Erin's Journals

Just a thought… The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning. [Ivy Baker Priest]

Yes, I’ve used this quote before and I’ll probably use it again. It’s one of my all-time favourites and it fits, perfectly.

First of all, thank you for those beautiful sentiments in response to my thoughts on guilty joy. It’s morphed into full-on excitement and I have some surprises planned for the fatigued foursome arriving at YYJ tomorrow night that I don’t dare write about here until Monday! Don’t worry, I won’t overwhelm them or have them rushing for the gate to get back on the plane!

Meantime, this is me today. And tomorrow.

In case you don’t watch SNL, this is a Kristen Wiig character from a few years back. She’s the woman who can’t contain herself when she learns a secret. Her joy and excitement are impossible to keep inside and, yes, that’s me these days.

We are keeping busy: there’s a thorough cleaning on the way tomorrow, and for the first time, we’ll use that new Bissell thing that we bought. We’re painting a table for their new home that we picked up at our local ReStore (the Habitat for Humanity retailer). We’re stocking the fridge with important things like chocolate milk and Mr. Freezes. There are meals to plan, decals to put on a little boy’s (temporary) bedroom wall and so many other tasks to keep us just busy enough to stop from counting hours instead of sleeps.

This is all the culmination of a dream we didn’t dare have. I’d look at little splash pads and think, Oh, Colin would love this. I’d hear of things my friend Nancy and her two island grandsons or my Aunt Laura and her two grandchildren were doing and wonder what it would be like to take Colin on similar outings. I wasn’t envious, just as I wouldn’t be jealous of you for living just a few doors away from your kids or grand kids, as many have told me that you are. I’d think, Oh, that’s so wonderful for them, and go on with our lives. But here we are.

Always keep one foot in the reality around you, but let your other foot step towards the horizon, because just beyond it, you never know. There could always be a miracle.

So many things – some of them awful, like Brooke’s health scare – had to happen for tomorrow’s dream to take flight. But it has taken a whole lot of bravery on this young woman’s part, too. Just two years ago today, she and Phil went to Ottawa City Hall and tied the knot. And tomorrow, despite never having been on an airplane before in her life, she and their two children – one of them a nine-month-old baby (!) – are getting on that flight, transferring in Calgary, and making their way here. Our hearts travel with them every step of the way.

Rob and I planned our plane trips with Lauren very carefully: her first was a charity flight from YYZ over Niagara Falls and back, so she’d have a quick and hopefully easy experience with the ups and downs of a ride. It went perfectly.

For our next adventure, we loaded up activities for a trip to Florida to visit her grandparents. A nice, short flight. Everything was easy, no car seats to wrangle and just perfect introductions to air travel.

Tomorrow, you’ll have a nervous and exhausted mom and dad, a boy who’s flown but once (but is already a seasoned traveller in his own mind) and a baby. I can only hope their fellow flyers are healthy and patient. And that all goes smoothly. My heart will be up there in whatever rows they’re in, hoping for the very best every kilometre of their journey.

If Brooke is like I was when we boarded our flight leaving Toronto to move west in 2016, there will be a few tears. Yes, emotional and physical exhaustion come into play, but the culmination of so many things that had to bring someone to that seat on that flight on that day can be overwhelming. There’s a whole lot of bravery happening on those flights tomorrow and, while it may not be visible to the people in the rows around them, all dealing with their own trepidation about flying during COVID, I can only hope that kindness prevails.

Have a lovely weekend and don’t miss Monday’s journal. I promise it will be memorable!

Just a thought… The secret to change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new. [Socrates]

Four more sleeps. I’ve got so many emotions coursing through me right now as I write this; but it’s not just the excitement of the tremendous, joyous change that is coming to our lives this Friday evening. It’s a sense of, well, guilt.

Like so many of the elements of this chart (which I posted to my Facebook page in today’s journal link if you want to share it), guilt is one of the most useless there is, along with shame. If you really want to learn about shame and its toxicity – plus how to deal with it – just read anything by Brené Brown, or look for her special on Netflix.

Why guilt?

Because I know that our joy is coming at a cost to the families in Ontario shedding tears at the departure of Phil, Brooke, Colin and Jane to the westernmost part of our glorious country this Friday. While they are enjoying the emotional support of those who are happy about and understand this life-altering decision, of course, the mere thought of the geographical distance is causing heartache – something with which we are intimately familiar.

But there’s also guilt about you, dear reader. And as I pondered this, and what to do inside me to mitigate it, I had to examine where it came from.

Wayyyyyy back in the 1990s when I was fairly new at CHFI, I would write and produce 90 second spoken word vignettes that ran on the station throughout the day that were called “Focus.” A part of the station’s promise of performance to the CRTC, these pieces would be about nearly anything, but I always chose to write about things that would matter to a listener in her late twenties. Someone like me; someone the station was targetting as a listener.

One time I recorded a light piece on the health benefits of walking. And I ended it with a line about “as a new mom, nothing feels better for my heart than pushing a stroller…” or something like that. I don’t remember the exact words, but I remember their aftermath.

My boss at the time took me aside to tell me that he got a call from a woman who said that she was having difficulty conceiving and that “it broke her heart” whenever I talked on the air about having a baby.

I understood the sentiment, but also heard loud and clear what my boss was saying. By passing along the contents of a call to him, he was telling me that he agreed. Stop talking about your baby. Don’t offend someone who can’t have children. No one cares that you’re a new mom.

He didn’t say those exact words, but he didn’t have to. That was the kind of boss he was: he’d forward nasty emails that I didn’t have to see, but would read in the dark early hour before going on the air at 5 or 6 am. Why? Either to take me down several pegs in the self-esteem department, or because he felt the same things but didn’t have the cojones to say them himself.

(I did finally get to the point where, when my new boss Julie came in, in 2005, one of the first things out of my mouth was, “Please don’t forward nasty emails.” I learned that that was not her style of management. And that I shouldn’t have had to ask in the first place.)

So that’s where this comes from, and no matter how much time and money I’ve spent on therapy and vodka, the feeling is still there. If you have something wonderful going on in your life, keep it to yourself; someone else might not like it.

I’ve tried to be careful weighing what’s in my journals and on social media about nearly everything in my life. Not too much heaviness, turn it around so, if possible, it can be about you as well as, or instead of, me. Reflect what people around me are feeling. Try to make sense of things. Vent when necessary and only if you can defend your position. And always endeavour to keep things positive.

There’s enough negativity in the world – especially in 2020 – without people coming here to get it. My job, if you will, just as it was on the radio, is to reflect the experiences of those around me, adding the prisms through which I see and feel them. So, with all of that as background, here we go:

I promise to write journals that will not sound like a family Christmas letter every time you click to come here. I’ll consider what I post so that the content is about you as well as what’s happening in our world. For the first while, it’s going to be a challenge not just to jump up and down and squeal here for a few hundred words twice a week. I know that many people who come here are desperately missing their own families: some are in grief and under tremendous stress, while almost all of us just crave a return to some sense of normalcy. I get that – truly I do.

Bear with me as I navigate the unfamiliar feelings of unfettered joy once again. After mapping out ways to look for it (in a book, even) and then finding it hidden in rabbit holes along our path, Rob and I are stepping into a whole field of joy. I’m running through those tall grasses and wild poppies and daisies now with my arms in the air and, although I may trip now and then, I’ll never lose focus of the fact that you’re there watching from the sidelines, wishing and waiting for your own joy to come, too. I’ll always stop to give you a hug along the way. My promise to you.

I’ll be back here on Thursday.

Just a thought… One day this is going to be over — can you imagine that day? How we’ll come out into the sun and laugh and hug and sing and dance and hold hands? I’m living for that day. It’ll be like nothing we’ve experienced before. [Glennon Doyle, @glennondoyle, Instagram post]

Don Jackson’s final post: “Inspirational Quotes for Lovers and Other Strangers” April 29, 2020

I’m saddened to tell you today that Don Jackson, who for years was the host of Lovers and Other Strangers on 98.1 CHFI and could be heard on Rogers stations via syndication, and later throughout the world on the internet, passed away from cancer on Sunday night. I don’t know Don’s age, but I can tell you with certainty that it was too young.

To be honest, he and I weren’t close; Don & Lydia and Rob & I only got together as couples during our Christmas Eve at Erin’s shows, when they would bring their two children, daughter Christina Rose and son Donny, to share in the broadcast. We were able to watch his children grow through the years as they stepped out of their shyness and joined in the show.

Part of the reason we weren’t able to forge a friendship was one of simple practicality: Don and I worked on opposite ends of the radio clock. While ours ended at 9 am, Don Jackson’s show began at 9 pm.

And what a show it was!

Don was one of the most talented broadcasters with whom I have had the great fortune to share the airwaves. If you never heard Lovers, you missed a nightly display of aural magic – a Northern Lights to the ear.

Don would research (largely pre-internet, remember) poems and pieces of writing that would invariably touch the heart and often the soul. He would have a theme for the evening and write and wrap his own carefully-chosen words around the songs.

Mind you, those songs were ones that CHFI would have included in its playlist of the day. So you can be sure that even if he was talking about this season in which he has left us, Percy Faith’s “Theme From a Summer Place” would not have made the cut or onto the air. So he had parameters to guide him and I think he often chafed at the limitations, but still he soared. And that transcendence makes what he was able to accomplish just that much more astounding.

Our morning show producer Ian MacArthur reminisced with me yesterday that he and Don Jackson began at CHFI within a few months of each other (some 30 years ago) and that what Ian as a producer marvelled at – as did I – was the fact that the musical (instrumental) pieces, or beds as we call them, were almost always in the exact same key as the song he was going into.

So if Don was talking about excellence, and rolling into Carly Simon’s “Nobody Does it Better,” you could be sure that the bed he was talking over was in F Major, the same as Ms Simon’s Bond theme. That was some absolute genius. Subtle, but perfect.

Nobody worked harder on a show, nobody was more dedicated to putting a flawless product out live on the air every time, and nobody did what he did, better.

Rob and I and all of our extended CHFI family of the past send our love and warm hugs to Don’s wife Lydia and their children. You can add your comments and read Lydia’s words here. Then take a moment and look at the messages from people whose lives were touched by Don’s show and his immense talent. I can only hope that these words give his family comfort in knowing how much that voice through the radio went straight to hearts of his listeners.

I’ll be back with you here on Monday. And if you have 90 seconds, here’s a YouTube link to Don’s piece called “The Roses of Life.” It’s a perfect, poignant way to remember our friend, Don Jackson.

Just a thought… Be Kind. Be Calm. Be Safe. [Dr. Bonnie Henry]

Hello and welcome to a new week. As Ontario (where most readers here seem to reside) begins moving into phase three of post-COVID life, from here in BC where we’ve been in that phase for a few weeks now, I can tell you that life is far from normal. And as hard as it is to take, we’re going to have to take it as it comes.

Yesterday we were tourists in our own city. We decided just to enjoy the sights and remind ourselves why we love this area and its capital so much. As we strolled the empty downtown sidewalks, about as many stores were open as closed and, not needing anything, we mostly window-shopped.

As glass panels spared us the chilly winds blowing off the water, we enjoyed a meal outdoors at a restaurant overlooking the harbour. This was a view we took in an hour earlier and, as some background, you should know that usually on a July Sunday you’d be shoulder-to-shoulder with other sightseers out enjoying the perfection of the day. But not yesterday.

In an area that would usually be bustling with vendors, musicians, visitors and residents, there were just a few dozen people and, if they were like us, they were just strolling and counting their blessings. But we also mourn the loss of the livelihoods of so many: with no ferries coming from Seattle, or international cruise ships bringing travellers by the thousands daily to our shores, a city that thrives on tourism is starving for attention.

Even those few who do venture here from off the island are finding the WELCOME mat rolled up; cousins of ours are visiting from out-of-province and had troubles finding a resort up island to which they could plan a short getaway from their family home base in Victoria.

Many, if not most, BC resorts are only allowing residents of this province to book with them, for obvious reasons of COVID safety and to prevent any spread of the virus within British Columbia. While this has proven inconvenient and unsettling, it takes only this picture of Alberta’s lovely Sylvan Lake on the weekend to underline why there’s no such thing as being too careful when it comes to a province protecting her own.

With the exception of the now-infamous lippy Letitia, who made news across Canada and the US when she posted a video of herself refusing to wear a mask at St. Joseph’s Hospital, our social media feeds have been filled almost exclusively with clips of Americans behaving badly.

They’re screaming about their rights in fast food restaurants, at grocery stores and wherever else hapless employees are telling them that they have to wear a mask to try to stem the spread of COVID-19. (Funny how the No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service signs never brought them to such insanity….)

But let’s not get too full of ourselves. It’s becoming clear that as the pandemic wears on, Canada has more than her share of people refusing to take precautions because: a) they wrongly believe they’re too young to catch the disease, b) they believe that if they do catch it there won’t be any ill effects or residual damage, or c) and this is not the least of the reasons: they prefer to take the word of a wingnut website, or a video that a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend posted, over the intelligence of actual lifelong scientists and epidemiologists.

My sister unfriended someone on Facebook on the weekend when that person posted a question about the test swabs: “How do we know they’re not implanting something in our brains?” (I’d have been sorely tempted to respond, “Honey, your brain is clearly something you needn’t worry about as you don’t appear to be using it anymore.”)

I’m afraid it’s too late to slam the internet’s Pandora’s boxes closed, but people have to choose their news sources more carefully and digest their contents even more scrupulously. As someone wiser than I once said, “You’re entitled to your own beliefs, but not your own facts.” I’ll believe a scientist and go with the facts, thanks. And masks? Absolutely. Until there’s a vaccine or no new cases, unless I’m at home or in my little social bubble, that thing is staying with me like it’s my iPhone.

I’ll be back with you here on Thursday.

Just a thought… It’s not about how much you do, but how much love you put into what you do that counts. [Mother Teresa]

Does it feel to you these days as if you’ve gone from zero, not to 60, not to 100, but to 600 km/h in a minute? While those around us who took such good care of us, putting their own concerns aside, hopefully get their well-deserved rest, many of us are still slowly climbing out of our bunkers, opening doors carefully and trying to see through the fog and mist whether we are actually safe.

In our own little lives, Rob makes appointments, invites me to come along, and I just want to stay home in either my day or evening pajamas (getting dressed, of course, to walk Molly). Yes, I have different pajamas for different parts of the day; I even have a workout pair for the stationary bike. And, oh, I despair for how my feet are going to scream for mercy as I squeeze them into the lowest possible pair of heels to “perform” when this is all over, as they’re so used to being bare or in Skechers.

There are plenty of lighter sides to search for, after what we’ve been through the last four months, but mostly, for many, there are echoes.

We subconsciously take mental note of the people not wearing masks when we get into a crowded place, reminding ourselves that we wear ours for their safety, not just our own. We read and watch the insanity of people arguing with their own “facts” against actual medical experts and scientific evidence about the efficacy of taking the smallest of precautions, while shuddering as we witness the size of outbreaks occurring in places where people felt it was a violation of their rights to do so.

(As I showered yesterday, I wondered what our great-grandparents, who wore gas masks during a time of war, in real fear for their lives, and who, if they returned home at all, bore scarred lungs and minds for the rest of their lives, would think of an over-privileged, under-educated citizen screaming over having to don a piece of cloth in a Trader Joe’s.)

Every day, Rob and I count ourselves lucky not to have been touched personally by COVID-19, although we feel the fallout in all of these lesser ways. Last weekend, we worried and awaited word as my sister, a personal home care worker (the one with whom I spent two hotel nights) checked her computer repeatedly to learn the results of her COVID test.

Thankfully, they were negative, but in those days of uncertainty, it was challenging not to go down the dark rabbit hole of counting how many people – including our father – with whom she’d come in contact. How soon, I wonder, until we can truly breathe easy again; until a cough is just a cough and not reason for concern or a quick side-eyed glance? How soon until the only proximity that worries us on the plane is if the person next to us is going to hog the arm rest? I wonder when the echoes will fade.

Some days, when the concern over what is happening around us gets to be too much, the exercise of sitting quietly and planting one’s feet on the floor, feeling quite literally grounded, helps as I concentrate on my breath – in, out, in, out – and get out of my head by moving into my heart. In and out, in and out.

But earlier this week, I had an even more tangible example of the importance of support, and of offering comfort and even a little prayer as care for the helpless came right to my door. Or, more accurately, our window. Here’s what happened.

Lying in bed, my second delicious coffee of a lazy morning in hand, I heard what I guessed was the sick thud of a bird hitting a house window. I went to investigate and, sure enough, a young spotted robin was lying in the garden just a few feet below the pane bearing marks from its collision with it. With one wing bent at an unsightly angle, its little body was vibrating with shock and fear.

I gently scooped up the bird and took it to an outside deck and, between Rob and me, we must have held it for the better part of an hour as its eyes opened; through our fingers, we felt the pulsing of its heart, strong but slowing.

We spoke to each other and to the young bird in hushed tones, watching for signs of improvement or deterioration. Then, after determining that he or she might just survive, we took our young friend outside to an elevated garden and put it down with great care, on its feet, one of which seemed to be broken (judging by the angle of its claws). Rob and I stood back and watched it hop gingerly to the protective shade of the base of a tree. 

Tip-toeing out to the same garden area an hour later, I checked on our little patient and there he was. But after another hour it had gone, hopefully to return home to its family. As I tried not to think of predatory birds and pets in our neighbourhood, I thought of a saying of which I’m often reminded: nature isn’t cruel, it is indifferent.

How we take care of each other, even – or especially – the smallest and most vulnerable among us, says more about us as individuals and a human race than anything.

When we look back at 2020 (assuming COVID-19 has somehow been brought under control or has its own enemy in the form of a vaccine), what will we remember about how we treated each other?

I’ll be back here with you Monday. Thanks for sharing a few thoughts today.