Strocel.com | Memories

2011 Year in Photos Slide Show of Awesomeness

Amber on December 30, 2011 5 Comments

It’s funny how traditions start. You do something a few times and presto, you have yourself a tradition. It all kind of sneaks up on you accidentally like that. Although, if you think about it, maybe it’s not really funny at all. Maybe all of life kind of sneaks up on you accidentally like that.

One of my most treasured blogging traditions started in 2008, when I decided to make a slideshow with some of my favourite photos from the previous 12 months. I spent a long time choosing the images, and then I set the whole thing to music and watched it over and over and over. I liked it so much that I did it again in 2009, and 2010. This is how it officially became a tradition. Once you hit that third time, it’s no longer just something that you do, it’s something that you do because it’s that time of year and you always do it at that time of year. So it’s no surprise that as 2011 ends, I’ve made another year-end slideshow.

I don’t know what everyone else thinks of my slideshow, but I can tell you that my husband Jon and I adore it. My kids adore it, too. So I’m going to keep doing it. Because, you see, some traditions are for breaking and some are for keeping. The slideshow is definitely a keeper.

Happy New Year, and all the best for 2012!

PS – Another tradition that I enjoy is my monthly review of things I learned. Some are serious, some are funny, and all are hard-won. I will be running my December review on Monday, January 2. I’d love it if you played along. For this month I’m expanding the definition to include year-in-review posts as well. Write something on or before January 2 and come back here to include it in my link-up!

Tagged With: Memories, New Year's, Seasons

A Bird Perched on my Christmas Tree

Amber on December 19, 2011 7 Comments

My Christmas tree isn’t stylish. It doesn’t have a theme, and its colours don’t match. Instead of white lights I opted for multicolour, when I bought them at a Boxing Day sale in 1999. They’ve held up well in the past 12 years, lighting a dozen Christmases and many trees, real and fake. They go with my hodgepodge of ornaments – some bought at the same Boxing Day sale, some inherited from relatives, some gifted and now some made by my children and presented to me eagerly long before gifts are meant to be opened. “Look, Mama, look what I made for you!”

How can you not look? You have to look.

I dragged my heels putting the tree up this year. I just wasn’t feeling it, to be honest. In years past the tree trimming left me feeling tense, cranky and tired. My kids wanted to help – oh how they wanted to help. But as they fought with each other and threw ornaments around and tangled the garlands it was hard to take their help in the spirit in which it was offered. And then, over the course of the holiday season ornaments were removed and strewn about the house. They were lost and broken, and I tried to be understanding, but sometimes it was hard. So this year I held off until December 15, even as my children spent weeks begging me to please, please, pretty please put up the tree today.

I dragged out the tree and the boxes of ornaments, and got down to business. At first, things didn’t look good. A few lights were burned out, and while my kids tried to help me replace them they threw the entire contents of one of my storage boxes all over the floor. They wanted to help me deck the tree in garlands, but they tangled everything up and made my job harder. I was beginning to lose hope. My redemption came, finally, when it was time to begin hanging ornaments. Suddenly, magic happened.

This year, three-year-old Jacob decided to take on the task of hanging the ornaments on the little hooks. I honestly didn’t think he could pull it off, but since I have plastic hooks that aren’t sharp or otherwise dangerous, I decided to let him try. I went to the computer to ~~play around on Twitter~~ fire up some Christmas music, and by the time I turned back I could see them. Jacob had gathered all the (non-breakable) Christmas balls, and was oh-so-carefully hanging each one on a little hook, and handing them to six-year-old Hannah. Perched on a stool, Hannah was hanging them one by one, all on the same patch of tree, and singing along to the music. They worked together beautifully, and happily, and I felt the holiday spirit wash over me.

Buoyed by optimism, I got out a special box that hasn’t been opened in years, marked “Precious & Fragile Ornaments”. It contains the very delicate and breakable things that I haven’t dared place on my tree since before I had children. It also contains the true heirlooms. These are the little pieces of Christmas that carry history I can’t stand to see lost. It was better to leave them in storage than risk a disaster, and so I did. The very most precious ornament of all – the one that I value above all others – is a little bird with chipped paint and a long white tail. I took it out and let each child touch it with one finger, and then gave it a place of honour high on my tree.

That bird was purchased 62 years ago by my grandmother, for her first Christmas with my grandfather. It was 1949 and she was a newlywed. It wasn’t the only bird she bought, but the others have been broken or lost in the intervening decades. I remember them from my own childhood, when I would carefully stroke their tails or move them around on her tree. I imagine that my mother remembers them from her childhood as well, a fixture of holidays since before she was born. Now just one survives to tell the story of all those Christmases. All the years, and the people who came and went. People like my great-aunts who are no longer with us, and my own grandfather who passed away in 1998. It saw them in happy times – festive times. Does it remember them? Will it remember me?

This year, that bird will watch as my own babies race towards the tree on Christmas morning. It will see new faces filled with joy, and hear new voices. And I will feel the solid weight of tradition and family and holidays, as I see it looking down on us from its perch on the tree that I didn’t really want to put up. Sometimes, I guess, Christmas happens because of you, and sometimes it happens in spite of you.

Do you have any special ornaments on your Christmas tree? Tell me all about them!

Tagged With: Christmas, Memories, Navel Gazing, Seasons

14 Not Forgotten

Amber on December 6, 2011 7 Comments

At approximately 4pm on December 6, 1989 an armed gunman entered the engineering school at École Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec. He walked into a classroom and separated the nine female students from the approximately 50 male students. He ordered the men to leave, and then shot the women, killing six and wounding three. He claimed that he was fighting feminism, and he believed that female engineers embodied what he was fighting against. The gunman then proceeded across the campus, killing another eight women and wounding an additional seven women and four men before shooting himself.

I am a woman, and for approximately 10 years I worked as an engineer in Canada. I entered university in 1994 – less than 5 years after the Montreal Massacre. It is something that resonates with me, because I was there. I sat in classrooms filled with male students, and studied math and science. I soldered circuit boards together in labs filled with men. In my final engineering job I worked on a 17-member team, with only one other woman. Most of my female colleagues worked in non-technical roles – there are still very few female engineers, and even fewer practicing female engineers.

I don’t believe that I encountered any more discrimination in my work life than any other woman. In fact, because my field was filled with younger workers, I may have encountered less. But still, I always knew. When I sat in a room with 15 people and I was the only woman, I knew. I was swimming against the tide. By choosing to work in a non-traditional field I was saying, “I will not be pigeon-holed. I will do the work that I choose because I want to, because I can, and because it means something.”

There have been countless other violent incidents in the 22 years since the massacre in Montreal, with many other targets. Places like Columbine, Virginia Tech, Dawson College and Knoxville Unitarian Universalist Church have been coloured by violence. Groups of people have been singled out because of their religious beliefs, the colour of their skin, or just because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Too often, violence has coloured places, until we can’t think of them without thinking of the atrocities that happened there. And while what happened in Montreal has happened elsewhere, what stands out for me is that the victims in that case were targeted because they were women.

I received my engineering degree. I remember those who didn’t receive theirs.

Here in Canada, December 6 is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. It was established in 1991 to remember the 14 women killed at École Polytechnique, and all of the other women who have faced violence. There are many, and we don’t know their names. Over the 11 years preceding 2006, 81% of spousal homicide victims were women. The rate of sexual assault for Canadian girls by family members is four times higher than for boys. In Canada, seven percent of women and six percent of men report being subjected to domestic violence, but female victims were more than twice as likely to be injured as male victims. Women were also three times more likely to fear for their life, and twice as likely to be the targets of more than 10 violent episodes.

Today, I remember the 14 women killed at École Polytechnique 22 years ago:

Geneviève Bergeron, 21
Hélène Colgan, 23
Nathalie Croteau, 23
Barbara Daigneault, 22
Anne-Marie Edward, 21
Maud Haviernick, 29
Barbara Maria Klucznik, 31
Maryse Leclair, 23
Annie St.-Arneault, 23
Michèle Richard, 21
Maryse Laganière, 25
Anne-Marie Lemay, 22
Sonia Pelletier, 28
Annie Turcotte, 21

I also remember the other girls and women who are the targets of violence because of their gender. And I hope, I hope desperately, that we can put an end to it. I hope that by using our voices, together we can bring change. I want a world where our children – regardless of their gender – can feel safe in their classrooms, workplaces and communities. I choose to believe it’s possible, and I choose to believe that we can make it happen.

As a mother, I have to believe it. And so today of all days I remember, I speak, and I hope for a better world.

Tagged With: Feminism, Memories, Navel Gazing

Dental Appliances I Have Known

Amber on November 1, 2011 8 Comments

When I was a kid I thought that braces were cool. Perhaps it was because the people who had them were generally older and cooler than me, when I was eight years old. Looking back, it makes sense. I associated braces with the people I looked up to who had them – the teenage assistant in my children’s theatre group, my babysitter, my best friend’s oh-so-sophisticated older sister.

When I was 12 years old I got braces myself, and suddenly they weren’t so cool anymore. In fact, they were the exact opposite of cool. That night that I got them on was one of the worst nights of sleep in my life. Or perhaps I should say one of the worst nights of sleep in my life before kids. I just remember how much my mouth ached, and how there was no escaping it. Plus, I didn’t just get braces, I got full on headgear. Not only was the headgear the height of tweenage awkwardness, it forced me to sleep on my back, which is the last way that I sleep if I have any say in the matter.

I tried looking for some photos of myself in full on orthodontia, but I don’t seem to have any. It’s not surprising, really. I didn’t exactly feel like posing when I had it on. Thankfully I didn’t have to wear the headgear to school, but I had to wear it all the rest of the time. And the braces, obviously, were semi-permanently attached to my teeth and didn’t go anywhere. For two years of my life regular visits to the orthodontist were routine, as my braces were tightened and the elastics replaced. They became the bane of my existence, especially when I wasn’t allowed to audition for a play in junior high because the director didn’t like the way braces made teeth on stage.

I may still be just a little bit bitter about the way my acting career was nipped in the bud. Oh, what could have been!

My orthodontic travails did not last forever, luckily. One happy spring day, the braces came off. I was so used to them by that point that it almost felt like I didn’t have any teeth in my mouth at all. But I did, and they were (finally) straight, and I didn’t stop smiling for two whole weeks. Except for when I had my retainer in, which once again was pretty much whenever I wasn’t at school. Because who wants to wear a retainer at school? I was coming off of years of wearing braces, I wanted to flaunt my new smile, not my dental gear.

You could say that I have run the dental appliance gamut. And recently, I got to head in a whole new direction when my dentist informed me that I needed a night guard. It seems that my bite is aligned is such a way that all the pressure falls on just two or three teeth on the upper right side of my jaw. When I sleep, I sometimes clench my jaw. As a result I have a fair amount of gum recession on those teeth, and I’ve already had one gum graft to correct the issue. While it was a largely uneventful procedure, I’m not exactly eager to repeat it, so I opted for the guard.

In an ideal world, I would agree to the night guard and they would bring out one they had in the back. I do not live in an ideal world. Here was the process I went through to get my new dental appliance:

Wait for an insurance pre-approval notice to arrive at my home.
Drive the paperwork to my dentist’s office.
Wait to hear back from the dentist’s office with the final estimate, and schedule an appointment.
Visit the office to have molds of my teeth made, for the lab that would be making my night guard.
Schedule an appointment to pick up the night guard.
Receive a phone call letting me know that the guard wouldn’t be ready on time, and would I mind re-scheduling? I comply.
Show up to pick up my night guard on the new day, and get shown to chair in a room.
15 minutes later, learn that my night guard isn’t actually there. It was supposed to arrive the day before and didn’t, and then it was supposed to arrive about half an hour before I did, but didn’t. They don’t know when it will be in, and they may need my chair. I tell them I’ll wait 15 more minutes, but then I’m calling it a day.
15 minutes after that, have an apologetic hygienist tell me that they’re calling it a day. As I re-scheduled, the receptionist gave me some Starbucks gift cards for my trouble, so the day wasn’t a loss. I did, however, give specific instructions that if the night guard wasn’t there by the end of business to please give me a call because I didn’t want to repeat the experience.
Arrive the next day, and finally pick up my night guard.
Realize that it’s even harder to speak clearly with a night guard than it was with a retainer. Fun stuff, man.

Quite honestly, I didn’t even really want the night guard, so jumping through those hoops felt like a bit much. Luckily I have it now, though, and it’s fine, and hopefully it will do what it’s meant to do. Because I don’t want to spend any more time in a dentist’s chair, dealing with dental appliances, than I already have in my life so far.

Have you ever had orthodontic work done? Did you have braces, or headgear, or a retainer? And have you ever tried a night guard? Tell me tales of your awkward youth, I’d love to hear them!

Tagged With: Memories, Navel Gazing

Repost – Mission: Piano Shelf

Amber on October 26, 2011 2 Comments

This is a re-post of a post I originally wrote on October 17, 2009. It shows then one-year-old Jacob engaged in some feats of climbing. This kid is still my climber, and has made my heart stop more times than I can count in the intervening two years. He’s just lucky he’s cute.

I realize I have been dedicating rather a lot of posts to Jacob’s latest feat of climbing. But, you know what? This is my life right now. I spend my days constantly fluctuating between being amazed and impressed by my toddler’s abilities, and being afraid for his very life. Plus, I do think he’s rather adorable, and so I can’t really resist sharing his photos with the internets.

So, on to Jacob’s latest feat of climbing. The other day I was sitting here in this very chair, probably spending some time on Twitter. Then I happened to glance to my right, and noticed that Jacob had made it to the top of the piano chair. He was in pursuit of the cat, who was shooting me looks that clearly said, “Will you please control that child?” Being the ~~dedicated blogger~~ attentive parent that I am, I of course reached for my camera and decided to see what would happen next. Here it is, as it happened:

I snatched Jacob down right after the last photo was taken, and folded up the piano chair. This is the advantage to not having obtained more permanent piano seating – the Costco folding chair is easily transformed into a non-toddler-climbable object. Jacob has tried to unfold the chair a few times, with no luck. Thank heavens for that. I also spent a few minutes tidying the toys, since as you can see the family room was not exactly blog-ready when my son began his little adventure. I hope that just makes you all feel better about your own domestic disaster zones.

[Aside: That alligator piano? We had to chuck it when Jacob pooped on the keyboard when he was two. Ah, memories!]

Here’s hoping for a peaceful weekend, free of toddler derring-do and other forms of mischief.

Do you have a climber on your hands? How do you sleep at night? I could use some tips and/or commiseration!

Tagged With: Kids, Memories

Photographic Evidence

Amber on October 25, 2011 5 Comments

For most of humanity’s history, photography did not exist. If you wanted to record an image, you had to do your best to re-create it through a sketch or painting. Most people had only their memories to carry snapshots of the past with them in the days, weeks, or decades after an event happened. We are not those people.

Today, we don’t only have photography, we have digital photography. On top of that, many of us have cameras with us at all times, thanks to our phones. In my youth, I had to buy film and pay for developing. Today, photos are virtually free, and I can take as many as I want. Of course, there is a limit to how many photos my phone or flash card can hold, but it’s so high as to be virtually infinite. I can document every little itch, sneeze and minor event to my heart’s content, and then just delete the images that I don’t like. I don’t have to spend a lot of time framing a shot, or calculate how many more pictures are left in my camera, I can just keep on snapping.

It’s funny how unfettered access to photography has changed the way I view the world. Even in my own life, I rely heavily on photos to remind me of who did what, and when. What did my children look like when they were babies? How old was Hannah when we went on vacation for the first time? What was the weather like on my wedding day? I don’t have to remember, I can just look at my vast photo library, stored on my computer and backed up regularly, and I have the answer.

Sometimes, though, the photos aren’t there. To my eternal sadness I accidentally deleted a number of photos from the day that Jacob was born. They’re gone forever, and I can’t get them back. Does this mean those moments didn’t happen? Of course not. But I don’t remember them as well, because I can’t look at the photos. Long after Jacob has grown, those missing photos will leave holes in my story of his arrival. Other lost images and missed photo ops leave similar holes all throughout my life. If I didn’t photograph it, the event fades in the unreliable ether of my memory, and it’s almost as if it never occurred.

This weekend, we went to Victoria. I know this, because I have the photos to prove it. Are these the best moments of the trip? I don’t know. But I do know that they are the ones I will remember, because they are recorded forever in computer memory, stored on my phone and somewhere out there in the vast internet. I can look at them and recall what things were like in the moment I took them, while all of the other moments may be lost. I’ve saved a few, though, and that’s what matters.

Jacob doesn't like the wind on the ferry

How do photos – or the lack of photos – change the way you view your life? And how has digital photography changed your photo-snapping habits? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Tagged With: Memories, Navel Gazing, Travel

A Canadian Family: Blond and Metis

Amber on October 12, 2011 22 Comments

Yesterday, I talked about my experience filling out the 2011 Census last May. When faced with the task of listing my children’s ethnic origins, I wrote simply Canadian. This was in contrast to my efforts to actually list the countries that my own ancestors came from, and my husband’s classification as Metis. Today, I’m going to be talking about Jon’s ancestry – including the Metis bit – in a lot more detail.

While my ancestors arrived in North America in the very late 1800s and early 1900s, my husband’s family has much deeper roots on this continent. His paternal grandmother’s family first arrived in Canada aboard the Hector in 1773. The passengers on that ship landed in Pictou, Nova Scotia, which has been called the “birthplace of New Scotland” because they brought a culture that influenced the entire province. We visited the town in 2004 and saw a replica of the ship, and all that I can say is that things must have been pretty bad in Scotland for 200 people to cram aboard a vessel that size and flee.

Amber in front of the Hector Heritage Quay

Me, standing in front of a replica of the Hector in Pictou, Nova Scotia

The immigrants aboard the Hector were not the first of Jon’s family to arrive in North America, though – not by a long shot. Jon’s great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Magnus Twatt left the Orkney Islands and moved to York Factory, in what was called Rupert’s Land, around the same time as his other ancestors set sail aboard the Hector. Magnus worked for the Hudson’s Bay Company, in a place with few other Europeans, and even fewer European women. He married a Cree woman named Margaret, and they had three children.

The descendents of Magnus Twatt married other Metis, so Jon undoubtedly has other First Nations ancestors. In fact, one of Magnus Twatt’s descendents actually founded the Sturgeon Lake First Nation in Saskatchewan. That wasn’t Jon’s branch of the family, though. Jon’s branch comes through Magnus’s daughter Elizabeth Twatt, who married Alexander Bremner. Their son Charles is Jon’s great-great-great-grandfather. Things get interesting when we start to look at Charles Bremner’s story.

The Metis people are a distinct people in Canada, who claim mixed First Nations heritage. Typically, their fathers were European, and their mothers were First Nations, like Magnus and Margaret. The children were in an interesting position, caught between two worlds. They were very successful in the fur trade, since they were familiar with the land and its inhabitants, but they weren’t always given the same rights as full-blooded Europeans. Their status wasn’t clear, and the government tried to take away their land, which was when Louis Riel emerged as a Metis leader, and conflict erupted.

Charles Bremner wasn’t a huge fan of Louis Riel, and in an effort to stay away from the strife around the Riel uprising he moved his family to Battleford, Saskatchewan. He didn’t escape unharmed, however. In 1885 the militia police took Charles and other Metis prisoner, and stole their furs and other possessions, even though they were non-participants in the conflict. Charles sued the government, and eventually received compensation in the form of $5000, but it came some years later, and the experience left him permanently scarred.

Charles Bremner’s grandson, Roderick Caplette, is Jon’s great-grandfather. He married a woman of Swiss ancestry, and they had five children who all grew up in the Battleford area. His family’s Metis ancestry is clear, and his cousins and siblings have applied for and received Metis status through multiple Metis groups. We were under the impression for some time that his was the last generation that would qualify for status. However, Jon’s cousin has a daughter, and his uncle decided to see if she could receive status as well, and it looks as if she can. If his cousin’s daughter can be considered Metis, then so can our children. Our very, very blond children.

The Metis members of my family, enjoying sno kones

We’ve decided we will likely pursue Metis status for our children. The reason is that Metis status can bring certain perks, most notably the possibility that Hannah and Jacob could have part of their post-secondary schooling paid for. They would still have to pay income tax and so on, but in exchange for the bad treatment their ancestors – including their great-great-great-great-grandfather Charles Bremner – received at the hands of their other ancestors, they may be eligible for some benefits. If they can receive those benefits, I would like for them to have the option of making that decision for themselves.

Knowing that I’ll likely be pursuing some kind of Metis recognition for my children, when I filled out Hannah’s school forms this year I ticked the Metis box, thereby informing them of my daughter’s aboriginal ancestry. This isn’t unique, by the way – Wikipedia says that up to 50% of Western Canadians have some aboriginal ancestry, which means they could be considered Metis if they can make a reasonable case on their behalf. However, since so few people self-identify as Metis, not many people tick the box. Since I did, I got a call from school asking if I wanted Hannah to participate in activities for children with First Nations heritage.

I haven’t fully investigated the activities at this point, so I don’t have a complete picture, but as I understand it children are pulled out of class for an hour or so, once every couple of weeks. They learn about their heritage and participate in cultural activities. I decided to ask Hannah what she thought, and she wants to go. Apparently another girl in her class attends, and so Hannah thinks it would be fun. I’ve seen the other girl, though, and she has obvious First Nations ancestry, unlike my kidlet.

I’m feeling torn. On the one hand, I would like my daughter to learn about her heritage, especially if she may receive some benefits by claiming that heritage. On the other hand, I feel vaguely ridiculous signing my extremely blond child up for special activities designed to connect First Nations children with their roots, when her First Nations ancestry lies in her dim and distant past. I’m honestly not sure what to do. I’m tempted to hold my decision until Hannah actually gets status, because I would feel even sillier if she’s been participating in classes when she doesn’t qualify as Metis.

It’s an interesting conundrum – a Canadian conundrum. Does one branch of your family trump another? How much Metis, Scottish, French, Chinese or German ancestry does one need to lay claim to that heritage? Does a blond-haired, blue-eyed white kid belong in a class dedicated to strengthening her ties to First Nations culture? I’m not sure there are any actual answers to any of those questions. What do you think?

Edited to add: The decision about what benefits of Metis citizenship – including educational grants – my children may take advantage of is not mine to make. By the time they make those decisions, they will be adults. As their mother, all that I can do is connect them to their community, and help ensure they are educated enough on the issues to make their own decisions. Who knows what the situation will be in 12 years’ time, when Hannah is ready to embark on her post-secondary schooling? I don’t. But being aware of the potential benefits that could come to my children, as well as the sense of identity and responsibilities that come with those benefits, I would like to help them make the connection now while they are still young.

Tagged With: Memories, Navel Gazing, Parenting

Hair Ballad Love

Amber on July 20, 2011 10 Comments

I was 12 years old in 1988, which was arguably the high point of hair metal. You couldn’t turn on the radio without hearing Poison or Def Leppard or Bon Jovi. Their music rocked hard, their hair was big and their music videos were profane (if you believed what my elementary school principal had to say on the subject).

But the truth is, I was a very good girl. Or, at least, I really tried to be. Plus, my family didn’t have cable, so I didn’t even get MuchMusic, the Canadian answer to MTV. So while my classmates were rocking out to Guns N’ Roses, I was singing along to Tiffany. (I don’t care what they say, she could’ve been great.) I was just far too afraid of being “bad” to listen to music rooted in teenage rebellion.

Photo credit: Brett Neilson on Flickr

But as you know yourself if you were also around in the late 80s, hair bands had a softer side. They could croon with the best of them, and their hair ballads spoke to my angsty, romantically aspiring tweenage heart. As I sang along with “Patience“, I imagined that if only I was patient enough, that cute boy in my grade seven class would finally notice me and we would be carving our initials on trees. Except, not, because that might hurt the tree.

My husband, Jon, knows my love of hair ballads well. And so a few years ago he made me a mix CD with all of my favourites in one place. But at the time I was commuting, and I listened to talk radio while I drove, so it ended up lost in my glove compartment underneath the “Merry Christmas 2003″ mix CD I made myself.

Jon made me a mix CD with all my favourite hair ballads

But last week I re-discovered it, and popped it in. And of course I couldn’t resist singing along, much to the horror of my 6-year-old daughter. Oh, how she complained and gnashed her teeth as I belted out “More Than Words“. (Fun fact – “More Than Words” was our song when I was first dating Jon in the early 90s.) But I refused to relent. I continued all the way through the CD, barely pausing long enough to breathe, while my daughter seethed. And then I informed her that the driver gets to pick the music.

I know this won’t be the end of it, though. My kids will come around to the hair ballad. All I need is just a little patience.

What music do you sing along to at the top of your lungs, just to mortify your children? And do you share my love of the hair ballad? Tell me all about it!

Tagged With: Memories, Navel Gazing

Haircuts I Have Known

Amber on June 27, 2011 11 Comments

In my earliest memory of having my hair cut, I’m in my kitchen, sitting on a chair that’s positioned on top of something to raise it higher. I’m wearing an improvised cape which consists of a garbage bag with holes ripped out for my head and arms to poke through. My mother is the hairdresser, and the experience is excruciating. She’s just giving me a quick trim, but it takes forever. Once it’s all over my bangs are super-short, because my just mom kept on trimming, trying to make it all even. And then for a week after she chases me around the house with scissors, snipping stray hairs.

When I was about four years old, I took the job into my own hands. I remember looking at myself in the mirror and thinking it would be easy to cut my bangs. I also remember how not easy it turned out to be, and how it earned me an immediate ticket to the garbage bag cape. I was sufficiently traumatized that I never attempted it again. My daughter Hannah, on the other hand, still occasionally cuts off little pieces of her own hair even after her own self-haircut-fiasco. I didn’t make her wear the garbage bag, maybe that’s why.

When I was about 10, my parents started seeing a hairdresser named Esther. She was short and had short red hair, and for years we followed her from salon to salon to salon. Even after my parent’s divorce, the whole clan still saw Esther, just separately now. She was a real stylist who took her craft seriously. She would wash your hair in the sink and then cut it and style it. She used product and gave me tips and had the world’s biggest curling iron, and I enjoyed the experience.

Hannah after my attempt to fix her self-inflicted cut

But in my teen years Esther moved to a bigger, fancier salon downtown, and my mother didn’t want to pay so much for haircuts anymore. So for a while I got my hair cut by a family friend in her kitchen. She’d been to hairdressing school but she wasn’t working in a salon, so she knew her stuff but she was much cheaper. There was no hair-washing or blow-drying, but it was fine.

When I moved away to university, I got my hair cut at the “no appointment necessary” place in the mall. They did a reasonably good job and the price was right. But then in second year my roommate decided to try a fancy salon downtown, and I went with her in the name of bonding. For a few years I went there, feeling very indulgent as I made the long trip on transit. But after a while I got tired of schlepping all that way without a car.

Mother-and-daughter haircuts

When another roommate started going to a salon in our neighbourhood, I decided to try them out. That’s where I met Lesa, and I sort of clicked with her. She was a few years older than me and just getting married. I ended up seeing her for years – through my wedding, two pregnancies of hers, and two of mine. I moved, and then she moved and opened up her own salon. But eventually, with two little kids it became difficult to find the two plus hours it took me to make the drive and get my hair cut, especially when Jacob was too small to be away from me for long.

I tried a couple of other salons in my neighbourhood, with no luck. At the first one “my” stylist kind of annoyed me, plus she hurt my head repeatedly when she brushed my hair. At the second I realized I was the youngest woman there by a good couple of decades. I ended up going 11 months between hair cuts until my friend invited me to a salon in her neighbourhood, and that was good, but Jacob cried for me while she held him and I didn’t want to subject her to that repeatedly.

My hair after going 11 months between cuts

This is how I found myself going with my daughter Hannah to the local Great Clips. It takes us about 45 minutes from the time we walk out our front door until the time we walk back in. Hannah loves the bonding experience, and I like that we don’t need an appointment. I can seize a moment that works, it’s cheap, and they do a fine job. After all, I am not in a stage in my life where I’m styling my hair to perfection every morning. I need something that can dry while I grocery shop and still look OK. Anything fussy is pointless.

Sometimes I worry that I’m doing that mom thing and not taking care of myself. It’s certainly true that as an adult woman at the fast and cheap salon I’m in the minority. But you know what? Hannah and I have created a ritual now. And because it’s easy I make it in for a cut a few times a year, which is far more often than I ever have since I had kids. It’s working for me.

My hair after my most recent cut

From my start in the raised chair in my kitchen I have run the haircut gamut. I’m not sure what that means, really. Does it matter who cuts my hair, or where they do it? Could someone off the street pick out the people who spend a lot of money on a haircut from those who don’t? Do I deserve the indulgence of a high-end salon? I don’t know. But I do know that when my Hannah takes my hand, practically jumping with excitement as we head off to get our haircut, I don’t really care.

What’s your haircut history? How does the experience of having your hair cut change the way you feel about yourself and your hair? I’d love to hear!

PS – I’m still looking for your feedback. So please, take a moment to share the love and complete my reader survey. I’d really appreciate it!

Tagged With: Hair, Memories, Navel Gazing

20 Years Goes By in a Flash

Amber on April 30, 2011 21 Comments

Tomorrow will mark the 20^th anniversary of the day that this boy named Jon asked me to be his girlfriend. We were in a park in Abbotsford, not far from the Jr. High where we were both grade 9 students. We were 14 years old – so, so young. Unbelievably young, really.

Jon kissed me in that park that day – my first real kiss from a boy. And, to this day, he’s the only boy I’ve ever really kissed. (Although Jon, ever so much more worldly, apparently kissed his grade 7 girlfriend. I’m still vaguely jealous.) And now, through some fluke of time, we find ourselves 20 years later, we’re still together. We’ve never been apart. Well, I mean, physically we’ve been apart. Sometimes Jon goes to work and stuff, and back in 1991 we lived in different houses with our own parents. Because, you know, we were 14. But we’ve never broken up, and never dated anyone else in all that time.

How does 20 years go by so fast? How did I end up here, today, married to that boy? I remember every step along the way, but it sure doesn’t feel like it was 20 years. 10, maybe. But surely not 20. And yet it was – I have the photographs to prove it.

Amber and Jon (with Jim Lind) in March '91

Back in 1991 with our friend Jim

Year-end dance in 1992

Amber and Jon, all dolled up for high school graduation

All dressed up for our high school prom in 1994

A summer day in 1996

On a weekend get-away in 1999^*

^*Tip: When your girlfriend’s expecting you to propose anytime, and you’re all dressed up and seated in a fancy restaurant, instead of saying, “I forgot something in the car and I need to go get it,” say, “I forgot the camera in the car, I’ll be right back.” Unless, of course, you particularly enjoy the hairy eyeball when she decides this is it, and it turns out not to be it at all.

At our engagement party in 2000

Amber’s university graduation in 2000

Our wedding in 2001

Visiting Peggy’s Cove in 2004

Welcoming baby Hannah in 2005

Jon’s brother’s wedding in 2008

Welcoming baby Jacob in 2008

Our family in 2010

It turns out that 20 years is not so long at all. And it also turns out that sticking it out through thick and thin, when you’ve found the right person, is totally worth it. I can think of no one more right for me than my husband Jon. He is truly the very best person I know, and I’m so glad that I found him so early in life.

20 years ago I never could have imagined that day in the park marked the beginning of a journey that would bring me here. That we would weather so many changes together – learning how to drive, graduating from high school, starting first jobs, going away to university, marriage and cars and a mortgage and babies. 20 years has certainly brought us a lot of changes, and I can’t wait to see what happens in the next 20 years. To us!