AUDACIOUSLY SPREADING HOPE THROUGH STORY: PART 1

Any given story can be hopeful or not-so-hopeful. It all depends on where you put the emphasis. For the past fifteen years I have experimented with stories, reflected on hope, read books, listened to stories, told stories, and tried to figure out what makes a story into a hopeful story. In this series, I will share some of the things I have learned along the way. I welcome comments and observations from readers.

1) Create hope in a story you tell by making sure you know in your heart where the hope is. Feel it first.

Like so many important lessons of life, I learned this one the hard way. Of course I have always known that hope, among other things, is an emotion. It’s something we feel. When we say, “There is no hope,” it isn’t because we’ve searched the world in every corner and found no evidence of hope. What we really mean is, “I do not feel any hope.”
Hope is a positive complex emotion, a little like joy, a little like excitement, a good feeling with doubt and uncertainty nipping at its edges. It comes to us from events, from points of view, from successes, from people in our lives. Stories are a major source of hope.
I have often heard and read stories that gave me hope. As a young teen-ager I lay on my bed on bright June evenings sniffling my way through Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. What a sad book it was, a story of racism and bullying and systemic indifference to injustice. And yet, at the end of that story, I felt hopeful. I believed that things could change! This month, noting the 50th anniversary celebrations of the publication of that book, I see that millions of others were similarly affected. Writing at a time when the injustices she exposed were still in full flower, Harper Lee knew how to put the hope into a story. I, unfortunately, am not Harper Lee.
Back in 2005 my dying mother was blundering her way through the corridors of palliative care. I was spending a lot of time with her there, experiencing the little pleasures, the big heartbreaks, the nagging frustrations. At the same time I was working in my daily routine, and presentation requests from palliative care organizations were coming to the Hope Foundation. In any year I would have responded knowledgeably to such requests, but in 2005 I felt truly engaged. I knew the situation from the patient’s daughter’s perspective and my rock solid hope content was filtered through my personal experience. I presented with passion, but not, unfortunately, with hope.
At the end of one such session I was approached by a sad and sincere doctor. “What could we do to make things better for your mother?” he asked. To my horror I found that I had no answer. And that’s when I discovered that I did not see the hope in my own stories. I had been talking about the impersonal approach of the health system. My talk, loaded with hope content and ostensibly about hope, was of limited use to these people working in the health system because it did not give them hope. When people hire a hope specialist to give them a talk, they are looking for hope. I had failed to deliver.
I was about to be re-tested. Another talk was scheduled for a different group two months hence. I would have like to withdraw, but the conference program had long ago been distributed. By the time the date arrived, my mother had died. I vowed not to make the same mistake again.
A hopeful story is, as I had often said in classes, not necessarily a story with a happy ending. It is, rather, a story where somebody changes, or something exceeds expectations, or something surprising happens. I was shocked to find that the stories I had been telling in presentations contained very little of this. Returning to the events leading up to and following my mother's death, I went back to my hope knowledge and began asking myself some questions. Who changed? What occurrences exceeded my expectations? What surprised me?
There were an astonishing number of answers. My mother changed. My father changed. I changed. The hospital staff exceeded my expectations. Many things surprised me. A treasure trove of hopeful stories were buried here. Among others, there was the story of how my father learned to grow vegetables and how my mother talked herself into welcoming the move to the palliative care suite. There was the story of how a hospital cutback that closed the nursery created the most wonderful palliative care apartment. There was the story of the nurse who brought lip balm and the one who told Mom comforting stories about the death of other patients. There was the story of the nurse who held my mother in the middle of the night and whispered to us that maybe it was time. And then there was the story of the hope-opotamus, the tiny stuffed animal with the power to command staff in three different hospitals and make them want to follow his lead. When I pulled together these stories, I knew where the hope was, and I knew then how to shape the stories of that painful time so that they would be hopeful to me, and also hopeful to others.

WEDDING HANGOVER

Ruth and Derek packed for Ontario
Taking the things that newlyweds need,
Furniture, wedding gifts, kitchen gadgets,
Love and best wishes from multiple corners.

Ruth and Derek packed for Ontario
Leaving for us what they could not take.
Random papers and lockless keys,
Contact info no longer connectible
Bottles and cans redeemable for cash,
Bamboo plant and one small suitcase,
Half-tubs of cookie dough, frozen berries,
Condiments and breast of chicken,
Livestock marker and picture frame
Candle lighters and flammable fluid,
Drying flowers and table adornments,
Toilet brush and Liquid Plumber,
Laundry soap and fabric softener,
Furniture polish and window cleaner,
Dishwashing liquid, dishwasher detergent

Ruth and Derek live in Ontario
Building a life to last a lifetime.
And if in their absence we find ourselves lonely
Perhaps there is no need to fuss or to worry.
We can bring them close in the simplest of acts,
With email or telephone, story or photograph,
Dinner and candles and washing up after,
Laundry and cleaning in every room.
Far away by kilometre measure,
And yet, surprisingly near.

CAN WE DO IT?

A young environmental advocate attended my hopeful storytelling workshop at the NSN conference in Los Angeles. For her it was a question of how to keep hope alive for people trying to combat climate change in a world where so many people don’t want to hear the warnings. We had come to L.A. from Philadelphia where we had visited Elfreth’s Alley
Elfreth’s Alley is a street of houses that have been continuously occupied for nearly 300 years! And It makes me wonder if we might be under-estimating our human potential. Three hundred years ago we already knew how to build structures that would be fit for habitation in the 21st century. Given all that we have learned since then, can it really be beyond our grasp to create a sustainable world?

PRESENTING ISSUES PAST AND FUTURE

And on this day …
You see bright sunshine, thunder clouds on the far horizon, picnic invitations. I see a calendar of hope presentations and workshops stretching all the way to Christmas.
The interests of the audience will vary. There’ll be chronic pain patients and mental health teams; housing facilitators and FASD mentors; school liaison workers and lab managers; parents and storytellers; nurse/educators and relatives of people with early stage Alzheimer Disease. All will be interested in hope. Each will have a pre-set number of hours, a seating plan, a few notes of quotes scribbled while listening to the person who asked for the presentation. For each there will be some careful consideration. What do I know about hope that would matter to these people? This is the beauty of a career that focuses more on a concept than on a problem. You get variety, diversity, stimulation, an opportunity to grow. Looking back at it all makes my head spin.
The length will vary as it has in the past. . The longest one (not counting the university course on hope and the helping relationship) lasted 4.5 days. You can get a little tired of the sound of your own voice in 4.5 days. The shortest lasted 11 minutes. Originally scheduled for 30 minutes, that one was contracted and paid for by someone who said she hired me because politicians were speaking before me, she couldn’t regulate the politicians, and she knew she could count on me to finish exactly ten minutes before the moment when the concurrent speakers after me were scheduled to begin—thus saving the conference pattern from the chaos that would begin if the first session ran overtime.
Positioning will undoubtedly present itself in unpredictable ways. On one occasion I was surprised to find myself presenting to a group of people who were lying down. They were injured, and lying down was comfortable for them. I, on the other hand, was distinctly uncomfortable, not knowing just how to stand, possessed by a desire to flatten myself on the ceiling facing them from above. On another occasion I chatted with a group of moms sitting on a circle of chairs. In the middle of the circle was a quilt where half a dozen babies wriggled, babbled, crawled, reached out tiny hands and gazed longingly at those in their midst who had been granted a bottle. Try keeping to the topic under those conditions!
Audiences will find their own way to respond. In the past there were keynote beginnings enhanced by microphones lobbed into crowds sitting row upon row in lecture theatres. There were intimate round-table discussions and times when people from the session next door knocked on our door to ask if we could laugh a little more quietly so that their presenter could be heard better. And then there was that one terrible unforgettable Friday afternoon when the organizer decided to stay home while all the people for whom she had organized the event sat fidgeting, and wishing they had been given that option.
Looking back on it all I have to say that some of it was really good. Most of it was pretty good. A little of it was inescapably dreadful. After 15 years you’d think I must have seen everything. But somehow, I doubt it.

WEDDING Q&A

Are they Married yet?
Definitely! The act of commitment was ably and lovingly guided by Pastor Bob who made certain that each of the partners would speak their vows clearly into the microphone, thereby making it possible for everyone to hear what they said. Pastor Bob knows what really matters at a wedding.

Did the mother of the bride cry?
Yes, but only at the rehearsal.

How was the cake?
Fabulous!

At what hour did the mother of the bride trade her pretty shoes for comfortable shoes?
6:46 PM (approximately 7 hours before she arrived home). The shoes are now in the charity box. They’ll soon be gone forever.

Who helped make the occasion a success?
So many people helped hugely with the rehearsal dinner, the ceremony, the reception, the dance, the pictures, the flowers and the next-day barbecue in the park that it would be impossible to name them! And then there are the ones who helped in medium and small ways!

Where are the bride and groom now?
In Kelowna, at least that’s where they said they were going.

How are the parents of the bride spending this day?
Saying farewell to relatives, doing laundrey, eating leftovers and counting their blessings. Later today they might book air tickets to Guelph. It will be fun to look ahead to their first few nights of sleep in the couple’s guest room. But before that time arrives there’s work to do, holidays to take, gardens to tend, and a little bit of sleep to catch up on.

What is the mother of the bride going to write about now that the wedding is over?

GOOD QUESTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What did the mother of the bride actually say to the crowd at the reception?

Hard to say exactly, but this is what she wrote to say.
One night last February, Derek called David and me to tell us he would be celebrating Lupercalia by proposing to Ruth. Lupercalia was a very ancient Roman pastoral fertility festival observed on February 15. The Romans drove out evil spirits by sacrificing two goats and adog. Now this might not be your idea of a romantic day for a marriage proposal, especially from an animal welfare guy. Derek was planning for Valentine’s Day, until Ruth said that the meaning of Valentine’s Day had been completely overshadowed by commercialism guided by a conspiracy of profit. He wanted us to be happy about the proposal, and I guess he didn’t feel he’d said enough over the phone, because the next day we received this follow-up email.
“Something that I forgot to say last night when I had no idea what to say last night, was something that should never EVER go without saying, least of all last night. That is, WHY I want to talk to Ruth about spending the rest of our whole entire lives together. As you both know, she is sensitive and thoughtful, caring and intelligent. she is special. But she also just makes me want to be a better person and I already am a better person with her in my life. I respect her. I admire her. I look-up to her. She makes me want to have a family. I want her to be my wife and to be my partner for life. I want to go through the rest of my days knowing her and being close to her. And these are just some of the things that come to mind but words are sometimes hard to find ..” Signed, Derek
What more could we wish for Ruth than to find a partner who would send such a note to her family. Derek, you sure have made it easy for us to love you.

WEDDING PREP 10

Things are better than they used to be.
We decorated. Where once we would have spent hours folding Kleenex flowers to decorate cars that would later drive to the wedding in the rain, we tied bright sashes on the backs of chairs garbed in pristine chair smocks. (Those chairs have absolutely no chance of being pushed out into the rain.)
Instead of crowding 35 people into the house for the rehearsal dinner to avoid the rain that had been falling all week, we were able to let them flow out onto the deck, the veranda, the lawn to enjoy the evening sunshine.
And in a few short hours there will be no more wedding prep. Only weddeing.

WEDDING PREP 9

And the groom is with us, smiling, yet practical. You can, he advises the mother of the bride, go to the website of the New Yorker and find cartoons filed and easy to research. He searches for cartoons about animals and scientists and uses them to illustrate his presentations.
The couple is a radiant team, fresh from their final pre-wedding consult with the pastor. There was still a lot to decide on last report—the wording of the vows, exactly what to promise.
“And what will you be saying to each other?” asks the mother of the bride.
And the groom replies, “You’ll do.”
Has he been searching for topics other than animals?

WEDDING PREP 8

And the groom arrived last night, a fitting development for a wedding. We were all glad to see him. It makes all this planning seem more purposeful. He hasn’t been here since late May and he says this time it feels different. After ten months of back-and-forth airplane romance they’ll be taking flights together from now on. In less than two weeks they’ll have flown off to begin their life in Ontario.
Mother of the bride is happy for them, feeling sorry for herself. The father of the bride cut to the chase this morning. “You know,” he said, “We don’t miss our parents that much when we’re away from them.” He’s right too, and we really love our parents.
His mother left her mother many years ago. She set sail for Canada in 1946 to join the soldier she’d married more than a year earlier. Just think of it! There was no intention to phone her mother, no possibility for email. Tragedies were communicated by telegram. News of daily events was relayed by mail. She did not return to Britain for 18 years. Her children were teen-agers by then.
The mother of this bride has a telephone, and email, and a daughter who has shown herself to be an excellent communicator. There will be visits. She plans to visit that new house in Ontario in early September. She plans to phone. She plans to write. She doesn't see that bride every day now, doesn't even talk to her every day. Things will be fine. But who among us would pass up the chance for a pity party now and then? The sad with the happy. A mixture. That's what it is.

WEDDING PREP 7

And when the father of the bride rolled out of bed saying, “I’ve had enough sleep for now,” the mother of the bride said, “then turn off the alarm.” The clock said “4:15 AM.” She intended to go back to sleep, and she really might have, had the man not closed the bedroom door before he left, thus compelling her to find out what he was up to—actually down to—in the kitchen below.
He was making the wedding cake. Would you like the recipe?

Preparation
Open up your Internet browser, go to Kijiji and check to see if the four-tiered wedding cake pans we listed there have sold yet. Buy them if they haven’t. We promise to use the money wisely.
Go to the store and get 2 pounds of butter, 1/4 cup vanilla, 8 large bags of marshmallows and 112 cups of Rice Krispies. Also get a roll of parchment and some scissors. You’ll need the paper to line the pans, and you might want to use some spray for the corners in case the cake sticks there.
Now get a very large cauldron with a source of heat. A backyard hot tub would probably do nicely. This family didn’t have one, and their one large mixing bowl gets a little too hot when you make several batches in rapid succession, which is your only option for this recipe if you don't have a backyard hottub. So they borrowed another mixing bowl from the brother of the bride and used it even though it's a fancy bowl that says "POPCORN" ON THE SIDE. It’s good to get the whole family involved.
(Optional): one small dog willing to cruise the floor and lick up spills.
Melt the butter and then add the marshmallows and stir like crazy.
Add the vanilla and Rice Krispies and stir like crazy.
Put the stuff into a pan, get a spoon, and crunch the whole mass down like crazy.
Now you’re done. If you started some time around 4:30 it will be somewhere around 6:30, MAYBE 7:00. If you have a good wife she’ll clean up the kitchen for you. If not, she’ll be upstairs blogging about it.
Warning: don’t follow the recipe on the Rice Krispies box! The father of the bride never follows recipes exactly, sometimes not even approximately, and he’s one of the world’s best Rice Krispies Squares bakers the world has ever known. .

WEDDING PREP 6

And here sits the mother of the bride, wondering what she should say in her one-minute speech at the reception. One minute? Has the mother of this bride ever restricted her comment on anything to one minute?
The bride says, “Say whatever you want. Take as long as you like.” Oh the power of permission-giving! She’s a shrewd one, this bride.
Given that the mother of the bride has no idea what to say, one minute ought to do it. She wants to say, “We like you Derek. Welcome to the family.”
But that will shock everyone. They won’t even have started listening by the time she’s finished, and on the way home the guests will say, “Too bad the mother of the bride couldn’t think of anything to say.” What should she add?
She could start with a little joke. Jokes are always a good option. Always? Well, maybe not always. She might never forget the joke told at one wedding by the master of ceremonies, a well-respected relative. He said, “Marriage is like a bathtub. After a while it’s not so hot.” It’s not the kind of joke one would want to remember forever. Jokes can be a little bit dangerous. Stil, a tasteful joke might be nice.
“Last June, when Edmontonions were being bitten by mosquitoes, our daughter was bitten by the love bug. At first the symptoms were barely noticeable, mild fever, slight agitation. But in only a couple of weeks we saw signs of a full-blown infection.”
But that won’t do. It’s the start of a longer story, and the mother of the bride gets carried away if you let her loose on a story. She doesn’t think she can tell a story and welcome Derek to the family in a single minute.
She could give a bit of advice, like Robert Fulghum would. Think of all the money he must have made publishing Everything I Ever Needed To Know I Learned In Kindergarten! And what would she say? She has had a long and happy marriage. What has she learned?
“Be nice to each other. Let your mate overhear you praising him/her to others. Listen hard and seriously to what the other person is saying. Have fun every single day.”
Would she say, “Don’t go to bed mad?”
Are you kidding? The mother of the bride may have had a long and happy marriage, but she also believes firmly in the importantce of a good night’s sleep!

WEDDING PREP 5

And the bride and her credit card somehow became separated. And the company said it would take two weeks to get a new one. So the groom had to charge some stuff, which seemed like good practice for the future.
But then the bride remembered that she is a very powerful woman ….
The company is couriering a card immediately.

WEDDING PREP 4

And the groom, sweltering in the Ontario heat said, “Do you think that, in the week after the wedding, when we’re unpacking everything into the new house, if it’s really really hot, we could take a break and go swimming in our pool?”
And the bride--rushing through her last few days here in Edmonton where the weather is so unreliable that a pool would seem utterly ridiculous, exhausted from months of finishing her thesis, choosing wedding facilities, talking to photographers, selecting flowers, selling her house, choosing a new house on the web, packing up her classroom, moving the classroom stuff to her house, packing up her house, dealing with banks, going to bridal showers, writing thank-you cards, and dealing with a million zillion wedding details with a determination suggesting that any one detail is as essential as life itself--projected herself into the future and replied: “You know, I just really want to get everything unpacked.”
And the mother of the bride had a good laugh—along with the bride. Proof positive that humour is more powerful than fatigue.
Could it be that the bride has no idea how hot it gets in Ontario?

BOUNDARIES AND THE WHOLE PERSON APPROACH

It’s summer and there’s some time to reflect on how things have been going. I’ve been looking at this blog and thinking about how mixed up my life gets, the personal and the professional. Others talk about boundaries, but my life seems to be more of a unified whole.
From a personal perspective, this blog has been about the wedding. We talk about the wedding every day. It fills our thoughts.
At work, however, it’s been about running hope and strengths groups for different populations, people with chronic pain, parents of children who reported sexual abuse, parents with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder—FASD. Sometimes at work the boundaries are clear, and sometimes they are not so clear. The FASD work is an example of the not-so-clear. And yet I cannot help but believe that it has a place in the professional world. Interestingly, it has been the easiest work to publish. You can find it in the AASCF Research Journal Volume 2 Spring 2010
That piece builds on a personal piece written earlier for publication by the FASD Support Network of Saskatchewan in Living with FASD Spring 2010

WEDDING PREP3

Today two brothers were rounded up and fitted for pin-striped suits with complementary shirts, ties and dress shoes. Their sister said they cleaned up pretty nicely. Before we left the store their father photographed them on his I-phone and both brothers requested copies. Possibly tomorrow they'll be wanting proof that it really happened. This isn’t an easy family to dress up for a special occasion.

WEDDING PREP 2

I put on my wedding shoes and walked to the computer. I got out a ruler and measured the heels. One-and-one-quarter inches. Sometimes the sacrifices that accompany real love are larger than they appear to be.

WEDDING PREP

With only two weeks to go, and the frightfully faint hope of being a credible mother of the bride, I have begun to practice. This morning I took out those fancy spike-heeled shoes that look like somebody else’s shoes, and wore them to breakfast. I stood in them. I sat in them. I walked in them! Who can say what challenges I shall take on tomorrow?

GRAVEYARD DELIGHT

Pearl-Ann Gooding said she enjoyed mys tories.
That was nice. She’s a good teller.
She invited me to tell a scary story at a graveyard concert she was producing.
That was scary. I don’t tell scary stories.
The concert was scheduled to start at midnight.
That was perplexing. I don’t stay up that late at my age.
She was donating the profits to the Storytellers of Canada Youth Scholarship Award.
That was pressure. She was planning to make a profit. People want something for their ticket money.
So I said I’d be pleased to tell a story at her concert. That kind of logic is typical of me.

I thought of all the scary stories I know.
That didn’t take long. I don’t know any.
I went to STORY LOVERS WORLD SOS
And found a song about worms
And a story about worms
A wormy story about complicated grieving
The kind of story a psychologist might tell.
That was a good fit. I’m a psychologist.


The story was 2 minutes long.
That was short. Pearl-Ann wanted 20 minutes.
I added the song.
That stretched it to 4 minutes.
I added some characters.
That made it 8 minutes.
I added a sense of place through description.
That took it to 12.
I converted the story ending to a point in the rising action and added a whole new ending.
That stretched it to 16 minutes.
I added suspense.
17 minutes now, maybe more.

It was a dark and stormy night.
Six black-clad tellers assembled at the Wainwright Cemetery.
Railroad tracks were very near.
Midnight came and the concert began.
5 long trains rumbled by.
Rain poured down for 2 full hours.
And yet …

60 spectators bought 20-dollar tickets and sat out in the open
Sat through it all and clapped when we hoped they would.
Sang along when we told them to sing along.
Don’t tell me that science can explain everything!!!!

DECONSTRUCTING A HOPE AND STRENGTHS GROUP

Yesterday Genevieve conducted follow-up dialogues with two of the participants in the hope and strengths group sessions Rachel and I recently offered for people with chronic pain. The interviewees were pleased and grateful. At our request, Genevieve was trying to find out just what it was about the process that had made them so. Those eager participants were doing their utmost to define it.
As I briefly glossed through the recordings it struck me that de-constructing a successful hope and strengths group for any population is a bit like eating a delicious cake and then accurately documenting the recipe. When it comes to cake, an inexperienced cook will savour the cake. An experienced cook may say something about the relative proportions of the ingredients. A person with knowledge about the chemical properties of the combined ingredients will speak to the fine points of its texture. Perhaps there is somebody who can document the process by which the heat of the oven transforms the goo in the bowl to the fine product on the plate. But it seems that nobody has yet been able to get around the reality that great cakes are constructed in test kitchens, either at home in labs. Would-be cooks just keep baking and baking, guiding themselves by the appreciation of the eaters, and they get better at it as they go. The cooks may or may not be able to explain the chemical combinations and molecular transformations that have made the cake what it is. About the best they can do is provide the recipe they used. Or is it the recipe they think they used, given that sometimes you just have to make adjustments because you notice that it doesn’t feel right?
When it comes to hope and strengths groups—and we’ve run a few of them lately—the ambiguity of what has occurred lies somewhere in the gap between the documented activities presented in each session—each offered for its own good reason—and the gratitude expressed in the evaluations. But here’s the problem—that thing that has consumed so much of my time when it comes to explaining the basis and success of hope work. Cake recipes are published in cookbooks. Cooks buy the books and start baking. We assume they will practice until they get it right if we give them the recipe, and we assume it isn’t important for them to know everything about how the process works before we give them the information they need in order to start the cooking. It seems to work pretty well.
Group work results, in contrast, are published in professional, peer-reviewed journals. Peer reviewed journals don’t let you publish a recipe until you have presented a complete summary of the properties of the ingredients and the experiments various people have done with them. By the time you’ve done half of that, you’ve exceeded the word limit, and there’s seldom, if ever, any room to present the recipe. If ever there is room, you usually have to leave out half the ingredients just to make it fit. As a result, there are very few places where practitioners can read detailed accounts about the daily work their colleagues do.
My hope is that the human services will some day have better respect for the value of practice, and will therefore put more emphasis on allowing the people who practice to present enough information about what they are actually doing so that others can try it out. Is there truly anything to fear if we move in this direction? What is the worst that could happen? After all, even though people bake cakes all the time, some better than others, it hasn’t threatened the professional respectability of the disciplined study of chemistry.

BEE STINGS

A friend sent me something by email today.
He said it came from a reliable source.
The reliable source had heard it from someone.
The email was all about bee stings.

“Tape a penny on the bee sting,” it said
“And the copper will make the swelling go down.
Taking the place of the pain that would have been there.
Remember to send this to everyone you know,
Friends, children and grandchildren.”

“Placebo effect,” I said to myself.
“Or Maybe the penny keeps you from scratching.
Pin your hopes on the power of a simple penny
And something may improve.”

And then I remembered the Nocebo Effect.
A man died of cancer that had been diagnosed
Though the autopsy showed him to be without cancer.
False despair in deadly action,
The dangerous absence of hope.

So I taped a penny to the sorest spot on my back—
Just in case it was a bee sting.

THE NANTON NEWS EXPERIMENT

Hats off to Peter Warden and his fledgeling newspaper
THE NANTON EXPERIMENT
Somehow he has managed to keep it going for a whole year. This link takes you to one page of Peter’s blog, but keep digging. Here is the work of a man who grew tired of following the conventional rules of newspaperhood only to watch community newspapers disappear. Proof to all of us that all the good ideas in the world haven’t been used up yet.

A CYCLIST'S GUIDE TO HOPE AND FEAR

Lance Armstrong: “Hope is the only antidote to fear.”

CELEBRATING

Desmond Tutu quoted on CBC Radio 1: "To refuse to celebrate is to refuse to hope."

HOPE AND FEAR

Are any two emotions more easily confused than hope and fear? How often do we say “I hope’ when our primary emotion is fear? “I hope it won’t rain,” we say. What we feel is: “I am afraid it will rain.” “I hope I don’t fail,” we say. What we feel is, “I am afraid of failure.”
Try as you might it would be difficult to find a place where this confusion reigns more vigorously than in the realm of health care. In health care, as in other things, we hope for prompt efficient service, calls returned, timely appointments. And yet there is nothing that scares us more completely than a lab worker who promises to send the result immediately to our doctor, or a doctor’s message saying, “I have your tests now. Please come in as soon as you can, preferably in the next day or so.”
And where does the fear come from? Could it be that, in the realm of health care, our hope is not the same as our expectation? Our expectation is to wait for service, to languish anonymously in stacks of charts, to be bumped when the budget is cut or a serious car accident brings in emergency cases. Our operating assumption is, "if it's good news, it can wait."

HOPE IS LIKE A ROAD IN THE COUNTRY

”Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence” -- Lin Yutang quoted at http://thinkexist.com/quotation/hope_is_like_a_road_in_the_country-there_was/213515.html


I just wish I’d thought to say that!

Gary McPherson, Audacious Hoper

Speaking of audacious hopers I really must compliment Edmonton Journal columnist Graham Thomson on his portrayal of the late Gary McPherson No Limits On Gary McPherson’s Abilities
Much was written about Gary when he died, but Thomson gets my nod for capturing the hoping part and putting it ahead of the disability. We need audacious hopers in the world—people who expect more from themselves than others expect of them and therefore get more from themselves, people who expect more from the world at large than the world expects of itself and therefore get the world to do better than it thought it could.
While detailing his many accomplishments, Thomson describes McPherson as ”perhaps the most influential politician in Alberta who never held public office.” Still, he did run for office, and that’s more than can be said for most of us.

WISDOM

I was looking for sympathy when I sighed in sad resignation, declaring my back pain to be chronic—I.E—a burden I’ll likely carry forever no matter how many experts I consult. Ever hopeful, Rachel said she once heard a wise woman declare that the term chronic means you’ve had something for a long time. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have it forever.
And I am left to wonder: Why is it that your own words never sound quite as wise when somebody quotes them back to you?

STORYTELLING REPERTOIRE

2010
Ordinary Things by Wendy Edey
First performed at Compassion House Retreat for Breast Cancer Survivors
The easiest way to start an extraordinary life is to start with ordinary things. Take this washboard, for example.

Lost In The Frozen North by Wendy Edey
First performed at T.A.L.E.S Story cafe
Sir John Franklin set sail from England in 1845 in search of a sea route from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the coveted northwest passage. Other northern explorers kept better records and are far less well known. There was Perry, and Collinson, and McLure, and McClintock, and me.
Yes me. I too have been lost in the frozen north, in the days before cell phones and gps, in that inscrutable suburban land of islands and dead-ends and circles where so many have been lost despite the stars, the maps, the compasses. This is the story of what I learned, and am still learning from the experience.

Welcome By Wendy Edey
First performed at Spcy Tales Concert
The first time I ever tried simosa I made myself a mental note: “In future, be careful about spices!”

2009
Humour Studies by Wendy Edey
First performed at T.A.L.E.S Story Cafe
Had I not set out to study humour I might never have discovered the difference between humour and odour. And if it wasn’t exactly fun studying humour at university, it did raise some interesting questions about the nature of the relationship between humour and higher education.

Princesses by Wendy Edey
First performed at Canada Concert sponsored by Unitarian Church of Edmonton
Robert Munsch’s Paperbag Princess helps tell the stories of Alice Walker Hogman and Dr. Mary Percy Jackson, two remarkable professional women determined to have their careers and their princes charming too.

The Water Dragon’s Gift by Wendy Edey
First performed at T.A.L.E.S Story Cafe
In the year 280 B.C. a despairing Chinese poet threw himself into a river. This is the story of how that tragedy gave voice to 21st century women with breast cancer.

Good Sport by Wendy Edey
First performed at Alberta Provincial Archives Concert
For as long as history has been recorded, men have been throwing whatever is handy and calling it a sport. We tend to think a sport is a better sport if you play for a lot of money, attract sponsors, or watch it on TV. Now when was the last time you heard a story about the game of horseshoes?

Boom by Wendy Edey
First performed at T.A.L.E.S Story cafe
I’ve got news for you. There’s going to be a real estate boom in Edmonton. Prices will skyrocket. We don’t know when it will be, or exactly how it will start. But one thing we know for sure is that when it gets going, people will do crazy things. This is the story of two booms, one in 2007, the other in 1912.

Would A Minister Tell A Lie? By Wendy Edey
First performed at MWUC Christmas Jam\
That long-loved poem Twas The Night Before Christmas was written by a theologian. Or was it?

2008
Mr. Andrews by E.M. Forster
First performed at Ardrossen United Church
A Christian and a Muslim meet on their way to Heaven. This tale is as relevant today as it was when Forster penned it in 1914.

Stream, Wind, Desert (a Sufi tale)
First performed at Alberta College of Social Workers Annual Conference
A stream tries to hold its shape while crossing the desert.

Burnout and Rekindling by Wendy Edey
First performed at T.A.L.E.S Audition
How do you inspire a group of social workers after a presentation that tanked, sank and went all the way down the toilet?

The French Invention by Wendy Edey
First Performed at T.A.L.E.S annual concert
Louis Braille made it possible for blind people to read and write. All he needed was support from the school for the blind. But few people know how long it took for Louis to get any respect.

Learning To Play Jacks by Wendy Edey
First performed at Early Education Conference, Edmonton
At last I had found a game I could win. It was a story that seemed too good to be true.

Singing Country Music by Wendy Edey
First performed at T.A.L.E.S Story Cafe
Everything I ever needed to know about moonshine I learned before the age of six. I learned it while sitting on the edge of the bed with my sister, singing country music.

How High’s The Water by Wendy Edey
If the North Saskatchewan River could talk it would have some stories to tell. It would tell about the floods that changed its banks forever, and the people who had to change their plans.

Little Mary Ann (adapted from a tale by Donna Lively)
First performed at T.A.L.E.S Story Cafe
Jane thinks it would be just about impossible to be as good as little Mary Ann.

The Woman With Many Names by Wendy Edey
First performed at the Edmonton Welsh Male Voice Choir concert
In the 19th century pipe organs were springing up in American churches. There was a demand for American hymns, and there were many writers to meet that demand. This is the story of the amazing life of one writer, Fanny Crosby.

The Sword Of Wood (a folk tale adapted by Doug Lipman
First performed at the Seniors Outreach Program, Ridgewood Baptist Church
A King sets out in peasant’s clothing on a quest to understand the people of his kingdom.

2007
Miracles and Wonders by Wendy Edey
First performed at T.A.L.E.S Story Cafe
Mother couldn’t perform miracles, but she could do wonders. When she seemed the most helpless, she showed us all what a simple hope-opotamus could do.

The Words the cat took by Wendy Edey
First performed at Stroke Recovery Confrence
59,995 words is a lot to lose in a single night. On the day after the big stroke Harry still had five good words, and a message he wanted to deliver.

I Could Use Some Help Up Here by Wendy Edey
First performed at Alzheimer Society caregiver training
Even a damsel in distress will try just about anything before she admits she can’t do it on her own.

Lawrence Gives A Hope Talk by Wendy Edey
First performed at FASD Forum
Only a desperate person would seek public speaking advice from somebody who would rather eat carpenters’ tools than make a speech.

Knitters by Wendy Edey
First performed at T.A.L.E.S Story Cafe
“Murdering her is not a good idea,” he said. “We’ll send her to Gramma for knitting lessons.”

2006
The Wedding of Dame Ragnell, A Tale Of King Arthur
First performed at Edmonton Women’s Prison
King Arthur searches the land to find out what women want.

The Street That Got Mislaid by Patrick Waddington
First performed at T.A.L.E.S annual festival
Who could imagine that a treasure lay behind that ordinary-looking brick wall?

Felicity’s Fortune by Wendy Edey
First performed at T.A.L.E.S annual festival
We know that a chicken was found in Dawson Park. What we wonder is how she got there.

Comb Concert by Wendy Edey
First performed at Alberta Teachers’ association Guidance Conference
This is a story about Kathryn Tucker Windham, Selma Alabama and the transformative power of audacious hope.

2005
The Berlin Wall by Wendy Edey
First performed at Alberta Children’s Services Training
Back in the 1960’s, when we were practicing for the end of the world, we never imagined what might be happening in 1989.

Put On Your Own Mask First by Wendy Edey
First performed at Alzheimver Society caregiver training
They give you a lot of advice on airplanes. Some of it is more valuable that you think.

My Financial Career by Stephen Leacock
First performed at Alzheimer Society Caregiver Training
A bank is a scary place when you’re “rattled”.

Good-by Grandma by ray Bradbury
First performed at National Storytelling Network festival, Bellingham
Grandma organizes the family for her final exit.

The Cat Who lived A Million Times by Yoko Sano
First performed at T.a.L.E.S annual festival
Sometimes it takes a million tries to learn the most important lesson.

2004
The Man Whose Mother Was A Pirate by Margaret Mahy
First performed at a birthday party for Audrey
A man and his mother set out on a voyage to find the sea.

SCIENCE

We decided to do an experiment on the wedding cake. There were several questions requiring investigation. We have, after all, never experienced a rice Krispies wedding cake before, and the big day will be only a memory in less than eight weeks. With pressure mounting, we needed to know the quantities of supplies required, the most desirable consistency of the final product, the feasibility of removing the cake from the pan.
In a display of true father-of-the-bride devotion, David got out a calculator, pen and paper, parchment, Rice Krispies, marshmallows and butter, bowls and mixing spoons, and our shiny new four-tiered industry quality baker’s pans designed for cakes other than these.
By the time he had finished drawing, trimming parchment, measuring, melting, stirring, revising the recipe, packing and removing he had produced the second-to-the-smallest tier, approximately 13% of the total cake mass- an 8-inch square, 3-inch deep Rice Krispies block. We admired it, and waited for more observers to arrive.
The future bride and groom came to dinner. Together we gazed lovingly at the cake. They are, to be sure, in a loving mood these days, surprisingly easy to please. Still, even by exacting standards, early evening indicators pointed to experimental success.
Yet, one vital question hung unanswered in the air. “Who,” we wondered, “will eat all that cake?”
Exhausted from a long day’s science, we left the answer to chance, turning our attention to other pursuits. The evening passed pleasantly. We ate dinner. We walked in the park. Six of us sat for a few hours, engrossed in a game of cards, each of us tensely wondering who the winner would be.
Here are the results. Lawrence won the game, but not before 13% of the total future cake mass had disappeared, and all the questions had been answered—except for one.
“Who,” we wondered, “ate the most?”

FINDING ONESELF

Finding oneself is not as safe as it used to be. At one time teen-agers left home and wandered the globe, seeking an individual identity. “I’m finding myself,” they’d say, when you wondered why they hadn’t made it home for dinner. How simple life was back then.
But now it’s so much easier to find yourself, and so much harder to escape from the self you find. Today I searched for myself—on line. I was looking to see what others would see if they searched for me. Lo and behold, I was there. Not only was I there, but on one website,
Westwood Unitarian Audio Archive
I discovered that I had been recorded giving what they called a “sermon”.
“Oh dear,” I thought. “I don’t give sermons.”
I suppose I was hanging on a technicality. I give presentations, occasionally at churches, some of them on Sunday mornings. And I couldn’t deny having given this one, though I wouldn’t have called it a sermon. What would my Granny have said?
Maybe I should have known better than to click that link. It was me all right, and I shuddered when I heard myself. In a feeble attempt at redemption, I apologized in advance to all those future clickers who click that link expecting a real sermon. And as a protective measure, I almost took a vow of silence.
But then I got to wondering why it is that recordings of me never sound like the person I hear when I speak, even though I always think that recordings of other people sound like those people sound to my ears. And then I got to wondering if movie stars hate to watch themselves in the movies. And I got so distracted that I forgot to take the vow of silence. I wonder if I’ll remember next time.

PUZZLE PIECE

Hanna Sinclair left a comment for THE HOPE LADY Blog. I saw in shortly after 6;00 AM. It was a comment addressed to a post posted 9 months ago, a story about a junior high teacher I remember, Eric Cardinall.
REMEMBERING ERIC CARDINALL
Hanna is his granddaughter. She writes: ”Thank you for the lovely words about my grandfather (or "Grumps" as he nicknamed himself) Eric Cardinall. While this took place years before
I was born, and in a setting different to the ones I knew him in, your anecdotes describe the man I knew. I am so glad to hear he had an effect on his
students, and that he is remembered by some of them so many years later.”
We live in a connected world. There are drawbacks, to be sure. But waking up to discover that I have inadvertently added a puzzle piece in Hanna’s history makes me grateful to be here.

HOW LITTLE WE KNOW

Something diffrent to read—a book about the real work of firefighting
BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE

Funny how little we know about the work others do!

ROBIN IN STEREO

I like robins
Because they are complicated.

Robins have bad judgment.
I like the way they arrive too early to miss the Alberta snow.

Robins do impossible things.
I like the way they start singing around 3:30 (who among us can get out of bed after a good sleep and start singing at 3:30?)

Robins have nerve.
I like the way they start a nest right beside the veranda table we sit at every day and then dare us to move.

Robins know how to compromise.
I like the way they decide to keep their nest in place when they notice that we’re still going to sit there every day.

Robins cheer me up.
Even when I don’t want to be cheered up, I like that.

Robins surprise me.
And it could just be that my very favourite thing about robins
Happened yesterday, when I was listening
To a recording of a counselling session
Made here at Hope House the day before.

Outside my window a robin sang.
On the recording that same robin sang.
Background music
Robin in stereo.
What finer music has there ever been?

NOTICED

Mornings fine me taking the train across to the river to work. Sometimes, though rarely, I come upon Rachel, leaving the station and we walk the final block together. Usually, if it happens at all, it happens in the moment that we leave the train, but this morning she was waiting for me at the top of the escalator.
Had she noticed me? No. A stranger had stopped her and reported having sighted me leaving the train.
And herein lies the opportunity for multiple perspectives. Will it be sympathy for poor Rachel, deprived of the right to walk to work alone? Will it be creepiness at realization that one’s routine comings and goings are not, after all, of no interest to strangers? Or will it be gratitude at the kindness shown by others in a world where it’s easy enough to gather evidence of social indifference?
What would a hopeful person think?

WELCOME

I’ll never forget the first time I bit into a simosa. It was in the mid 1970’s. We were a young couple, invited to the home of a recent acquaintance from Africa. There was sat, in a social crowd around a long table. I did it innocently. There it was, a tidy little triangular meat pie. I thought it was kind of cute. My experience with meat pies up to that point had been—I now realize—limited to the big round tasteless English meat pies my granny used to have—English meat pies, thick with pastry, bland as tofu. I imagined the simosa to be a little tart, related to the English meat pie the way a lemon tart is related to lemon pie. And so, I opened my mouth and bit right in.
The results were—surprising. At the centre of that little turnover was a ball of pure powdered fire. It hit my tongue. It burned a little. It exploded. And that’s when my high-pressure automatic sprinkler system kicked in. The simosa and some companion liquids shot across the room with the terrifying force of a spluttering cough. Stuff poured out of my nose, my eyes, my underarms. A fine mist escaped my eardrums. I felt profound gratitude for the impermeable nature of my belly button. I made a mental note to myself. In future, be careful around spices!
If you’d asked me at that time whether I knew about spices I would have said, “Of course I do. I grew up in a family that used salt.”
We ate salt on roast beef and beefsteak and ground beef. We ate salt on roast pork and pork chops and sausages. We ate salt on roast chicken and fried chicken and even on canned chicken. We ate it on roast lamb and lamb chops, on peas and carrots and corn and turnips, on fresh tomato halves and cucumber slices. And salt wasn’t the only spice we had either. We also had pepper. We ate that along with salt on eggs and mashed potatoes. What’s more, we ate cinnamon, usually in rice pudding which we had for dessert any time we had roast beef and mashed potatoes. Yes, I would have said I knew about spices.
By and by we had a baby and hired a builder to build us a house. People said to be careful in our new neighbourhood. A lot of foreigners were moving to that part of town. And I didn’t like the sound of their warnings. I made a mental note to be the kind of person who would welcome foreigners to my country.
We chose an empty lot between two occupied houses. I imagined my future relationship with my neighbours would be like Wilma’s to Betty on the Flintstones. We’d have coffee, we’d chat, we’d exchange recipes.
One happy evening we got the key to our new house. We picked up a few things, put them in the back of the car and rushed over. It felt like the best Christmas present ever, our new house. We wanted to walk every inch of the carpet, stand in every room, admire the space in all the closets. But we’d only been there a few minutes when the doorbell rang. There stood a teen-age girl, shy, talking fast, sent over. We live next door, she said. My mother wants you to come for tea. It was getting late. Soon it would be time to put the baby to bed. We didn’t really want to go for tea right now, but it seemed rude to do otherwise. So we locked the door, and went over.
Our house was a perfectly square, black-and-white bilevel, but the house next door was something else entirely. At that time we had no idea that the empty lot where our house now stood was once a communication line between two neighbours. The neighbour on one side would open her kitchen window and if the neighbour on the other side also had her kitchen window open, they would chat back and forth across our lot, in Punjabi. Now we found ourselves in a custom built house like no other we had ever experienced. Towards the back sprawled a long wing of bedrooms. At the front, up six or seven steps, was a six-sided turret with no furniture and a row bright windows facing Mecca. It was the prayer room. The place smelled spicy.
Our hostess was Rasheeda. She seated us and prepared the tea. Conversation felt stiff and awkward. Now our baby gave a little cry and soon enough there was another smell. Uncomfortably we asked for a washroom where we might change a diaper. .
“I’ll take him,” said our hostess. Above our protests he was whisked away, as if on a magic carpet. In only a moment he had returned, laughing and cooing and smelling like baby powder.
Rasheeda was saying: “Every day I pray to God let somebody move in with a baby for me to look after. I love babies.”
She ran a day home. We’d had never been the answer to anybody’s prayers before. It seemed like a large responsibility we were taking on. But given the fact that my baby was smelling fresh, and laughing, snuggling against this woman who lived right next door, I made a mental note to hire her when I returned to work.
It is so wonderful to find a reliable sitter when you go back to work. And yet, there remains some part of you that believes your baby ought to be a tiny bit sad to see you go. My baby hid his sadness with great courage, and put on a laughing face. What I didn’t know, at first, was that my baby’s early life was spent eating in two solitudes. At home he ate pork chops and mashed potatoes. At the home next door, the home of Aunty and Uncle, he chowed down on simosa and chicken so hot you had to serve it with yoghurt. I began to suspect something when Rasheeda took on the task of bringing together the two solitudes. Soon enough that food was pouring out of her house and into mine. I’d be frying up a pan of pork chops when the doorbell would ring. There would stand aunty with a bowl or a plate. “Just some food for all of you, she’d say. My Markie loves my food.
“Eat your pork chops,” I’d say to MY Markie. But my words went unheeded. He was wolfing down nan bread and Rasheeda special rice. He was offering a taste to me.
By the time he was ten my kitchen had changed a little. In the cupboard was a small jar of curry powder that I occasionally sprinkled on chicken, and I had grown accustomed to Rasheeda’s special rice—flavoured with onions simmered in cinnamon and cardamom, tossed with cubes of something Rasheeda called cow meat. I had come to see this delicacy as a one-dish variation on the old roast beef and rice pudding dinner.
I had long since given up the notion of welcoming foreigners. Granddad would come to visit. Standing at our living room window, watching the inevitable game of street hockey, he would exclaim: “Looks like the Little United Nations out there. Where do all of them come from?”
“Born in Canada,” I’d reply. “Their parents are from India and Pakistan and Kenya and the Philippines, and Hong Kong and other places too.”
For dinner we’d have roast beef. Mark would reach for the pepper shaker and hold it above the mashed potatoes. “Oh no,” Granddad would gasp. “The top has come off the pepper. Get that boy a new plate. The potatoes are black with pepper.”
But Mark would guard his plate in rigid defence. “No,” he would cry. “I want this much pepper on my potatoes.”
“He’s used to eating spicy food,” I’d say mildly. “He eats it at Rasheeda’s.”
The 21st century brought changes. The kids grew up. The day home closed. Rasheeda moved to Ottawa. Mark dropped by our kitchen on his way home from playing a game of hockey. He was opening a package sent by Rasheeda. And then, a cry of pleasure. He held up a book and read the title: “Muslim Cookery
4th Edition, compiled by Ottawa Muslim Women’s Auxiliary.
I was cautious, though wiser about spices than I used to be. . I felt it was my duty to warn. To use this book he would need cumin, coriander, several colours of cardamom and black pepper corns. Bay leaves, tippali, long peppers, short peppers, medium peppers, chili peppers. He would need cinnamon sticks and whole cloves and nutmeg. He would need ghee, whatever that was.
“Mother,” he said, “Ghee is clarified butter. And I have most of that stuff in my cupboard. I can easily get anything I don’t have.”
Now he was reading the preface. The cookbook was a Muslim cookbook. The preface said you wouldn’t find any pork, bacon or lard in here.
Unlike most of my cookbooks, organized by category, salads in one spot, cakes in another, this one was organized by country. There were recipes from Albania, Bangladesh Guyana India Iran Iraq and Indonesia. There were recipes from Malaysia, north Lebanon Syria Saudi Arabia, Algeria morocco Tunisia, South Africa Tanzania turkey and the West Indies. The two largest sections were reserved for Pakistani recipes and Canadian recipes. The Pakistani section held some recipes we knew from Rasheeda’s cooking. The Canadian section sported salads, and beefsteak, burgers and barbecuing suggestions.
As Mark danced out merrily, Muslim Cookery in hand, I made a mental note to remember the little Canada where I was born, the Canada in which I grew up, the Canada where everyone looked the same, and talked the same, and ate the same. And I made another mental note to think of Rasheeda, how she came knocking at the door of my little Canada, how she took my baby and took my hand and invited me into a newer, bigger Canada, how she fed me spices, fed them one at a time, slowly so I could get used to them. I wanted to remember how, when she ushered me into the bigger newer Canada, she also made me feel—made me feel welcome there.

ALONE

Hot day in April
Feels like July
Women in Sandals
Bare toes in the morning.

Sitting alone
On an early train
With Brody and Dillon
And their mom.

Mom says, ”Brody, finish your juice.”
Mom says, ”Dillon, get ready for the station.”

Standing alone
In the elevator
With Brody and Dillon and their mom,
Jostled with them in a crush of strangers.

The crowd is thicker below the waist,
Swaying in the motion of Brody and Dillon.
Dillon looks up to the eye of a stranger.
Asks, ”Why do you only have two toes?”

The stranger looks down in Baffled wonder.
”Because my shoes are covering some.”
”Only two toes,” says disbelieving Dillon.
By magic uniting the strangers.

And now the air above the waist is pulsing,
Bursting with laughter and conversation,
Strangers still talking as they step out the doors.
And I marvel at how we are joined together in a welcome explosion of community.

Doesn’t it make you wonder a little
Given the loneliness that seems so pervasive,
How it can be that we try so hard
To be alone on trains and in elevators?

PLANTING

I tried not to plant anything this weekend.
Really I did.
It is too early for planting.
And it will probably snow again.
And anything I put outside now will freeze for sure.
Oh I tried not to plant anything.

But the sun shone,
And the spring breeze blew,
And I heard a robin
And some geese too.
So I put in a few acidanthra bulbs.

But only four.

LITTLE TOUCHES

And there, in a class of social workers I was teaching in Vancouver, was Brenda whom I have not seen since we shared a first-year social work practicum placement at the Calgary YWCA 35 years ago.
And what did she say upon meeting me? She said, “I knew when I saw your name it would be you. Only, your hair is longer, and lighter too.”
And what can I say about that? Only, “Never under-estimate the impact of the little touches.”

ANNIVERSARY

Today is my anniversary—fifteen years to the day since my first day of work at the Hope Foundation of Alberta. I thought it would be a good idea to write on this blog about what I have learned during those fifteen years. If you’ve noticed that I haven’t written on the blog for quite a while now, that’s why. I was trying to write what I’ve learned in fifteen years. The more I wrote, the less ready I was to put it out there. Writing is like that sometimes.
I have learned to be very grateful for research. I started work at the Hope Foundation with a good foundation of experience and training in counselling and a belief in the idea of hope. I couldn’t have said it then, but Dr. Denise Larsen’s interpersonal process research in hope and counselling has given me the language to explain that the work that came naturally to me when I started this job was implicitly hopeful. The counselling practice that Dr. Ronna Jevne was hoping we could develop would be explicitly related to hope.
I couldn’t have said it simply in 1995, but Brunincks and Mal’s research on common understandings of the distinction between hope and other positive affective states has given me the language teaching tools to show other professionals some useful tricks for thinking about the differences between wishes, hopes and goals. I figure that one piece of research has probably saved me hundreds of hours of struggling to defend the use of explicit hope language.
I couldn’t have said it in 1995, couldn’t have explained it really clearly even last year, but Sharon Schultz’s observation in the research evaluation of our group work with parents who have FASD has put into words a phenomenon I noticed in the first couple of weeks of being here. People are so much bigger than their problems. When you do an investigation of their lives using the tools that make hope explicit and strengths apparent, those people become three-dimensional. You start to think that you have hope for this person. You start to think that a person with so much strength really will be all right, even with this big problem. Once you start to believe that, there’s a better chance that they start to believe it too.
I have learned to be grateful for experience. Experience has taught me that some people find hope very threatening, and that this resistance is easier to work with if you think of them as frightened rather than thinking of them as inflexible, particularly if those people are professionals—say, medical doctors or psychologists. Experience has taught me to have confidence in the value of hope and positive psychology, even when people have cancer or multiple sclerosis or ALS or Alzheimer disease or kidney failure or liver dysfunction or chronic pain or depression or unbelievably heavy care-giving responsibilities, or poverty, or limited cognitive functioning. Experience has taught me that if there is a magic one-size- fits-all cure for stress and unhappiness, it hasn’t been discovered yet. Experience has taught me that I’m not likely going to get rich doing the work I seem to have been born to do. But then, experience has also taught me that impossible things do happen, and my predictions about probability and possibility are not as accurate as my reasoning would lead me to expect. Experience has taught me to celebrate, celebrate often, celebrate little things, every success in counselling, every new piece of enlightening research, every time something turns out better than I expected. .
Today is my anniversary. I hadn’t really planned to celebrate, given that I had a full day’s work doing counselling and mentoring students, followed by an evening of choir practice. But Denise thought we ought to celebrate in the available time after work, and I really had to wonder why I, THE HOPE LADY, hadn’t thought of it myself. But then, experience has taught me never to assume that a possible course of action has been considered, even when it appears to be incredibly and undeniably obvious that this would be the thing to do.

ORCHID IMPOSTER

Eight flowery orchids blooming in the window
Purple to pink, to yellow, to white,
Everyone thinking Wendy is a wonder
An expert on orchids to grow them right.

Here sits Wendy, the orchid imposter
Keeper of a shelf neath a rare possession,
A perfect window
For growing orchids.

TOFINO

Today I heard something really interesting, something truly inspiring. I heard that the town of Tofino BC, a Vancouver Island town that receives up to a million tourist visitors every year, is about to enact a by-law prohibiting big box stores and fast food outlets from setting up shop. Such a thing is possible because they don’t have to throw any stores out. Even though it’s already 2010, they don’t have any box stores or fast food outlets because for several decades the discouragement of chain outlets has been part of their municipal vision.
I think I might have to join the million annual visitors heading for Tofino, even though the weather, by all accounts is wet and generally lousy. Most of them go there to surf, to watch whales and migrating shorebirds. And even though I love a sunny vacation, will never mount a surf board and find watching birds and whales to be occupations beyond my ability, I think I might have to go to Tofino, just to experience the surprising novelty of it all.
I can picture it now. There I’ll be, wanting a Tim Horton’s and having to discover the delights of a local coffee shop, craving the fragrance of Canadian Tire and having to settle for an afternoon of hanging out among the nuts and bolts in an ancient hardware store. What an experience! Something you can’t find anywhere! Imagine that!
Though the big cities sometimes seem like clones, I think it’s the little cities that have suffered most from our chain-store obsession. Every one of them is now a mirror of the others. Even the museums are virtually identical. The highway in takes you past Superstore, Canadian Tire, Costco. You stop at the fast food restaurant you patronized in the last town on the highway and order the same thing you ordered yesterday from a menu you’ve memorized. In American cities it’s the same scenario, different businesses. In the heart of each of these centres there is a sad old business district trying to be an historic tourist area. The former shoe store now sells candles. The former hardware sells sunglasses. The former drugstore is a candy store. Almost any business that is not a chain is either posting a shiny new sign, or an older sign not taken down when the business closed last month, or last year.
I might have to visit Tofino, might need to check on the mental health of its citizens. I’ve heard that, when a major event is on, most of the businesses close so the owners can attend the event. They also feel free to close when the owners need a vacation. With no chain stores to set the frenetic pace and steal the business, the locals can do whatever suits them. Could this be madness, or might it be a very healthy trend?

FORGIVENESS

Last week I took a walk with a rabbit. It scurried along beside me for half a block or so, making little purring sounds, sort of like a cell phone on Vibrate. It talked the whole way.
I’ve only ever been spoken to in the past by one other rabbit and that was Ruth’s pet rabbit, Satin. But I do recall the things we talked about.
Me: “Come on Satin, it’s time to get into your cage.”
Satin: (scurrying into a corner) “No thank you. I’d rather just stay out and chew up the electrical cords”
Me: “Please come to me Satin. I have to go to work now and it’s not safe to leave you loose in the house.”
Satin (heading for the place where I was standing when I first started chasing her) “How do you know it’s not safe?”
Me: (Heading for the place Satin headed for when she left the last place she left) “I just know, Okay.”
Satin: (sprinting a diagonal across the room) “Why should I believe you? Have you ever heard of a rabbit not being safe alone in this house before?”
Me: (Laundry basket in hand) “No I haven’t. But you are the only rabbit we have ever had. You’re the last one we’re having too, just in case you were wondering.”
Satin: (from under the upside-down laundry basket) “This isn’t fair. You’re bigger than me. You’re a bully. Ruth wouldn’t let you treat me this way if she were here.”
Me: “Me a bully? You’re the bully! You bit me the last time I had to catch you before I could leave for work, and you scratched me the day before that.”
Satin probably said more after that, but I didn’t hear, seeing as how she was under the laundry basket, and rabbit talk is pretty quiet and I was already running for the bus.
Forgiveness, I have learned, can be a long and slow process. The lifespan of the average human is quite a bit longer than the lifespan of the average rabbit. That is to say, it’s a long time since Satin and I last spoke and I haven’t been much inclined to speak to rabbits since then. You can’t be too careful. You never know when a rabbit will want to come home with you. I’ve heard they’re all pretty nice when you first meet them.
But last week I actually took a walk with a rabbit. It scurried along beside me for half a block or so, making little purring sounds, sort of like a cell phone on Vibrate.
Said the rabbit: “It’s a great day for a walk, don’t you think?”
And I said it certainly was a great day. Sometimes you just have to bury the hatchet and move on.

PARTY RESEARCH

We planned a party for the neighbourhood,
Delivered invitations,
Made bean dip and butter tarts.

We secretly worried that no one would come,
Invited by strangers?
We all need privacy.

We opened the door to seniors and toddlers,
Singles and couples,
Left wing and right.

Then over the din of kitchen chatter
And bursts of laughter
Of plate against wine glass

A simple truth revealed at a party
Call it imprompptu anthropological research
People like to gather with neighbours.

LEARNING ABOUT DISABILITY

The Paralympics begin today in Vancouver. These will be the 10th winter Paralympics. Five events will be featured. And even though you’d think the good citizens of Vancouver would be Olympicked-to-death by this time, the news says that some of the events are already sold out. Could it really be that, after thousands of years of isolation, people with disabilities are truly coming into the mainstream? There’s certainly some amazing evidence for that. And then...
I went to a professional workshop. It was a workshop about disabilities, about amazing professional approaches in highly complex situations. It was all positive except that...
Well, it started out to be marvellously accessible. I read about it on the Internet using the screen reader that reads out loud, thus making my computer very accessible for a blind user. I registered on-line, using a website that met accessibility standards. It was offered in a building I had never been to before, and I might have taken a taxi for that reason, but I didn’t have to. David simply looked up the streetscape photos on the Internet and then described the street to me. He could tell me exactly what my white cane would find in searching for the door. Everything was just as he’d said it would be. The door was easy to find. I felt competent and independent, almost like a sighted person until...
I got off the elevator and somebody asked me if I needed help finding anything. I was greatly relieved because I really didn’t know if there’d be any way for me to find the room. Finding specific rooms is not easy for a blind person. I thanked the volunteer helper and headed right through the door he said was mine. I asked if I was in the place where the workshop was being offered and somebody said I was. I felt awfully pleased with the whole thing until...
Well, nothing happened after that. I stood there with my cane for the few seconds it generally takes for somebody to offer assistance in finding a seat, but nobody did. So I made my best guess at what the room layout might be and took a step forward. A woman coming through the door behind me must have seen my cane from the back. She asked if I would like some assistance finding a seat. I thanked her and she helped me find a seat. She told the other people in the room that she had made the coffee and done all the other things they had asked her to do, and then she left and said they could call her if they needed anything else. I was happy until...
Somebody announced that the coffee was ready. From the noises I could hear, I gathered that the coffee was on the far side of the room from where I was sitting. I waited for somebody to ask if I’d like a coffee. Nobody did, so, seized by a terrible longing for caffeine, I got up, unfolded my cane and started to make my way across the room.
It’s not easy to navigate in an unfamiliar conference room. Nonetheless, I didn’t knock over any machines. I found the counter and the thermos and felt around for cups. It took a while for me to find the cups. They were quite far away. The people in the room had kept talking amongst themselves while I navigated the maze, but when I started searching for cups the room grew silent. There were about five people there, all of them sighted as far as I know, all of them silent, all of them workshop organizers as far as I know. I had arrived about 20 minutes before workshop time. After I’d poured my coffee and started back across the room they started talking to each other again. I sat in my chair, far away from anybody else, and felt more or less happy sipping my coffee until...
The speaker started speaking. Turns out that the helper who had seated me and then left the room forever had seated me behind the speaker. I presume this was because she hadn’t known where the speaker would be located. So far as I know, everyone else was in front of the speaker. That helped to explain why all the people who arrived after me sat far away from me. Even so, I didn’t feel too badly because...
The workshop was a great workshop, the speaker gave a lot of excellent information about how to treat the people with these complicated disabilities. I could tell the presenter really knew what he was talking about. At the end we were instructed that, if any of us had failed to sign in when we arrived, we should do so before we left. They wanted us to sign in so they could send us evaluation forms.
I headed for the door. I didn’t sign in. I just couldn’t bring myself to do whatever it would have taken to find out where the form was and get somebody to write on it for me.
That was yesterday. I’ll admit, after that experience I was more or less hopeless about the prospect of people with disabilities ever being treated with basic respect. If it couldn’t be done by a group of professional trainers at that workshop, how could it be done anywhere?
That was yesterday, a lousy day really, despite a great workshop. But today I feel a little better. The Paralympics are starting. People with disabilities have come a long way. Rick Mercer will be featured on television. He will don a pair of goggles, follow a guide and ski down a mountain like a blind Paralympian. Because of his educational efforts, CBC watchers will soon now understand what it’s like to ski down a hill as a blind person. And that will be a good thing. We’ll all have a great laugh at Rick’s antics, and laughter is good for all of us, maybe as good as an education.
Perhaps I was supposed to learn something from yesterday’s experience. Maybe I was supposed to learn that if I want a seat, if I want a coffee, if I want to sign I just have to interrupt other people’s conversations about nothing important and ask for it. But this is not a lesson I want to have to learn. So I’m looking for another way.
And now I’ve started wondering, in the spirit of education, if Rick Mercer would be available to pick up a white cane and attend one of those workshops. Even though I’m feeling better today, I could really use a laugh.

DRESSING

Saturday finds us shopping for wedding gowns—an unlikely scenario at best. I’ve often said that there is one and only one reason why I would like to be crowned Queen of England. The reason: I’ve read that the queen never shops for herself, not in stores anyway. Apparently she sits at the castle signing proclamations and petting corgis while designers and maids scour the planet for a selection of garments, gorgeous and comfortable from which she might make a choice. Yes, I’d be a good queen on shopping days. Take me to a store at 10:00 and I’ll be peevish by 11:00, whining about the heat, complaining about the crowds and suggesting we find a spot for lunch while there’s still a place to sit.
But on this day I have received an invitation to take part in the process with the bride-to-be and two of her bridesmaids and it seems to me that even the queen might find herself wanting to put the royal duties aside for a few hours if she had received the same.
The universe, on this particular day, is friendlier than I had expected. So excited about the bridal prospect are these young women as we enter the first shop that they fail to warn me of the cardinal rule of wedding shop shopping—shoes are definitely deposited at the door. It isn’t until we are leaving, and they are searching for my shoes, that one of them notices I have them on. Quite a remarkable oversight, since I have already been guided around the borders of several flowing trains to a place where I might examine the curve of a neckline or the fit of a waist. Later in the day sitting near the dressing room of a mall shop in a mega-mall I will hear a sassy salesgirl chastising the unfortunate members of a different entourage for failing to take their shoes off. “This is a wedding store,” she will say, in a tone suggesting that anyone with an IQ of 10 would have known. But my infraction has happened in a smaller venue where the brides are seen by appointment. In this venue we are served by the manager herself, a cheery well-mannered woman who does not usually serve customers but is doing so for this special occasion. She, without doubt, has noticed my shoes and thought better of mentioning them. Being the manager, she has a sense of how to make or break a sale.
It is important to order today, she tells us. That should ensure a delivery by the end of May. Every week you wait at this point delays the delivery date by two weeks. “Which of these two do you prefer?” And then, “Please come back soon if you want to order.” She is keeping a file.
We know already that we will be ordering. Our bride is smaller than any size on the rack. But gradually I come to understand that every bride will be ordering. What they do with the dresses on the rack remains a mystery. There is only one of each type, and that only in one size. Size is no concern here. You start with a dress bigger than you and clip it together to match your shape. You then imagine how it would look if it really fitted you. They’ll be ordering it with your measurements in mind. This dress, for example, can be ordered in two heights, five feet nine inches and five feet six inches. Not to worry that you are only five feet three inches. The dress will need to be tailored after it arrives.
As dresses are tried it becomes clear that there are many choices at hand. Will it be strapful or strapless? One strap is also an option. Will we have diamond white or ivory, real silk or satin, organza or taffeta, trimmed with lace or bling?
Bling???
“Oh Mom, get up and come over here. Now don’t step on that train. I’ll show you what bling is.” The train rustles. Another prospective bride is scurrying to get out of my path.
A wedding shop is a psychologist’s paradise. You could get a fascinating Ph.D. watching personal dynamics. A peevish sister says, “Mum, I think we just have to quit this. She doesn’t seem happy in any of them!” Meanwhile, other brides seem particularly partial to styles that show off their bellies. On-lookers hint that the style may be less flattering than some other fashion, but they do not hear. If it weren’t for the fear of train derailments I might jump up and go over to help. “I am wondering,” I might say in my best professional voice, “if each of you could pause for a moment and tell me what you are hearing from the other.”
But I stay in my seat. Beside me one of our bridesmaids says, “She has a good one on now. I just wish I could go over and tell her how wonderful it looks.”
“Go for it,” I urge. Our bride is hidden behind a curtain. She’ll not be out for thirty seconds or more.
Up leaps our bridesmaid. “You look wonderful in this one,” she says to the stranger. She herself married several years ago and has recently become a mother. She’s sensitive to the power of concepts like positive reinforcement.
But the stranger says, “I think I prefer the other one.” And now our bride is out again.
The day wears on. I do my best to behave. My patience is rewarded. Our bride, the one who should be overwhelmed, judging by the endurance we notice in other brides, seems to have sipped at the fountain of endless patience. How many gowns has she tried in how many shops? None of us can remember. But one bridesmaid needs a snack, another a washroom. In this context my needs appear casual, inconsequential. I don’t have to whine for anything.
Off we go, across the city, across in another direction. We snack at lunchtime, have lunch when we ought to be snacking. Somewhere around 4:00 we notice that we are wandering without focus.
No choice has been made by day’s end. But this leaves us with no worries. Several of the dresses will probably do just fine. Home goes the bride to look at the photos. Did I mention the camera? A digital camera in the hands of the bridesmaids has captured multiple views of the bride in every gown. She will choose in the quiet of her living room and return to whatever shop for a fitting at a time convenient to her. Our work is done—well, mine anyway. Nothing left for me to do but wonder how one person can, at the same time, be both my baby girl and a gracious, beautiful woman.

BACK TO GO FORWARD

“I’ve found a picture of a wedding cake made from rice Krispies squares,” says Ruth.
Huddled round a tiny table in the window of the Italian bakery, we are drinking cappuccino and evaluating the relative merits of available wedding reception facilities. The street is bathed in the slanting shadows of the late afternoon sun. There we sit, future newly-weds, parents of the future bride, asking the questions that millions, maybe billions have asked before us. How many guests should there be? How much money is it reasonable to spend? In the final analysis, what is it that matters the most?
The questions might be easy, but the answers are conflicted. “I’d marry you in a ditch,” says the groom, meaning, “I just want to marry you. It doesn’t matter where.” And yet, when we compare ditches, community halls and golf clubs with fabulous patios, he definitely prefers the golf club with the fabulous patio and back-up room in case of rain. She, surprisingly, is leaning toward the community hall. “It’s a lot cheaper,” she says.
Here we are at a decision point. Having fleshed out the issue without reaching a conclusion, we change the subject.
“Really,” she says, “I can show you a cake picture on the Internet. It’s made completely of Rice Krispies Squares.” I am paying close attention, looking for subtle cues that will tell me how serious she might be. All four of us like Rice Krispies Squares. The guys like them even better than us girls. But the guys don’t seem to be thinking she’s serious. Maybe she doesn’t know if she’s serious.
I decide to take a position. “I don’t see why we couldn’t have Rice Krispies Squares,” I say. And then, compelled by a force I am powerless to stop I add, “I can hear your grandma rumbling though.”
I say it because I can actually hear it, though even before the words are out I wish I hadn’t. It’s a conversation stopper. Why do I say such things? Will I never grow up?
It stops the conversation because Ruth can hear Grandma rumbling too. The thought of it brings her near to tears, brings us back to the hours we spent cleaning out Grandma’s house, a fridge filled with tiny pots of coloured icing, the corners of cupboard stuffed with hundreds of flowers in multiple hues, leftovers from so many wedding cakes. . To Derek we offer an explanation for the sudden chill at the table. Grandma was a wedding cake artist, we tell him. He nods a sympathetic understanding. But he probably doesn’t really get it. To understand the passion of a wedding cake artist like Grandma, You kind of had to be there.
It’s a turbulent phase, this time of wedding planning. I remember it well from the long-ago days of our wedding, the negotiation, the fatigue, the balancing of perspective, the commitment to flexibility, the show-stopping incidents when we failed to notice that one of us was headed for emotional meltdown.
In the years following the marriages of her daughters, the years when the empty nest was made to seem emptier by the filling of new nests, my mother did something totally out of character. In the middle of summer, with the farming in full swing and the garden brimming, She took a week off farm wife duties to attend a women’s program at Olds agricultural college. She returned home rested and excited. She mentioned that she might see if she could decorate a wedding cake.
It turned out that she could decorate a wedding cake, first one, and then another, and another, and another, until the time came when she turned down more offers than she accepted, so great was the demand for her creative eye and her steady hand. Brides, mothers of the bride, whole families of the bride would sit in her kitchen leafing through picture books. Would they have two tiers, three tiers, four tiers. If they hated fruitcake, could she do cherry swirl chocolate, or maybe lemon spice? Did she really need more than an hour in the reception hall in order to assemble the cake on site?
We’d go to her house for the weekend. “Excuse the mess,” she‘d say. “We’ll just clear this away a bit to make room for supper. Careful, careful. Don’t touch the side of that layer. It’s not dry yet!”
After supper she’d linger over tea. We’d start the dishes. “You don’t have to do the dishes,” she’d say. Then, if we persisted, “Well, okay. You do the dishes and I’ll just get started at this again.”
The TV would be on in the kitchen. We’d visit while she made flowers. The clock would show 10:30 and we would head for bed. Midnight would find her making flowers. 2:00 and she might be there still.
“I used to look through Grandma’s wedding cake books for hours,” says Ruth. “I used to think about which cake she’d make for my wedding.”
We miss Grandma at this moment. Shew always had an opinion on most aspects of a wedding. She would have been a bit shocked by this current cake idea, but probably not daunted. If we’d chosen Rice Krispies Squares you can be certain they’d have been decorated to the pinnacle of perfect magnificence. But Grandma is gone and so is the afternoon.
The shadows on the street lengthen. Pushing back our chairs we four compliment one another on a good afternoon’s work. Reflecting on it a day later, I don’t think we made a decision about the cake. I don’t think we made a decision about the place for the reception either. Sometimes you have to go back to go forward. It’s an emotional phase, this time of wedding planning.

MOTHER'S COMING TO VISIT

I’m going to be a mother-in-law!
Got the news on Monday
Only six-and-a-half months after first suspecting it,
Hardly time enough to prepare oneself for such a change of role.

I’m going to be a mother-in-law!
A loaded possibility for awe-inspiring tyranny
For a girl who grew up near a TV
Watching reruns of the Flintstones.

Fred’s mother-in-law announced by Wilma
Smiling demure and devilish at dinner.
“Mother is coming to visit us Dear.”
And in she’d come like a 50-ton tractor
Bellowing and huffing and clearing a path,
Roaring to roll over Fred.

Phoning to say, “I’m coming for a visit, Dear.”
I’m going to be a mother-in-law!
Swooping across to Guelph Ontario.
And for Derek, a coy announcement at dinner.
“Mother’s coming to visit.”

ENDLESS MONEY, ENDLESS TIME

”What would you do if you had endless money and/or endless time?”
It’s Rachel asking. We are counting down her last few hours of anticipation before she reaches one of her great life goals, to be present at the Olympics. She has just told me that she would attend more events if she had endless money and endless time.
What would I do if I had endless money and/or endless time? Wow! What a question, just the sort of thing that ought to bring out the imagination of a true hope lady. So I am surprised and yes, a little embarrassed to find that no answer is leaping to my tongue.
”I don’t tend to want things unless I can afford them,” I babble. All the while I am scraping the inner sanctum of my brain. What is the matter with me anyway? Surely I can do better that that! I try to imagine myself enjoying the ultimate in creature comforts.
”If I had endless money and/or endless time I might choose to stay at the Jasper Park Lodge,” I say. I am recalling the times when David and I stayed there, the luxury, that feeling of incredible opulence. The queen has stayed at Jasper Park Lodge. Marilyn Monroe stayed there. That’s how nice it is.
We stayed there back in the days when there were lovely low rates for some romantic weekends. It was the low rate that got us there. The rates are much higher now—much higher than the rates at other hotels. The low rate included a room with a fireplace, one room-service breakfast and a several course dinner. I think there were chocolates on our pillows. It was wonderful.
Still, it seems kind of ridiculous to be mentioning the Jasper Park Lodge in a conversation about things that are really important. I have chosen not to stay there. Even at the higher rates I could afford this. I simply don’t choose to. I had that thrill already, and I can have a really good time in the mountains for less money without it. What would I do with endless money or endless time? More to the point, what do I do with the money and time I have?
I take great vacations and I don’t generally go to the office on Fridays. When I am at home on Fridays—celebrating a day off—I think about work. I think of it fondly. I don’t long to be at work, but I think about things I might write, presentations I might make, better ways of doing counselling. Sometimes I respond to work-related emails—not because I have to, but because I want to.
Don’t tell anybody, but sometimes, when I’m at work, I think about things that aren’t directly related to work. Sometimes I answer personal email. That’s one of the things I love about my place of work. They trust me to do what needs to be done, to do it in my own way. It makes me want to do more than I have to do.
If I had endless time I think I’d divide it evenly between work and play, spend more time doing both.
And as for money—well, if I had endless money and conditions stayed as they are now, I’d still want to work and I’d still want to play. One thing I would do is put some of that money into my work, to give it a boost in aid of some of the things I’d like to see. I’d like to see a large group of well-trained, highly-skilled hope-focussed counsellors paid well enough so that they could raise a family and travel comfortably without having to be married to somebody who earns a really good wage. I’d like their work to be supported so that it could boldly be offered without charge. I’d like to see a well-funded program of research around their work so that it could be disseminated in a manner that would bring respect.
All of this would cost quite a bit, but I believe it would be money well spent. It would be the fulfillment of a promise to myself that my treasured work would be made useful. And knowing that the promise would be fulfilled—I believe--would make it easier to step back and spend more of my endless time at play. I might even splurge on a romantic weekend at the Jasper Park Lodge.

GRAVEYARD SHIFT

I was a good kid—I mean, a really good kid. I didn’t break rules or lie to my parents. I studied enough to get reasonable marks, kept a social life sufficiently limited so as not to require parental discipline, yet vibrant enough to keep them from worrying about my well-being. When it comes to stretching the boundaries, I’m a late bloomer. Because of this tardiness, the burden of balancing risk against my eccentricities has fallen not upon my parents, but on my kids.
”I’ll be telling stories at midnight in the Wainwright Cemetery,” I announce to each of them separately. Perhaps it would be more fair to tell them together, but it’s more fun to tell them separately. It triples the pleasure of watching as each of them measures a long and pregnant silence, groping for an appropriate response.
And while I view this upcoming exploit as a triumph of the outrageous over the mundane, as the hopeful proof that my life will still hold many surprises, I can see that each of them, in a private moment, is wondering what signs ought to raise suspicion if they ever need to prove a case of dementia.

POSITIVE PERSPECTIVES ON FASD

Science reporter Anne Mcilroy had an article in the Toronto Globe and Mail last Saturday, January 31 2010: “”How playing Dance Dance Revolution could repair children's damaged brains
Researchers hope repetitive tasks can reverse effects of alcohol.”” The moment I read it, I began to feel hope. It was a thrill tosee that so many researchers are working together.

“”The six-year-old boy plays the game Operation, skillfully wielding a pair of tweezers in a school gym that doubles as a research lab. His brain has been
damaged by the alcohol his mother drank when he was in the womb, but he's adept at extracting tiny plastic bones.

"When it gets too easy we will have him switch to his left hand," says Chris Bertram, a scientist at the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford,
B.C., who is investigating whether children with a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, or FASD, can rewire their brains by improving their strongest motor
skills. Advances in understanding neuroplasticity, or how experience can change the brain, have led to therapies that have helped people who have suffered
strokes or traumatic brain injuries learn to speak again or move paralyzed limbs. Now, a growing number of scientists hope the revolution can help children
whose brains were damaged by alcohol before they were born.

They are testing different approaches - including computer games and other specialized training - in hopes of helping kids with FASD strengthen connections
in their brains and boost their cognitive skills.

Dr. Bertram and his colleagues have assessed all eight kids with FASD who are hard at play at various stations in the gymnasium. All are good at something,
perhaps the fine motor skills needed to pluck a rib out of a cartoonish chest or the co-ordination needed for the interactive videogame Dance Dance Revolution.


But they have a wide variety of cognitive and emotional problems that include trouble paying attention, remembering what they have learned, anticipating
the consequences of their actions and controlling their impulses. Hyperactivity is common; they can be challenging to manage at home and at school. Dr.
Bertram's hypothesis is that the eight-week program will do more than just improve their rope climbing and free-throw shooting.

The idea is that improving one area of brain function, in this case motor skills, will also boost their ability to pay attention and to regulate their impulses.
He is still analyzing the data from the 35 kids who have been through the program, but the preliminary results have been encouraging, he says.

"We call it transfer of learning, or transfer of performance," Dr. Bertram says.

Alcohol damages many parts of the developing brain, says Christian Beaulieu, a brain imaging expert at the University of Alberta. It can affect areas and
structures critical for memory, learning and abstract thinking. He and his colleagues have shown it also damages white matter, the connections that allow
parts of the brain to communicate and work together.

But recent experiments with laboratory animals offer hope. At the University of Victoria, Brian Christie has been able to reverse the brain damage caused
by fetal alcohol exposure in rats by getting them to exercise.””

Mcilroy’s article comes just when I need it. Here at the Hope Foundation we are working on FASD from an adult emotional perspective. With funding from the Edmonton Fetal Alcohol Network, staff from four agencies including our own are collaborating to offer a hope group to parents who have FASD. As adults with children of their own, they struggle to be good parents while continuing to cope with the cognitive, motor and emotional difficulties they had as children. Parenting is made all the more difficult for them because the behavior of their own parents was and still is impacted by substance abuse.
You have to be very focussed to offer a hope group to people who have so many pressing issues. In a two-hour session they offer you dozens of opportunities to veer away from hope. How easy it is to hear their problems, their sadness, their self-stated inadequacies. These, after all, are the reasons they came to a group, the issues they are accustomed to presenting when professional helpers are in the room.

Mcilroy’s article goes on to highlight the positive. “”Dr. Bertram says that many of the current therapies or interventions being used with children with FASD focus on their deficits - for example, anger management
therapy for a child who is acting out in school or extra time devoted to reading or math for a child struggling in those subjects.

"Traditional intervention programs have these kids doing things their brains are not adept at doing, and their success rates are not great. We flipped things
around and said, 'Why don't we build intervention programs based on things they are good at.' "

He and his colleagues build an individual program for each child based on three areas of strength, making it increasingly challenging over the eight weeks.
The kids also get to pick a fourth activity they like. The researchers carefully monitor their progress when they come twice a week after school for two
hours. He is also monitoring levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, to see if it drops after the eight weeks.

There is growing scientific evidence that children with FASD have a heightened response to stress that can make it difficult for them to cope with situations
at home or in the classroom.

At the University of British Columbia, Joanne Weinberg is investigating this phenomenon in laboratory animals and, in particular, how areas of the brain
that are important in the stress response system overlap to a large extent with areas of the brain involved in depression, addictions and other mental-health
problems, also common among people with FASD.

One day, the work could lead to new drugs that target the stress response system.””

In our group we are examining personal strengths, digging through the sadness to find the things people love, the things they are good at. I like to think there will be positive programs to go along with the stress-reducing drugs.