TEA TIME: FEATHER FINGERS

Today I drank an entire pot of tea, and somehow wrote this odd little piece of writing. I enjoyed it, in it's strange, unedited state, and I thought maybe you guys would too. 

After a long day of winnowing, the man had discovered that his fingers had grown feathers. They were odd little, flexible things that bent and bowed with a fair deal of pressure – but they refused to break of fray. The kind of feathers a wintering goose might wear to prepare them for the long journey – always pursuing the eternal summer. They felt strange – yet familiar, truly – like an old thing humans had long forgotten about, until suddenly it appeared again, and you knew what to do about it.

And yet he rather didn't care that there were feathers there. They felt strange in the water – an odd resistance that pulled at his palms. It changed how they felt out of the water – as if he was constantly streaming his fingers through water. Suddenly the space around him no longer felt empty. It felt full of potential and weight.

In his dreams he had dreamt of flying many times. He had dreamt of flying away many more. Somewhere the constant droll of fingers and hands weaving through water meant something other than toil from dusk to dawn. Somewhere – and it was never here. Somewhere – the word stretched out before him, filling the air with a golden taste that drew him away from his house. It drew him to the field, it pulled him. He knew he had to go.

With a sigh and a set face of determination, he stood, holding his feathered fingers in front of him. As he raised his hands to the sky, he felt the first bits of regrets slip off him like a false skin. Regrets of coming here, regrets of being forced in to this job he didn't love. Regrets of watching himself age here – the dark thought of dying here. They all fell off of him and on to the ground in front of him. He felt empty. Empty enough for the air around him to begin filling him – warm and golden and wild.

For the first time in a long time – he felt free. He glanced at his feathered fingers – their speckled colour turning translucent in the late afternoon light. Then he raised his second hand aloft, sunlight streaming through the dark feathers. With it he felt a new found confidence. A pull, a feeling, a need – something deep and primal he knew he had deep within him already – but ignored. Or perhaps it was the bird in him, he would never know. He took a deep breath and flapped.

He felt every muscle straining in his arms as the air again became a solid fixture around him. A mass, a place of buoyancy and weightlessness similar to what he felt when he was submerged in the river. The wind at his back was like a current pulling him onward. The feathered ached to feel the sky again, and suddenly he felt it deep within him, too. He ached to fly – he would fly...

Nothing. No great flight. No leap of grace or ascention to another level. No transformation or shout of joy or pain or...anything. Not a thing.

So the feathered man kicked off his shoes and started running.

TEA TIME: A HOLIDAY PLEDGE

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Ah, the holiday season.

The moment November first rolls around, suddenly everything is red, green and peppermint-flavoured, as if by magic. If that magical force was capitalism. Instead of going on and on about how weird and strange and wrong I find the holiday season (which I do way too frequently, and may go off in another rant later on down the line, once the Christmas season really, really starts to drive me nuts), instead I’m going to start this Tea Time off with a pledge: 



This holiday season I will be kind to retail workers.

Remember, friends, that no matter how long the lines in stores are - there are cashiers serving every single person in as quickly and timely of a fashion as they can.

Remember that the guy behind you in line is driving you nuts, now imagine how the person who has to serve him will feel.

Remember that, more often than not, no matter how much your pocketbook is shrinking from holiday shopping, most of these workers are paid the bare-minimum wage that can be paid (and in most countries, is nowhere near livable).

Remember that if you’ve had a long day at work and are tired, the people working retail are usually working eight to nine hour days on their feet all day with very few breaks in between.

Remember that retail workers, food service workers, and all the people we come face-to-face with during the holiday season are often working through important holidays, with little to no benefits. Remember that for many of them, there is no holiday season - the holiday season simply means more work and longer days.

This holiday season, please, as a fellow retail worker, I beg you,

Please be kind to retail workers. Please be kind to all the workers you come in to contact with during the holiday season - we are all working very, very hard.

Please try to spread as much holiday cheer with kindness, gratitude, patience and generosity as you can - if we all can try to cultivate this mindset, imagine how much lovelier the holidays will be!

TEA TIME: THE MAGIC OF MADELINE

I loved Madeline so much I became her. 

I watched every movie, read every book. 

I dragged my mom to the library every week.

I turned those pages so much they turned to velvet.

I had my hair cut in the same cut cropped bowl as Madeline.

I wore a jumper and bought a yellow jacket and hats just like Madeline.

I had shoes with buckles on them, lace-trimmed socks folded over just so.

I even asked my mom if I could dye my hair the same auburn-red as Madeline (which, childhood Meli, you did in fact grow in to. Just FYI).

Childhood heroes are important.

Because as I pretended to be Madeline, I acted like her, too.

I was always an anxious child - trees turned in to monster hands, mom was never coming home from that grocery trip (and I would truly become Madeline), the world was always ending when it stormed. I come by it honestly - my family has a history of deep-set medical anxiety. My great-grandfather had a bomb shelter under his basement filled with water and supplies for the end of the world.

But as I became Madeline, I became braver. Because she was brave. She’d turn her nose up to lions, say ‘poo-poo’, dive in to the Seine river to save a dog. Madeline was just the kind of generously reckless friend I needed in my life. And as an only child, she was one of the only ones I had. 

Because of Madeline, where I could have fallen to anxiety, loneliness, and listlessness, I was energetic, brave and creative. Madeline helped me in ways nobody - not myself, or an adult, possibly could. Madeline was the shit.  

I’m older now. I don’t have the same urge to get a bowl-cut, shout at lions and wear a jean-jumper, but inside there is still a large part of me that remains a lonely, anxious little child.

And I haven’t been as kind to her as I probably should be.

So I’m starting to channel my inner Madeline again.

I’m doing things I wouldn’t normally do. I’m looking at fear as a hobby, a sport, a challenge. I’m taking risks where generosity and love are concerned. I’m being as loud and as unique as I can be. I’m taking my anxiety and setting it beside me, because Madeline would do the same. Because somewhere, deep down, I need my childhood heroes as much now as I did back then.

We all forget what kinds of people and things we admired as children. The kinds of characters we emulated, the people who inspired and shaped us as we were in the process of developing ourselves. We should all try to bring more of these characters back in to our lives, because as we grow up we forget about them.

I’ve printed off the first page of the Madeline series - the poem that starts it all. I’m going to frame it and put it up, to remind me of the kind of girl I want to be. The kind of girl 8-year old me needs and wanted to be. I’m going to try to be more like her again. I’m going to try to be braver. Bolder. More.

TEA TIME: STOP HATING EVERYTHING

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The best day of my life was the day I stopped hating so many things.

“The arctic monkeys are playing? Ugh, I hate their music.”

“Neil Gaiman. Ugh, I hate his writing.” (sorry Neil. I think you’re a lovely person. I truly do. I want to love your writing. I just don’t.)

“I can’t believe people like game of thrones. I hate it.”

“I hate when ______ do ______”

There are so many things in our life that we ‘hate’. Be it women, to wonderwoman, we all hate more things than we can count on our hands, at any given time. And we’re very vocal about it.

We live in a world where we can hate a lot of things, because we’re being exposed to so many things. And that’s a great thing, because it means that, thanks to the internet and all the goodness of modern life, we have access to more culture, more opinions, more…well…everything! A big hoo-rah for our modern knowledge, but the caveat is that now we must form opinions on all. These. Things.

And more often than not, we’re snobs about it.

With the rise of the open internet came the rise of the hipster, proclaiming, proudly, their lordly knowledge over esoteric areas of common things. Liking things before the far-flung masses laid their grubby paws on them. Knowing things that others did not know. Popularity, common knowledge, being ‘known’ was frowned upon. Similar to the ‘hardcore’ or ‘true’ nerds in geek culture, the concept is ‘you’re not a true fan of ____ like I am.’

I am better than you.

I know more than you.

Oftentimes, while smoking their alabaster pipes in clothes that belonged to long-dead grandpas, they’ll sigh about the long-lost days when the arctic monkies weren’t mainstream. When they couldn’t hear their songs on the radio, or listen to teen girls moon over their bands. When their favourite things weren’t successful and popular…

Wait…

What?

Isn’t that what we want from our favourite people making our favourite things? Don’t we want to see them succeed? Don’t we want to be able to talk to people, be they your friends and family, or even just your favourite barista, about the things we love? Isn’t love meant to be shared?

I love that some of my favourite books are displayed proudly at the bookstore. I don’t have to struggle to explain who Hayao Miyazaki, or Felicia Day, or Of Monsters and Men are to the people I love. They’ve seen them, on TV, in the library, on the radio. And it’s nice.

And I’m tired of cringing whenever someone says they ‘love’ something. Whenever I express my own undying admiration for some piece of pop culture, some band, some artist. I remember after I finished my interview for art school, I happened to eavesdrop cough, overhear a professor tear in to a poor girl when she answered Frieda Kahlo as her favourite artist.

“KAHLO IS SO CHILDISH OF AN ANSWER. Why don’t you know of *insert very obscure artist reference here*?! I can’t believe I’d hear such a JUVENILE reference from someone who has this much talent!!” I almost felt sick. Because not only was he deriding one of my favourite artists (Oh god, I thought, does that mean I’m juvenile too?!?!) but he was digging in to a treasured artist that deserves every bit of recognition and love she gets.

It’s exhausting to hate so many things. It’s time and energy, all of it negative, that I really, badly, didn’t have.

So I quit hating as many things. I gave it up, like a bad habit (which it 100% is). I bite my tongue every time I start to speak up in a conversation, an old knee-jerk reaction I’m still trying to fight out of me.

Suddenly all that time and energy I spent on hating so many things was filled in with MORE things to love. More shows I could exclaim about. More books I could dig my teeth in to. More authors, more people, more quotes, more fandoms, more…everything. I was open to enjoying things instead of hating them, and that was so, so great.

***That being said, I do come up, from time to time, with things I love that are problematic, or things that are just plain problematic, in the media. There are still things I do, genuinely hate. Sexist things, racist things, Donald Trump…it’s ok to hate some things. Just be aware of what you’re hating. Be aware of how much energy you’re spending on something. Is it worth it? Understand why you hate them, have a reason, think it through. Hate is such a strong word - use it for the things that really, truly are the scum of the earth. And nothing more. ***

TEA TIME: THE LAND OF VU

 Drinking: Ginseng Oolong

Thinking:

I pick up a stone from across the way of my Buppa and Bamma's house. The house has always been such a magical place for me, full of undiscovered mystery, and even more undiscovered territory waiting for me any time I wasn't content with the house, the front yard, the back yard. I'd grab my Buppa off of the couch, his nicotine-stained mustache that hasn't changed in at least a decade quirking in to a smile, and we'd make the journey across the road to Pinewood school. His hand was hardened velvet in my own tiny palm, I always loved to feel the creases that age had carved in to it.

I have dreams of his hands, now. Even though he’s not around anymore, I have dreams of his soft, big hands. I hold them, I trace their lines absently as I always did when I was a child. If ever someone asks me what love feels like, I will always answer, Buppa’s palms.

The school was full of mysteries I didn't quite understand - “what was that extra building for?” the special needs kids, “what is this building for?” it's a greenhouse, “where is that music coming from?” let's go see “what is he playing” bagpipes, aren't they wonderful? And then we'd stand, just outside of the doors to the cavernous gym, and listen to the bagpipes. I was transfixed by it, as music often does to me. I'm trying to recall if they wore their outfits when playing it. I don't think so – but I remember the man in full Scottish regalia, kilt, swinging tassels and all. It was beautiful as he marched up and down the gymnasium.

I scrawl some jibberish on to that stone, and pass it in to my Buppa's waiting palm. “What's it say?” I ask, feigning knowledge, as curious as can be inside. “Vu.” he says, handing the stone back to me. Suddenly it holds so much more than just igneous matter. It is a key. It is magic. A world of wonder rushes in to my head. “Vu.” I say, holding the suddenly-heavy stone in my palm. “This is the key to Vu.”

Every single thing that mattered to me, which, at that time, heavily revolved around those goofy kid-cars that you can buy, an easy bake oven, and tons of magical books, filled up this new world. I nodded, once again feigning knowledge, and turned to him, serious now, “Vu is a world for kids only. But I'd let you come visit, if you wanted.” Because I loved him, and I loved Bamma, too, and my mom, and I knew that they could all come visit me when I went there. I’d use it as a bribe in the schoolyard, my little heavy stone, the gatekeeper to a world all of my own

“If you give me your fruit snacks, I’ll let you come visit me in Vu.”

“I’d let you go to Vu with me. Because I like you.”

“I like you too.”

But try as hard as I could, I could never get to Vu. I got close, a couple of times, but it never happened. To this day, Vu is still a part of my mind – a separate world that, I realize, I can only belong to, that I just can’t quite reach. But I don’t have to. Perhaps it is some of my untapped psychic potential leaking through, or maybe it's simply me holding on to something from my childhood I hold dearly. It has shifted, and oftentimes I don't call it by that same name, but I still hold, within a large part of my mind, a world all my own. It is magical.

“It's a key to Vu.” I say to mom, handing it to her, all puffed up and proud. I can be like that with mom. She's a goof, and she knows I am too. There’s a party happening – I can't remember why. Maybe Christmas, maybe not. We used to have celebrations in our old house. The whole family would come. It was wonderful. I loved the attention, the conversation, helping mom. “Only kids are allowed there.” I add, looking around at all the adults smiling at me.

Of course, mom pipes up. “Oh.” she says, matching my false pride of her own. “Well...” she runs in to the kitchen and picks up a spatula “This is a key to Cockadoodle.” she finishes, brandishing the red spoon eagerly. “And kids aren't allowed. We go by the lake and sing to seagulls.” I immediately picture mom, standing dutily in the middle of the lake that we pass by to get to our house, a conductor's podium before her, baton in her hand, directing a symphony with the seagulls, golden sunlight drenching the area. It captivated me, and I thought of Cockadoodle every time we drove by that place for a long time, and my mom’s proud form conducting the seagulls like a master.

TEA TIME : LAUGHTER

Drinking: Queen of Tarts (my favourite tea of all time) 

Thinking:

I’m a loud laugher. 

 

I’m the kind of girl who throws her head back when she laughs. Stops what she’s doing to let out a great big crow of a laugh, followed by a staccato of smaller laughs that go on for a long, long time. If it’s something really funny, the wheezes turn in to whines, titters - I have a different laugh for different kinds of funny, but it all follows that same pattern, like a thunderclap followed by rain. The first part turns peoples heads. The second makes them roll their eyes. 
 

I think everyone’s laugh is like a fingerprint. 

 

I know people who laugh like volcanoes - an explosion that shocks it’s way through the room. I know people who whinny like horses. Scream like banshees. I know people who titter like little kids - quiet and bubbly like a brook. I also know people who don’t laugh out loud - it’s a quiet expression meant only for themselves. I know people who elbow others when they laugh - drawing them in to their laughter.

I think laughter is one of the most beautiful things - it’s such an expression of joy. I remember reading that rats and elephants both are capable of laughing. Are there things we find funny that they do, too?

I don’t understand how people have problems with laughter. 

And yet, in my life, I’ve encountered so many people who have a problem with it. I can’t begin to count the times people have shushed me when I’m laughing. The times I’ve been told to be quiet, to calm down, to relax. Is it because we don’t like seeing people laugh? We don’t like seeing people enjoying themselves? I’ve seen so many boys hooting and laughing their way down streets, through stores. Their voices booming over crowds, not drawing more than a few irritated looks.

But the moment girls laugh, we see it as a shrill lapse in control. We see it as negative. Annoying. Pointless. We give it it’s own name - giggling. Somehow a giggle is far more condescending than a laugh. At once more ladylike and less ladylike in one swoop. It’s less serious. It’s less powerful. It’s less important. It’s not as good as a laugh. 
 

Men laugh. Girls giggle. 

 

Funny, how once again, the word applied to females is again less-than. Surprising? Not at all.

Lately I’ve started watching a lot more media directed and created by women. I’ve been watching Amy Poehler, Chelsea Handler, Broad City. They’re funny. They’re smart. They’re masters of the ‘art’ of comedy just as much as any of the ‘big (male) names’ of comedy (which I find, ironically, funny. Comedy is always, when compared to other performance art forms, less-than. Before all these big dudes became comedy ‘heroes’, comedy was restricted to basements and the backs of newspapers - but that’s another thing for another time). And whenever I try to discuss these hilarious women with people, I’m met with straight faces. “I don’t find women as funny. They just aren’t.”

Sorry, ladies. Get your bitchface ready for permanent application and get ready for the newsflash of the century. We are not funny. Funny things aren’t in our vocabulary, and even if we do find something funny, it’s not real funny. How the hell can our small baby-brains grasp such an advanced concept as humor? Silly females.No, wait, not silly females. Right? Because we’re not funny. Right. Let’s go back to making sandwiches and babies, silently. 
 

Can you taste the sarcasm? Oh shit. That’s kind of funny, isn’t it?! 

 

I have nothing to say to this. Because, I just laugh. I throw my head back and let out my laugh in a golden forte (that’s loud, for all you non-musicians). I’ll be over here, watching smart ladies make smart jokes, and smart ladies make fart jokes, and smart ladies just being funny. Laughing my ass off.

And somehow, still, making a feminist statement. 

Laughter is the best medicine, right? 
Right?