I think you have to have spent a lifetime in a climate such as the one we have in Southern Ontario, Canada, in order to be able to say with a straight face,
“It’s snowin’ like a bugger, but at least it’s not cold out!” and mean it.
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The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:
I’ve always loved looking at abandoned buildings. I remember going on long car trips with my parents and sitting in the back seat watching the scenery go by; nothing caught my attention quite like an old house with its windows boarded up and ivy threatening to consume it whole, or a broken down barn, its walls leaning off its stone foundation as though a good wind could transport it to Oz. Such sceneries inspired me to wonder who lived there, and what ultimately caused them to walk away. Even better were the houses with the front door left open. Traveling by at 60mph my nose would be pressed up against the glass, hoping for a glimpse of peeling wallpaper inside. Did it burn? Perhaps the dog got out and they ran after it, never to return.
I think for me its mostly about the history I can’t read about in a book. I can walk around somewhere like Canterbury Cathedral and think more about all the shoes that wore the floor into ruts than I pay attention to the plaques, telling me which king or queen was entombed where. That’s what imagination is for, after all. Pure inspiration.
And so yes, for these reasons I enjoy looking at photos of abandoned buildings, taken by photographers who love to go into such places. I’d seen the term “ruin porn” a few times around the internet, but it wasn’t until I discovered photographer Seph Lawless, just yesterday in fact, that I decided to look up the term and see exactly what it means.
According to Wikipedia and another article – The Psychology of Ruin Porn I found, the term “ruin porn” refers to the concept that there are photographers out there who take pictures of abandoned places without documenting the wheres, whys and hows in which the places became dilapidated, thus exploiting them much like pornography exploits its subjects. I beg to differ. And yet, can I?
The third (and final) definition in Merriam Webster’s free online dictionary – and the only one not mentioning sex specifically, is this:
3: the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction
There is definitely something to this in regards to “ruin porn.” In seeing a picture of belongings left behind in the aftermath of disaster, strong feelings indeed are provoked. There’s nothing quite like an abandoned teddy bear left in the mud to bring a tear to the eye. We tend to sympathize inasmuch as what if it happened to us? But what of an empty, abandoned house? Must we know everything about its previous owners and what kind of devastation, whether financial or physical, caused them to leave in order to sympathize with them? Is taking a picture of the structure exploiting their misery in the same way the pornographer exploits his or her human subjects, for the sake of money and lust?
It’s a tough call.
I won’t stop looking at ruin photography; it still inspires stories within me. Does that make me a pornographer? Or is this all just another case of oversensitivity?
As the mother of an Autistic child, I can’t help but put my two cents worth in on the recent uprising of controversy surrounding the outbreak of measles and the risk of administering the measles, mumps and rubella vaccination. I do believe I have a rather uncommon perspective on the matter. Unique? Maybe not. Nevertheless, here it is.
When my first son (who is completely “normal”) was one year old we went in for his MMR shot and the doctor suggested that I be immunized at the same time. Much to my regret, I did; I found out a few weeks later that I had been two weeks pregnant with my second son when I had the shot. When my second, Chris, was born everything seemed fine. He was developing according to his milestones and even beyond them. He spoke a few words and played normally. Then, at one year of age he had his MMR. He didn’t speak another word until he was four and a half. He was diagnosed at the age of four with Autism.
It wasn’t until after his diagnosis that I heard about the correlation between the MMR vaccine and Autism; for me it all fell into place. What else could it be? I had one perfectly healthy child and another who wasn’t and there are cognizance issues in the history of neither mine nor their father’s families. Then a study was done. It was “proven” that there is no medical evidence that the MMR shot has caused Autism in anyone. I remain skeptical to this day.
BUT.
When Chris was five years old I had another child with a host of different problems. Alex was born with Noonan Syndrome. In the 1960’s Dr. Jacqueline Noonan discovered a set of characteristics when, put together, proved to be a congenital disorder. My baby’s most life-threatening symptoms were those of his heart: an atrial septal defect, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and the pulmonary stenosis that was bound to end his life within a year if we didn’t have it corrected with open heart surgery. We were told he had a 50/50 chance of surviving the operation. We went through with it when he was a mere two months old, and yes, it nearly killed him. When the surgeon came into the room and told us that he had just resuscitated our son with open-heart massage and that if his heart stopped again they’d just let him go peacefully we were both frightened and devastated.
Here is what gives me my uncommon perspective on the MMR controversy. I had Alex immunized when he was a year old. Measles, mumps and rubella are all life-threatening illnesses. Having the choice between a healthy Autistic child (which I have) and a dead child (which I almost had) there was no contemplation on my part, even given the suspicion I have that the MMR shots both I had whilst pregnant, and Chris had at the age of one, caused his Autism.
Alex was rendered Deaf during the course of his surgery due to a prolonged period without oxygen. He is not Autistic. I wouldn’t hesitate to have him vaccinated again if it was called for.
I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s much easier to lean towards negative emotions when I’m sick than positive ones. Frustration, fed-upness, anger, even depression make themselves known more readily than calm and contentedness. And yet it’s in my nature to be positive. So I’m even more at odds with myself. Balance is lost – tipped in the wrong direction for me – and so everything is “off.”
My eyes seem to be better today. I won’t spend as much time as I usually do online; I’m afraid my eyesight troubles will come back. But I’m finally getting Alex’s cold now. The sore throat… no, not even. Just tickly. I’m trying not to start coughing lest I not be able to stop.
One thing I am happy about – I got tickets to see Rush in concert in Montreal in June. That’ll be fun. Something to look forward to – and I shouldn’t still be sick by then. Maybe even my shoulder will be better.
See what I mean?
I do suppose it makes sense, to concentrate on the negative when you’re sick. If it doesn’t hurt, you don’t think about it. Until I mention it, for instance, you’re probably not thinking about your teeth. So why should it be any different with emotions? In order to realize I’m content, I must think about the fact. If I’m angry, I know it. If I’m ecstatic, I’m probably concentrating more on what is making me so than the actual feeling. It’s all about mindfulness.
How do you feel? And how often do you feel what you feel?
Ever feel like if it’s not one thing, it’s another?
With my stomach upset still lingering but steadily going away I figured, great! I’m gonna be okay! Even my shoulder is feeling better – maybe the day I spent just sleeping did it some good after all! So I’m just coasting along with barely a health concern in the world and BOOM! My eyes are gone again.
The doctor couldn’t figure out what might be wrong, the optometrist didn’t have a clue… I thought it might have been lack of hydration, and that seemed to work for a while. Lutein supplements didn’t help – the optometrist told me not to bother so I went off them and saw (literally and figuratively) no difference. So what can it be?
As I type this I’m sitting with my laptop as close to my face as is reasonable, I’m wearing my reading glasses, and I’m still having to squint hard enough to leave permanent dents in my forehead in order not to see double. When I do relax my eyes it feels like there’s air blowing in them. Maybe they’re still dry, even though I’ve drunk about 3 litres of water today. Who knows? I’ve even tried convincing myself that it’s all in my head. My eyes don’t buy it.
So I give up. After I’m finished typing this I’m turning the computer off, the lights off, and the music up. I hate not being able to read and it’s even worse that I’m sitting here, it’s lovely and quiet and it’s the perfect opportunity to edit… but what can I do?
I’ll persevere through the SoCS prompt tomorrow, but if my eyes don’t get better (and sometimes they miraculously do overnight, so again, who knows?) then I might not be around much until they do.
We all knew it, didn’t we? I finally found a doctor who was brave enough to stop looking at the x-rays and ultrasounds and take the time to poke, prod and generally make me uncomfortable enough to make a diagnosis on my shoulder pain. I have a rotator cuff injury! *gasp* Two out of four quadrants are affected. Damned if I can remember which ones they are, but the point is, now that I know what’s really wrong I can do what actually felt natural – exercise – to try to fix the problem.
In the last twenty-four hours I’ve come to realize that it’s not really my shoulder that’s bothering me much; it’s all the muscles I’ve let go in the attempt to allow my shoulder to heal. So while I know I can’t push too hard, I can concentrate on exactly what hurts and stop if it’s my shoulder and keep going, albeit gently, if it’s not.
Whoopie!
I’ve also come to realize that being sick can be a good thing. I have some sort of stomach flu that kept me flat on my back for all of Sunday – I slept about 30 hours between Saturday night and Monday morning – but I’m feeling at least awake now and quite happy to be so. Which is why being sick is good. It feels great when it stops!
It wasn’t the perfect weather to go to the beach, but for me, living where the nearest large body of water is Lake Ontario, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to visit the Pacific Ocean. So off to the beach I went.
I wrote this about the day:
I could have spent much more than the two hours I was there had I been able to sit. The weather was cool but quite comfortable in my winter jacket. A group of adults were there with their children, one of which–a two year old boy–was completely naked. Not something you’d see in Canada.
Soft, deep sand and gentle waves… Again I was warned about the hawks, but the crows were in abundance. The highlights of what they were eating were a stingray and a small (2-2.5 ft. long?) shark.
The conch shells were many – giant clam shells and starfish as well.
The next day it rained, but nothing was going to keep me indoors. I walked with my umbrella to Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine, where there was a wedding going on. I didn’t get any pictures of the bride, but I did spend 500Yen to make a wish and write it on a wooden board. It’s probably still hanging there.
Some pictures:
Near the front gate
Autumn colours in December
A reflective pond
I wrote:
I want to go shopping in Yokohama, but I’m reluctant to leave the quiet of here. Five days in Tokyo will be busy enough.
All this instantaneous gratification of social media and being able to have our words read immediately is somewhat dangerous: It’s not just “putting your foot in your mouth” anymore; now you can “put your keyboard in your mouth.”
Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below.
As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday, if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.
The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:
Long ago I read a story–it’s probably a famous one, but I’ll relate it here in brief–about how the sun and the wind entered into a competition to make a man take off his coat. The wind, of course, tried to blow it off, but the harder the wind blew, the tighter the man held his coat around him. The wind eventually gave up and then the sun came out. The man, becoming hot, took off his coat. The moral of the story is that sometimes coaxing is better than trying to force someone to do something.
The story came to mind today, as it often does on a bitterly windy day, when I try to bury myself in my scarf. For some reason the thought led to parenting.
My motto has long been, “Pick your battles.” If it’s not that important, meaning no one is going to get seriously injured or be more than ten minutes late for something, I tend to either let the issue go or do my best to be persuasive rather than forceful. The practice has improved my powers of persuasion to the point that I’m getting pretty good at it. Failing that, I’ve learned to be patient. To take a deep breath and remind myself that it’s not the end of the world if Alex completely empties a drawer of perfectly folded clothes to do it again himself, or insists on cleaning his own feeding tube when I know damned well he’s going to ask for the help he at first refuses because it can’t reach where it has to hang.
But I’m only human. There are times when I feel I must stuff him in the car against his will, or restrain him to keep him from falling out his second storey bedroom window. Part of these necessities come down to the fact that I’m not completely fluent in sign language – part of it comes from his own behavioural issues and the fact that he’s mentally well below his age level but physically entering puberty. This puts him in the range of adolescence mixed with the terrible twos.
While there are large things in life that cause stress, like selling your mother’s condo whilst trying to maintain your own home, keep your family reasonably comfortable and happy and hanging on to your sanity (yes, I’m making this about you, because if I don’t I may realize what seventh circle of purgatory I’ve landed myself in), sometimes it’s the little things which finally make you snap.
Like when you take your kid for a haircut and the barber grazes the back of his neck with the trimmer and oh my Lord it’s the end of the world. He gets home, strips off his shirt and wraps himself in a fleece blanket that he refuses to take off even when he goes to bed that night, waking himself up at 2:47 (and you with him) because he’s so tangled up in coverings and the next day you find yourself applying Polysporin to a pink-tinged area that (point to it again? I can’t find it.) is so minute but he still refuses to wear a shirt over.
And then! And then! later when he’s almost forgotten about the agony he’s in over his haircut and he’s helping your mother wash the dishes (he’s washing, she’s drying) and he’s all done and putting the Tupperware bucket upside down on top of the clean dishes in the dish rack and your mother is taking it off to get to the dishes that HAVE to be dried and your kid is putting it back on and she’s taking it off (because by this time your mother’s OCD is battling to the death with your kid’s OCD) and he’s putting it back on and screaming and she’s taking it off and yelling at him in a language he can’t even hear (because he’s Deaf) let alone understand and all you want to do is run away from home…
…because it’s the little things that finally do you in…
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