The List

Ah, the humble list.
When energy flags
Yet home things need tending
The list suggests and guides
No demands

Just a list
Scraps of paper
Sticky notes
Maybe on a napkin
In pencil or pen

Checked off one at a time
Bubbles of satisfaction float in the air
Another little wee job done
Aroma of shepherd’s pie
Walk on a lovely day to the post office.

Ah, the humble list.
Energy restored
Home things put in order
Gently guided by my little list
Kindness and actions became one

“Lists are how I parse and manage the world.”

~ Adam Savage

Two Conversations

‘don’t you go home depressed when you keep looking after us over and over again?’

Dimmed grey blue eyes
Pale blanched skin
Thin straight greying hair
Lovely beneath years of the damage of active addictions
A secret that many may never know

‘no I don’t - I may have some sadness, but your story is your own to carry.’

‘do you still love this work?’

Bright blue eyes
Pale skin lightly freckled
Straight blonde stylin’ hair
Lovely and leaning forward into 

the rewards and challenges of addictions nursing.

‘sure do! - I may get discouraged with society’s hoops our clients have to jump through, but all our clients appreciate and need our care and guidance.

It’s been a long, but very humbling, two days at Detox.
Challenging
Busy
Rewarding
Honest, cheerful and tearful talk between clients and nurses 

in efforts to rebuild once more.
So many more than two conversations…….

“I learned that a long walk and calm conversation are an 

incredible combination if you want to build a bridge.”

~ Seth Godin

Care

Care
Washing a face
Stained and running with tears

Care
A blanket warm and toasty
When the world feels cold and barren

Care
A firm voice speaking gently
When self talk is harsh and unforgiving.

Care
Humble acts of just plain kindness
When relapse takes it’s toll on mind, body and spirit.

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, 

a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, 

or the smallest act of caring, all of which have 

the potential to turn a life around.”

~ Leo Buscaglia

Congratulations!

At the 2015 AGM for Umbrella Society for Addictions and Mental Health, it was also the celebration of an anniversary tonight. Fifteen years for a society that started on a wing and a prayer, and has soared to much greater heights than could have been imagined. Lest anyone think that the Umbrella Society is rolling in dough and famous the world over, please let me assure you that, while their wings may be a bit bigger, the Board of Directors and Staff are still praying!

Working at Detox, I have had the great opportunity to meet and work alongside five of the staff of eight. They share outreach (Sharlene, Chris, Evan and Angela), administration and triage (Bronwyn), family & addictions counselling (Terry) and housing support (Jason) - and let’s not forget the executive director (Gordon) who seems involved in many areas of this initiative for those challenged with addictions and all of it’s burned bridges and barriers faced in recovery.

Umbrella’s programs are simple, but definitely not easy:

Peer Outreach Program - “help is offered to everyone who seeks assistance, regardless of age, circumstance, background or any other demographic fact. The program assists the most vulnerable populations in our community, at-risk youth, and those who are street involved or homeless, as well as those from more advantaged circumstances.”

Foundation House - Supportive Recovery Program, a new addition to the services that Umbrella offers, is an eleven bed supportive recovery house for men.  “...unusual in many ways. There is no time limit; the residents can stay as long as they feel it is helpful to their recovery. The men can work, volunteer or go to school as they work their individualized recovery program”

I also have a personal reason for attending this Annual General Meeting. It is to be in the presence of the humility with which active addiction is quelled and extinguished, to see some of those that we have taken care of while they were in substance withdrawal. To see them healthy, moving forward and not forgetting their past is great satisfaction to us. They may not forget their past, but it no longer holds them in it’s grip - it is only the beginning of the rest of their story.

“I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy. I woke and I saw 

that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy.”

~ Kahlil Gibran

Email:  wecanhelp@umbrellasociety.ca

Webpage:  www.umbrellasociety.ca

Like us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

A Bookshop Experience

It would have been so easy. All I wanted was a granola recipe and I knew a good one. Chef Michael Smith had one on the search engine that is a favourite of so many - Google. But the computer has become a go to place holding everything - phone numbers, addresses of all sorts, photographs - now called digital images, recipes, maps - just everything!  The computer and all it’s little computers - laptops, tablets and smartphones - hold a very firm place in everyone’s daily life. And yet for all it’s knowledge and grand data banks, my precious laptop really has little character or personality. (I do hope it won’t crash on me because of what I just keyboarded!!)

I tend to be the most stubborn about things in the morning. Once two o’clock in the afternoon hits, I often start to drag for the rest of the day. This morning I walked to the book store, just a block away to see if, perchance, Chef Michael Smith had one of his cookbooks there. The Fairfield Bookshop sells gently used books - shelves of them. Old books, new books. Fiction, non-fiction. Story books, crafting and knitting books - oh yes and cookbooks! My experience in there, in that tiny world of books became so much more than finding a granola recipe on my laptop.

The slight dusty smell and orderly quietness of well stocked bookshelves. The tinkle of the bell when the door opened to announce a new customer. The proprietess visited with a friend who dropped in while the friend’s husband and two wavy haired dogs waited somewhat impatiently for the visit to end. 

The granola is not yet made, the recipe a bit different from Chef Michael Smith’s, but my visit to this humble book shop will make the taste of it much more delicious - and I have a new cookbook, a murder mystery and a book on writing.

“Bookstores contain the residue of thousands of people 

who went in there to find an experience, a narrative that 

guided them to a new place or reinforced what they were doing.”

~ Lauren Leto, Judging a Book by It’s Lover: 

A Field Guide to the Hearts and Minds of Readers Everywhere

On An Evening Walk - Listen for Humility

On an evening walk to find humility
I met my neighbours - mother and her shy little one with curls and blue eyes.
Further down the sidewalk, I saw deep mauve lilacs in bloom.
Tuning my ears above the street, I heard birds chirping and singing ~
the slow whoosh of stop and go traffic added rhythm and sound. 
Stepping into the Village, I passed couples and families visiting and sharing meals.
Old trees, pale fuchsia flowers like candles, shaded sidewalks and passersby….
On an evening walk, humility was all around.

“It is well to remember that the entire population of the universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.”

~ Andrew J. Holmes, Wisdom in small Doses.

Movie Review: Far From the Madding Crowd directed by Thomas Vinterberg

This wonderful, yet troubling, story depicts the society of nineteenth century England, ruled by strictured and defined roles for women in a world run by men. Choices for women were extremely limited ~ marriage or living alone outside of society with economic situations often the tipping point for any decisions. Carey Mulligan, in the role of Bathsheba Everdene, has these choices foisted upon her. However, she has inherited a working farm and her independent spirit allows her to become it’s mistress. Her economic status not in question, she would seem to be free of the rules of the day. Women were expected to be humble and quiet, not independent and foreward looking. Matthias Schoenaerts, as Farmer Oak, a strong and silent land and livestock owner, has a reverse of his own fortunes ultimately becoming a shepherd for Mistress Everdene. The two other men in her life were Michael Sheen as the wealthy Mr. Boldwood and Tom Sturridge as Sergeant Troy. As a viewer, I did feel angry with Bathsheba as she wavered in her affections for these three men until I remembered the social mores of the day. 

Originally a series of short stories in Cornhill Magazine, Far from The Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy, was published on Nov. 23, 1874. He made at least two revisions over the next six years. Since then it has been rewritten into plays and movies, including his own stage adaptation written in 1882. The first movie adaptation was in 1915. Now, 100 years later, a new and very romantic adaptation is on the screen.

“I hate to be thought men’s property in that way 

though possibly I shall be had some day.”

~ spoken by Bathsheba Everdene

Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Directed by Thomas Vinterberg

Partial Cast:

Carey Mulligan as Bathsheba Everdene

Matthias Schoenaerts as Farmer Oak

Michael Sheen as Mr. Boldwood

Tom Sturridge as Sergeant Troy