked where animals have answered the call of nature, where garbage has leaked onto sidewalks, and where car exhaust leaves the surrounding surfaces awash with toxins; and then you bring it into your house.

A research paper published in The Journal of Applied Microbiology in 2016, found that “shoe soles are a vector for infectious pathogens; Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridium difficile and multidrug-resistant Gram negative species” and that no effective decontamination strategy for shoe soles was known.

So, at a time when everyone is thinking about self-isolation strategies to avoid COVID-19, give a thought to what you do with your feet when you walk in the door after a tiring day of bulk buying hand sanitizer and face masks. Take your shoes off, find some cozy slippers and know you have done all you can to avoid getting sick from the world outside your door.

Reap what you sow

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Remember that time when you hadn’t seen that so-called friend who stalked you and then you walked into a conference and he was there? For me, that time was last week.

On campus and in town, I’ve haven’t laid eyes on the man who came to my house, expressly uninvited, and stood waiting outside my door until I opened it to take the dog outside, for six months. On his part, that day was no whimsical drop in—he had to drive almost an hour to my village, park his car down the street where I couldn’t see it, and stand outside my door without knocking—just waiting.

I didn’t register his presence when I first arrived at the conference last week, even though there were only 20 or so people in the room. I was busy looking over the event brochure. Then I scanned the room for people I knew; I saw a former professor, a former classmate and then him.

My stomach sank and for a moment I contemplated leaving—but I had driven an hour to be here and I really didn’t want to let this man’s actions prevent me from taking part in the conference; even though his being there certainly distracted me and I barely heard the opening remarks.

I had been dreading the day when we would inevitably be in the same room again. After the stalking event, I sent him a message telling him what he had done --because I have learned from experience that stalkers don’t usually identify their behaviour as stalking—and that he should under no circumstances contact me again or purposely be in my immediate vicinity. He hasn’t. And I haven’t seen him, which is surprising given the size of this town. But this is a small place and I knew the situation was inevitable; I just wasn’t expecting it. I hadn’t for a moment considered that he might be at this conference.

After I notice him, two tables away from me, I see that he notices that I noticed him. Our eyes didn’t meet or anything like that, but I could see him shrink in his chair and pull his ball cap down; trying to become invisible without much hope of succeeding in such a small group. I keep looking at him and past him, so he knows I am not leaving. It’s his turn to feel uncomfortable. What if I tell everyone what he did?  

There’s work to be done and before we are split into groups according to our registered preferences, I wonder what will happen next and what I will say. What if we end up in the same group? There are very few people here and the probably is high.

With all that has gone on with the #MeToo movement in recent years I decide that if we are in the same group, I will say that I can’t work with this particular man. I wouldn’t want to say more and I doubt that I would be pushed to; but I do know that I will not choose a group I don’t want to be in just so I can avoid him. And I also know I won’t just suck it up and work with him in the same group silently seething contempt. Those days are over for me and hopefully for all women and girls—though I doubt we have come that far yet.

While I run scenarios in my head, everyone starts to make their way to the one of four tables where topics have been assigned. He stands up, clocks where I am headed, makes some brief comment to the table where he has been sitting and leaves the conference.

He’s afraid of me, and that’s good. After he took away my feeling of security in my own home, I hope he feels some fear of repercussions for his actions. I hope he didn’t return to the conference on the following days because he worried that I would be there. I hope he knows I want to make him uncomfortable.

The day following my personal showdown with the stalker, I heard about the uproar caused at France’s version of the Oscars when actresses walked out of the event when Roman Polanski (who was charged and convicted of a sex crime) won top awards. The protest was expected, but what was more interesting to me was the fact that Polanski hadn’t attended the award ceremony because he was afraid for his safety. I have to admit, that news made me smile.

Polanski and people like him, people like my stalker, should be afraid. Not necessarily of violence but of being confronted by the people they have harmed—the people they made feel unsafe in their workplace, their school and in their own homes.  

Respite in the kitchen

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Yesterday's breakfast lay hard and flat on the plate,

symbol of plenty or waste,

depending on the frame.

Snow drifts on the verge of the road,

the floured discs are thrown to the wind.

Sharp eyes find the offerings,

the frocked, iridescent ecclesiastics

dive to gather the holy rite in their sharp beaks

while Sunday's flock of gulls

circle in their wake.

Missing pieces

I have announced our plan to travel to Japan. It will be the fulfilment of a life long dream for both of my children. It is not a vacation, it is not a trip, it is a journey to find the missing pieces of their identity.

This is not a lark, not a playful decision made by a parent with itchy feet. It is their birthright which has been denied them due to circumstances beyond their control; poverty and family breakdown.

I have long wanted to give my children this gift-- this missing piece-- but was thwarted in my efforts. This year I felt an urgency to act.

We are not rich, as one child at school said when she heard of our up coming journey; according to government standards we are poor. But that is another discussion about why the poor hide their plight rather than be heard, rather than call out the system that does not work, afraid of the stigma that the word and the reality brings.

We have saved for almost a decade to afford this trip to the land which they in part belong. A land they have never seen but yearn to know as it is a part of their DNA and their identity.

This is not a trip. This is who they are and they deserve to know it with their breathe, their eyes, and under their feet.

Banal

I saw the devil today,

he looked benign,

as he always does.

He didn't wear a mask,

or sign,

He might serve you tea,

make small talk.

You can't see his truth,

until

you do.

And then you can't,

stop your ears and eyes,

from knowing.

The devil was outside my window today,

and I couldn't erase him,

nor his deeds in the world.

I can only hope,

that there is a hell,

and it is so unpleasant,

that the devil needed a vacation.

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And that's OK

It's almost Mother's Day and people are starting to post their “I love mom” photo frames on Facebook. There are lots of different styles and fonts but the one I am looking for doesn't seem to exist. The one I am looking for says, “I don't love my mother, and that's ok.”

Every year people like me who are estranged from their mothers, get bombarded by the Mother's Day love fest. I was lucky enough that even though I didn't have a mother I could love I had other mothers in my life who were very loveable.

I never felt scarred by the experience of not loving my mother, it was when I did love her that I was most in pain. Once I got over that, life got a lot easier.

Many's the time that people have told me that I should work for a relationship with my mother cause won't I feel a deep grief if I don't? I don't feel any grief, I feel relief. My rule of thumb in personal relationships is that if you are in my life you have to either maintain the status quo of contentment or make it better. If you make my life a worse place to be – you have no place in it.

I don't feel bad. I don't feel like I am missing anything. I don't love my mother and that's ok.

While I don't love my mother I also don't hate her. I am indifferent. I treat her as I would treat any stranger on the street. I am friendly, invite her in my house, talk about the weather, offer her tea-- but that is as far as it goes.

This works for me and it might work for other people too if they didn't feel like there was a biological imperative to be 'close' to their mothers no matter what kind of hell might ensue.

I am writing this because I want other people to know that it is ok, you can be a good person and not love your mother. You may be better off breaking that toxic bond—if it is impacting your life in a negative way.

And for those of you that have those 'I love mom' frames; enjoy your moms, love them ferociously. When I see those lovely photos they highlight all the moms I want to emulate in my own motherhood. They should be fully celebrated—this is just a little nod to those of us who won't be posting those pictures.