Opening a Message…

Have you ever had one of those moments where a very infinitely-carved and even deeply troubling characteristic of your personality can be traced to that one defining moment?

There I was, giddy beyond repair, on St. Patrick’s Day almost four years ago this March. I was singing love songs in my head, ones that I compiled into a rushed playlist on my iPod because I didn’t want to listen to any negativity or think anything but happy thoughts about the life-affirming night I had only two days prior. The whole weekend had been cold and snowy but suddenly on St. Patrick’s Day warmth returned to Edmonton and when I woke up that morning I could hear icicles dripping water from just outside my window. I peered through the blinds and sunlight and said to myself, ‘this is the most perfect, happiest morning that’s ever been created!’

I walked around in the warm weather and got coffee before going to class; once I sat down with my notebook and pen, I realized how difficult it was to concentrate on anything at all, so enraptured was I in my own life which seemed perfect; for the last 40 hours or so, what ‘should be’ and ‘what was’ were exactly aligned in my world. Everything made sense. Everything was illuminated.

I walked home from class with my best friend, both of us cheerful and greeting the coming spring with refreshed eyes and a new perspective on the world, our eyes covered by rosy red love-hued goggles. I bid her goodbye and went home, retreated to my bedroom again, and opened my Facebook page. There was a message in my inbox.

Have you ever experienced a moment where you were the happiest you’ve ever been in your life, by feeling something you had no idea you were even capable of feeling in the first place, and with the click of a button your entire world fell down with one huge, plundering, explosive  crash? Where your mood changed so completely from the very highest, highest high to the extremely lowest, lowest low, just by reading a few sentences on your computer screen? Imagine it for a second; your dry, tasteless mouth curdling; your heart emptying and palpitating; your eyes welling with prickling tears; the colour gone from your cheeks which moments before, were glowing and flushed with the promise of new love and prosperity… I put my heavy head down on my desk and whimpered silently into my lap. As is true with most serious, damaging events in my life that occurred since the age of 9, I was incapable of crying. I bled inwardly instead.

Why would anyone want to read a ‘make or break’ message ever, ever again after devastation like that? Why would anyone want to put themselves through that build-up resulting in terrible, catastrophic life-altering disappointment? St. Patrick’s Day almost four years ago this March, was the day my entire outlook on life changed completely. The irrational fears I had when I was in junior high – of being persecuted and having to walk among people who baited me and drowned me in cruelty; of being homely and fat with an awkward child’s body for the rest of my life – suddenly returned. The growth I endured by allowing my Drama courses to help me become more outgoing, fearless, careless and free was shut up again in a tiny, plainly wrapped, non-descript box. I was yarn, raveled back up into a messy ball, as opposed to the neat, tightly wrapped sphere I once was.

It was this moment that forever made me afraid of reading that which could say something I never, ever want to find out.

“Sometimes it’s the case that when you hear the thing you have most wanted to hear, you cannot take it in. Hope is everyone’s mirage and everyone who comes upon that green and grassy spot, the swaying date palms and the bubbling blue pool, is temporarily taken in, even people who have been there before and even when, upon closer inspection, the oasis is nothing but a reef of sand.” -Amy Bloom

Not girlfriends, but ‘girl friends’.

“I don’t get along with girls.”

This is something my sister has said to me time and time again; there was Katrina, Tabitha, Eugene, Amanda, Theresa, Katie, Shannon – all failed friendships which seem to indicate that what she says is absolutely true. She doesn’t get along with girls; her relationships with women seem scant and surfaced, as opposed to relationships with her male friends which are more easygoing, good-natured and vibrant.

My sister isn’t a “masculine” girl; she relates to men emotionally and not physically; she doesn’t relate to them through stereotypical means – playing and watching sports, for example. She relates to them because these are the people she can most easily talk to, feel less competition with, and forge a circle around. She doesn’t get along with girls.

I am the opposite; I have forged friends with women my whole life. My first best friends were little girls that were more daring, outgoing, bossy and chatty than I was. I played Barbies with them and we talked about our husbands and how we would both get married and move into a duplex with a slide connecting our two houses so we could always go visit each other by sliding into each other’s homes. One of my childhood girlfriends and I said one day, we were going to go to Africa and watch wildlife; we were also going to both own horses; we were also going to both marry members of an acapella group that did a mini performance in our elementary school gym one afternoon.

In high school, I was friends with high-strung, boy-crazy girls; they looked at photographs of Leonardo DiCaprio on the internet and squealed when they did this. They talked about going to the gym and having desserts together on Friday nights and slow-dancing with the popular boys at our school dance. I wasn’t one of these girls; I was overweight, immature, quiet and juvenile. Yet, I admired them. I admired their ability to embody the girls I saw in movies and in teen magazines, and I was jealous that I was unable to be like them – to wear the clothes they wore or kiss and slow-dance with boys. They were the first girlfriends that presented me with a mirror of my then-ideal version of “girlhood.”

University saw my acquisition of a new group of girl friends. They were shrewd and studious and unconcerned about matters of the heart; rather they had dreams to travel, gain acceptance into professional programs, become physiotherapists, nutritionists, immunologists. They were unconcerned with fashion and makeup and men, or mixed messages, or photos of celebrities. They were single but analytical and they had no time for stereotypical ‘girly’ frivolity. Surrounding them, I shrugged off emotion, image, the need to be pretty and skinny and have the most fashionable outfits. I became a child again; I was 18 years old. I was looking at my life as a young person looks at the future; bright perhaps, but uncertain; and studying, working, ignoring emotion, was the surest way to gain some certainty and direction. Direction was everything. Direction was more important than a boyfriend.

Emotion affected me when I never expected it to; it stood right in my face; it dwarfed me, its immense shadow shrouded me in cold bleak shades of dank gray. It wouldn’t allow me to ignore its cause-and-effect relationship with me anymore. And it was at this time in my life that I met not just ‘girlfriends’, but best friends.

*

When I review all of the fiction I’ve ever written, at its core there was a love story. It is either a fractured, dysfunctional or doomed love story, but a love story nonetheless. About marriage, courtship, divorce, a breakup, a crush, or romance broken apart because of unpreventable, unforeseeable, impossible road blocks. This is the universe most writers occupy; I believe we are by nature “romantic”, and it is our duty to ourselves and to communicating the message we wish to get across about human nature, about humans’ capacity to feel and what that looks like to readers. It’s interesting that we made an instant connection between romantic or sexual relationships and a demonstration or validation of our capacity to feel. Parental love and sacrifice is a thematic influence too on many stories worth telling; however, it seems the theme of friendship lays ignored beneath a heap of already and oft-told narratives about what it means to be “in love”.

Best friends, more easily, comfortably, and caring than a man ever, ever could, can demonstrate really, what ‘love’ can do; what it can prove, disprove, mean, and feel like. My mother (and another one of my best girl friends) said to me once, “It’s easier to love someone when you feel like they care about you and like you back.” This is something I’ve never had from a man, really; that they long to be beside me, spend time with me, make me a priority; and conversely, that I long to be with them, spend time with them, make them a priority too.

This friendship I have functions like a clock does in a cartoon; it is an outright sea of cogs, axels, gears, both quiet, steady and at times maddening ticking – it is complicated and lengthy, but it is mechanized and streamlined – it never confuses me. It just works. I look at each cog, each axel, each gear, and know exactly where it fits into this machine, which perhaps seems perplexing to anyone outside of it. Everything is in its place. Every little part plays a role into its inner-workings.

 In my past, I have had lukewarm feelings about the concept of ‘friendship’; I’ve been known to proclaim that friendships have no staying power and it was naïve and foolish to believe they do. I knew so many people that I grew up with who would always state that their childhood friends were the most important people in their lives and that they would be friends with these people ‘forever’. In a way, they were not wrong; when I encounter these people at local bars in my hometown or in pictures and empty words on social networking sites, they are indeed still friends. However, when I was 12, I scoffed at their outlandish claims that their friendships were important, rock-solid and ever-present. Many of my friends in my past had shunned me, abandoned me, and decided to stop caring about whether or not I was in their lives. I had been duped and double-crossed, and I attributed this to a problem with friendship as a whole, not the specific friends I was choosing. I never associated friendship with everlasting love. I never believed that the importance of friendship could outweigh the importance of so many things in one’s life, that it would be a fundamental building block to the foundation of one’s soul, that it would ease and overcome so much anguish, pain and failure.

In my life today, I am still not a ‘people person’; I have always been quiet, antisocial, an observer rather than an actor. I shy away from new people, I duck in fear of making waves, it’s never my intent to step on toes. But… for years, I never believed myself to be someone who “needs people” to maintain a pleasant stasis. I do. I do! I need the people in my life who bring out of me, the importance and the meaning of ‘love’.

While love means different things for different people, to me love is friendship and friendship is love; when I think of what love means, I think of the selfless, fun, silly, supportive, cheerful, talkative, warm company of my friends. I think of what my friends have taught me about letting go and also moving forward, and seeing myself as a part of a unit that exists outside myself that is large and multifaceted but completely understandable and meaningful. I think about how they have set a standard of how to love and be loved in return, and how incredible it feels just to feel needed, and also how good it feels to need someone else sometimes. That you can find love in a relationship between three people in a way that is entirely platonic and based on something aside from sex, outside of attraction, and outside that narrative mirror of how masses of readers, viewers and philosophers define and see ‘love’, is perhaps incredulous, though simply astounding, lucky and wonderful.

The Iron Lady: A Review

I’m not the most politically aware person in the world. But, I do love the movies. And after hearing so many people discuss Meryl Streep’s hugely winning performance (surprise, surprise) as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, I wanted to see it.

What I found interesting about Film Studies in the first place is a film’s connection with history, with the current cultural and political climate, and with changing and fluctuating attitudes at the time of the film’s release; some movies are best watched at the time of their release, sort of like a dish best served hot, and if watched later, it can be difficult to understand without a timely context. It’s something I didn’t fully consider prior to engaging in my major. The film then, takes on a politically intuitive meaning and connects people to a political issue, even if they’re unaware. That is, if the film is done well and doesn’t go above the heads of the masses. The film should then take on a political body that can move someone’s intuition in the way a body can move a soul.

I believe the conservative climate in today’s modern world elicited the need to present Margaret Thatcher on the silver screen. This movie could have brought to light so many big issues and demonstrate the idea of, “Look how far we’ve come, but look at the space we’re still occupying two decades later.” The fact is, this film dabbles with these issues on a level that is skin-deep and therefore, rather disappointing.

The Iron Lady was somewhat confused about how it wanted to portray Margaret Thatcher, which actually worked well considering it never spun or presented her either as reviled monster, or a great mover and martyr for the causes of her country. She simply wears these hats (along with the literal ridiculous hats donned in the film): a ‘woman politician’ struggling to maintain leadership in a world full of men; a somewhat weak leader who was still unwilling to bend to the needs of the country; an ignorant optimist with blinders on who uses the prices of butter and margarine to indicate how ‘in touch’ she actually is with the British people; a creation of brilliant campaign manager who refuses to compromise her string of pearls given to her by her sweet, doting husband, which in the end seems to work to her advantage in office. Whichever of these filmic mythologies you choose to subscribe to depends on your attitude towards Reganomics, Thatcher-ism, and turmoil surrounding labour marches and the Falkland Wars. Meryl plays all these parts very well indeed, but the film fails to give her the chance to really dig into one or the other; it’s as if the idea to cast her as the Iron Lady was primary over how the Iron Lady would be portrayed on screen.

The film functions then, as an incredibly basic, conventional and thesis-less biopic. Much of the past, the controversies, the reasons why Thatcher was hated and/or loved, and spent so many years in office prior to her resignation are told through a series of flashy, quick-cutted montages which feature a young Thatcher in university, real news footage from the time Thatcher was in office, and moments of tested loyalties and bickering within her own party. The beginning of the film hints slightly at discordant notes between Margaret and her mother that are powerful though never explored and in the end, the past comes across as a seeming blur. The creative rationale behind this seems to be that the past is told as a series of break-and-enter memories by Thatcher herself, who is an old, confused woman with Dementia on the verge of insanity and who fully states she “doesn’t recognize [herself]”.

This past-to-present way of storytelling in this case seems to try and elicit sympathy from the viewer towards this poor old lady who has nothing and nobody, even after all the great and terrible things she accomplished; who can go out to the grocery store and be unrecognizable to the masses, who don’t care who she is, and is, compared to the butter and margarine conversation she has while in office, now out of touch with 49p charged for a bottle of milk. The film also functions as a long-standing love story between Thatcher and her husband Denis who is loyal albeit almost too loyal, judging by the Denis from her Dementia-addled fantasies in which he becomes an intrusive, annoying presence in her aged life. I think we as humans seem to relate to great people in history and great characters in fictional history through who they love and how they love, and the film uses ‘love’ as a tactic; a smoke-and-mirrors distraction from the clear-cut issues that could have, and should have  made up the hefty bulk of this film.

I respect Meryl Streep as an actress so much and her work here is nothing short of incredible; not only does she play the grandmotherly, modest Thatcher in both the beginning of her career and the slow ending of her life, but she also embraces the opportunity to play the hard-headed ignoramus politician who is hungry for votes and on another plane of reality.

That someone can be so vulnerable and so disgustingly brazen in the same movie is truly a gift. However, the gutsy performance of Streep heavily outweighs the gutless handling of such tense material and so despite great work, this is not necessarily a movie I would recommend.

Four Singing Competition Contestants’ Records worth Listening To

I don’t understand why anyone interested in forging a ‘real’ music career would ever audition for a televised singing competition. While the singers are on television, everyone loves them; but after the competition is over and the cameras stop rolling, everyone forgets the contestants they loved, already replacing them with already-established superstars or by thinking about the next crop of contestants on the next singing competition. Typically, the winner releases a rushed, 2.5 star record that is #4 on iTunes before gradually fading into the deepest depths of obscurity until the end up on Celebrity Rehab or Dancing With the Stars… so why would this be your chosen career path?

Likely because it’s easy. Because if you’re the least mediocre of a mediocre bunch, you have a shot at releasing an album and rubbing shoulders with L.A. Reid or having songs written for you by Diane Warren featuring Richie Sambora on lead guitar. Because the opportunity to live in a mansion with a pool for a couple of months with other like-minded young people and going to movie premieres and getting to advertise Ford vehicles seems like a pretty sweet short-term gig when compared to selling burnt CDs out of the trunk of your Camaro… but once the crappy record is released, it’s all over.

I would argue, his is mostly true. While there is definitely a real stigma surrounding artists who got their start on a singing competition with little star power trailing behind them afterwards and a critical and artistic dismissal for the over-produced, MOR-laden flat, hurried 12-track mess, there ARE exceptions to the rule. Believe it or not, if you dig deeply enough you will find records that are diamonds in the rough of the market-cornering singing competition contestant cash cow. Here are four that I feel are definitely worthy of checking out, despite your reservations or blatant criticisms:

Kalan Porter – Wake Up Living
Porter has two full-length records released in his name, this one being his sophomore (the first being the obligatory Idol-winner record). Surprisingly for some of you, this is a very good record. It has some truly lovely acoustic ballads and a couple of edgy, catchy pop/rock hit-worthy smackdowns as well. Porter is a talented musician with an incredibly unique deep, husky voice (as opposed to the melodic, high-pitched, smooth r&b of the Chris Browns and Jason Derulos on the charts). It’s unfortunate that Canada’s lack of a star system, combined with a saturated market of bands, hip hop artists and balladeers made it difficult for Porter to break out and become the mega superstar he deserves to be. I’ve heard he will soon be releasing a third record and given the time that this record has taken to come to fruition in conjunction with much more personal input, will be even better than this one.

Carly Rae Jepsen – Tug of War
Recently, Jepsen became an overnight sensation when she was touted by mega popstar Selena Gomez, and in my opinion, it’s about time. Jepsen, one of Canadian Idol’s most talented, artistic alumni, deserved to break out into the spotlight after her first record, the little-known but sweet, beautiful, loveable Tug of War. The title track was a mild radio hit, but for whatever reason, Jepsen failed to capture the Canadian imagination. Too bad: the material on this record is heartfelt, catchy and well-crafted acoustic pop that is comparable, though FAR better than releases from say, Colbie Caillat. Jepsen’s voice can be sweet and vulnerable in songs like “Heavy Lifting” and “Worldly Matters” and just as husky, sexy and beckoning in songs like “Sweet Talker”. She does a wonderfully adorable cover of John Denver’s “Sunshine on My Shoulders” and works with Canadian pop/punk star Josh Ramsay on “Sour Candy”, a rather beautiful, reflective album closer. If you are only just discovering Carly Rae as Justin Bieber’s girlfriend’s recommendation, don’t skip out on her debut; it did garner a Juno, after all.

Dia Frampton – Red
If you watched 2011’s breakout hit, The Voice, Team Blake Shelton’s unforgettable, pint-sized art-rock darling Dia Frampton will have stood out as a clear frontrunner, though she was unfortunately usurped in the end results. However, she has released a quick debut that demonstrates some serious vocal chops and an interesting grab-bag of songs including influences ranging from hip-hop (she features Kid Cudi on “Don’t Kick the Chair”), country (“I Will”, performed with her friend and mentor, Shelton himself), and the folk stylings she performed while on the show. There is pop music gold here on “Trapeze”, “Daniel” and “Homeless”, all songs that demonstrate an artist in the exact right place, and who knows herself so well, she is able to do what few singing competition contestants were/are able to do on albums: be themselves. And present on a record, in a collection of original material, the same singer & artist that Voice fans loved and were familiar with. This record is far from Dia Frampton’s ‘debut’: she has spent years doing micro-tours and recording iTunes-purchasable material with her sister Meg. This is her shot at a major label release, and it doesn’t compromise or down-play the artistry that Dia is capable of.

Theo Tams – Give It All Away
True, the bulk of this small list comes from Canadian Idol alumni; this is mostly because I feel much of this talented group of singing contestants didn’t get the adequate supports they needed and deserved to excel the way lesser-talented American Idol contestants did in their own homeland. Tams is no exception; an incredibly talented singer and pianist, he was the very last Canadian Idol winner on the very best season of a now-debunked show that had quit while it was very ahead. Canadian Idol was the first of the global Idol franchises to allow its contestants to bring instruments into auditions and furthermore, use them on the Top 10 stage. It was the very first Idol competition that saw its contestants play a ‘live band’ format on a results show. In other words, the show was very ahead of its time in terms of letting contestants express their own artistry on what would be otherwise, a very generic forum and in doing so, it generated a lot of fabulous unknowns who had no other platform to rise to sudden stardom. Tams’ record is not surprisingly for those familiar with his style on the show, piano-driven adult-alternative pop. He had some big-name Canadian Indie collaborators lend their skills and experience to the writing process for the record including Sarah Slean, Simon Wilcox, Damnhait Doyle, and Hawksley Workman; it also saw Tams co-write seven of the tracks. With big names like this, a top-notch ballad-based record was created which saw influences from all over the map but demonstrated to me, a promising, rising voice in Canadian music.

From the Dead Story Files.

It was a rugged day– just short of August and mosquitoes and wispy dandelion seeds and a musty pollen odour sat atop the evening. I could head the beckoning of magpies and gulls, their silhouettes sailing across the sunrise-lit river.

I was standing in a darkened area of the patio, surveying everyone with my beer-clouded eyes and that was when I saw her, who was such an influence on my life even though she had no idea who I was. Had I seen her before? I must have. Her face was familiar to me, though only faintly, like a distant relative or friend in an old photograph. As if I had been separated from her for years after a meek chance encounter, only to forget her, have her name and face slip away from me completely. The memory of her had fallen by the wayside, tipped overboard, replaced with a barrage of livelier colours, tangible gifts, song lyrics from top 40 radio hits until she was disappeared entirely.

And yet, there she was.

Pressing On the Past.

I work at a university and my job is to help undergraduate students with their academic planning.

Lately at my job, I’ve been getting a lot of students coming to me or my colleagues and back-pedaling when it’s far too late to do so; they have suddenly realized they’ve made a mistake and they’re trying to get me to rectify it for them or make an exception so they don’t lose money, or sacrifice their full-time term by being forced to withdraw from a course. The typical answer to these types of inquiries or issues is, “No.” It’s a firm word and we must deliver it with sympathy and a calm demeanor. However, people by their very nature don’t like hearing ‘no’ and they’re either going to react with sadness or they’re going to react with anger. Typically, the latter is what occurs and honestly, if someone is going to shoot the messenger and demand amendment to any variety of published rules in order to help them satisfy their own back-pedaling needs, my answer to those people is; you haven’t learned anything from this experience. It’s not an easy, or a cheap lesson to learn; it’s unfortunate and it sucks. However, now they know. And the next time, they will be more proactive to ensure a situation like this doesn’t crop up again in the future.

It got me thinking about “lessons learned”. I was just having a discussion with a friend and we concurred that the most worthwhile lessons to learn are the ones that are the hardest pills to swallow. Thinking back on my life, this has been really true. The times where I came out on top were the times when I thought, “I can’t believe I did that and rest assured, I am never doing that again.” It’s because things that are easy are things which are unworthy of remembrance. Things that are incredibly difficult, painful or damaging are times in which you realize, I never want to feel this way, or be in this situation, ever again.

The past can be so valuable this way – it is said often (too often, probably) that those who fail to remember the past are doomed to repeat it. Logically, this makes sense; if nothing is learned, the same mistakes, habits and consequently, another dire situation will occur again. Finding value in remembrance can prevent this, and it’s a message I’d like to relay to all my anguished backtrackers. That being said, do you subscribe to the belief that the ‘past’ will serve as a reminder of what to do or not to do in the future? Or does the past hold someone back from achieving that which the long to achieve the most?

My past for example, tells me that I’m going to always love someone who doesn’t love me back. My past also tells me this inherent truth will occur because of other incidents and terrible times in my life that happened through no fault of my own and were a simple matter of circumstance and ill fate, which continually remind me I’m not ‘good enough’, ‘brave enough’ or ‘worthy enough’ to ever achieve someone I want to welcome into my life. This huge crutch talks me out of so many of my life choices because I really don’t BELIEVE I can ever look past that which I’ve interpreted to be the truth based on my past. When something comes up which seems like a positive prospect of the future, there is this need in me to decline it and shoot it down because the past tells me it will never, ever work.

 Yet, I’ve learned so much from my past. It holds me back just as much as providing me with a valuable framework about how to live my life in the present and in the future. I find it positive, even therapeutic and motivating, to actually reflect upon the past; to reminisce, to remember my headspaces in previous incarnations of my life. But sometimes it’s difficult to grapple with the issue of: Is this something I could have changed and will do differently in the future? Or was this in no way my fault and a mater of circumstance which has made me too afraid of having something like this happen again, to the point where I’ll never try?

My wish for anyone I speak to, ultimately who is in the process of learning a difficult lesson, is to LEARN from the mistakes. It won’t prevent you necessarily from being afraid of falling into a period of difficulty in the future, but there is two sides to every scenario in the past; there is someone who is reflecting upon their own choices and actions, and there is unforeseeable, uncontrollable circumstances which contribute to a lot of heaving discomfort. I’m still learning the difference, and this is something else that I know, once sorted, will change my perspective on life profoundly.

A Word.

A word, please?

Just one. It doesn’t have to be a long one. It can be brief; a staccato, one-syllable little word that reflects something totally arbitrary, and is totally meaningless while still maintaining a kind of dignity in the colloquialism for some reason. Just one word. I can suggest some if you’d like: food; tang; zest; lust… how about the word ‘love’?

‘Love’? I thought that word was dead; in fact, I wrote it down several times as such: that love is dead for me; that I don’t believe in the word; that it’s meaningless and frivolous; a filthy, underhanded, greeting card company lie. The word love is indicative of naivety, fluorescent idealism, the beginning of the death of everything you thought to be possible. Why is there a word in existence that denotes such terrible things, for the very simple reason that it indicates such wonderful things? Love makes sublime, doe-eyed assholes of us all. Love is something we trick ourselves into believing in so we can pretend ourselves into happiness. Love is a word that shouldn’t be a word, because it means something completely false. It’s selfish; love is selfish. You love things, and people only so you can keep them for yourself. It’s dirty and shameful and obsessive.

Yet, ‘love’ is thrown around: “I love that song!”; “I love that pie!”; “I love this pen!”; “I love ice cream!” Love, love, love, love, love. We intensely and fervently like something and this is the silly ‘nothing’ word we choose to describe that. There is no originality.

I’m soured on the word – I am a linguist who is annoyed and aggravated with the saccharine, cloying, eye-roll-inducing use of this disgusting, useless word. ‘Love.’ Huh. Who believes in that complete, utter bullshit anyways? ‘Love’… I’d love to meet the rich sonofabitch who came up with that one. Some snake oil salesman. Some overly-poetic person wrought with drunken heartache who rolled the word from his mouth and it came tumbling onto the page like hacked saliva. ‘Love.’

And yet this sensation of a dormant, hibernating feeling begins to emerge, to germinate, when I have not been expecting it; it’s like an infectious, contagious virus this feeling, this despicably awful, all-too-familiar feeling that drops like a heavy weight onto me as I’m going about my daily life as the same person I was yesterday with the same ideas about the semiotic meaning of the word – that one word – that one angry, awful syllable. Suddenly I am reminded of what I felt like when the world was bending around my heart, or maybe when my heart was bending around the world. That word breaks off of me like an ice berg and crumbles into this sea of meaning that I am wading in which surrounds me, growing steadily deeper and more flowering and intense until suddenly I am stranded around a body of brilliant, calm blue water  and when I yell out help, a different word escapes: ‘Love.’

I love you, I yell. I loved you ever since you first approached me and sat down beside me at that table so many months ago; I love the sound of your soft-spoken voice and I miss that freeing feeling of looking directly into your eyes when I spoke to you and most of all, I love your sympathetic, wise, confident, comfortable kindess; yes, I yell, that is what I love the most. And I love the ocean and I love looking to the sky and I love being dwarfed by large ghostly bergs of ice that move through the daylight like bathing elephants. I love you, I love you, I love you. The only word that comes from my mouth, the only word I can think to describe remotely what  I feel, the only word that is a part of me and can help me from sinking deeper and deeper, is ‘love’.  It suddenly encompasses the whole of my thoughts, yearning and desiring and yet, incredibly liberating. ‘Love.’

This whole idea of synchronicity fascinates me. In fact I wrote a whole book about it, a book called Various Miracles, and that’s what the miracles are, these moments where for no reason that we can really track, certain events do coincide. I think it like a strange force in the world. Now scientists have tried to explain this but they have not convinced me. But I think we have all had experiences of meeting people in strange places that we know – that kind of an experience – which does seem quite miraculous to me.

-Carol Shields

Shallow Lessons ABC’s “The Bachelor” Taught Me About Dating & Men.

I’m ashamed to admit it, except not so ashamed that I won’t write about it: I am an avid fan of ABC’s The Bachelor. I remember being 15 years old and watching Andrew Firestone on television and thinking, “I’m in nothing but head-over-heels LOVE right now,” and ever since then, nearly a decade later, I’m still hooked on the popular, overwrought, ridiculous TV show. I hang onto every word, I scathingly hate the “villain” girl (or guy, in the case of The Bachelorette, which I also adore), I fall prey to the romantic proposals, exotic locales, perfect first dates, and cinematography-laden sunsets and skylines and blue waters of Fiji. I love it all.

Sure, The Bachelor is, at its worse, incredibly trashy, sad-sack TV. However, I feel I can defend my decision to continually watch season after season. I believe that buried beneath its silly, tacky surface, there are real lessons there about marriage, love, commitment, and lessons in general about the nature of the opposite sex. Perhaps you could argue that watching The Bachelor allows you to avoid dating mistakes of others as depicted on national television, and learn a thing or two to increase your savvy understanding of the dating scene.

So here are some things, for better or for worse, I picked up from the show in the many years that I’ve watched.

Type

When people ask me my type, I think, I don’t really have one. I think of all the men I’ve dated or been interested in and all of them have been a little bit different, though also a bit of the same. In the past, I’ve typically gone for the sarcastic, goofy nerd type who is wrought with wit and can carry on a good conversation about movies from our collective childhood. I guess that’s my type, right? But then you watch The Bachelor and you realize, “Hey! I don’t like Jake, or Brad – I like Andrew Firestone and Ben F.” And you look back at all the people you’ve ever dated or been interested in and realize, first of all, none of those guys worked out, and second of all, none of them live up to the charming, sensitive, open, honest personalities of the bachelors you’ve loved watching on TV. The word ‘type’ to me connotes an ideal you live up to and seek in those you meet that could potentially lead to romance. Your future husband may not entirely live up to that idea, but what attracted you to them in the first place is probably their similarities and/or aspirations to live up to the ideal you hold so dear in your heart. The Bachelor demonstrates idyllic people. So, Bingo. The bachelors you love and fantasize about could be your ‘type’, and help you to avoid failed attempts at relationships.

Getting Male Attention

To get a man’s attention, even a quality man’s, according to The Bachelor there are a few things to do; first of all, be chesty. Sometimes, really chesty (*cough*Blakely*cough*). If you’re uber-chesty and you show off your friggin’ huge jugs, your chance at a metaphorical rose in every day life increases 10-fold. It’s not a good thing necessarily, but hey! On the show, it works like a charm. Secondly, be forceful. It seems the villain girls are the most hated by the other girls on the show, and those watching, because they force themselves on these poor, unsuspecting bachelors and they make the biggest impressions by doing so. Conversely, it’s usually the girls who hold back as not to be like the forceful, chesty girl who throws herself at the bachelor in question, are the first ones gone. Sorry, sugar. You didn’t make a huge enough splash from the get-go… The villains make you SCREAM at the screen because in their interview, they’re going on about winning, crushing the other girls, how they’re “not here to make friends”, and so on and meanwhile they’re flirting like a cat in heat and pouncing on the man, claws buried deep. But, it works, to get attention. And lastly, wear a bikini. Can you imagine a one-piece swimsuit on The Bachelor? Not bloody likely.

The villain doesn’t win in the end… most of the time

We all love a happy ending, and we strive for a happy ending in our own lives as well, however we define ‘happy ending’. That’s why, when Andrew Firestone ends up with Jenn at the end of the series, instead of that repulsive “Tina Fabulous” or any of those other incredibly annoying, ditzy losers, or when Jillain chooses the handsome, low-key Ed and finally comes to her senses about Wes, the king of the ubiquitous “not here for the right reasons” statement on the show, we sigh with relief and think, “Maybe one day, sweet little me can meet my Ed!” And as long as you’re sweet, nice, inoffensive and charming as a vintage button, according to The Bachelor, you have a real shot at your life with Prince Charming. Unless you’re Jake, you don’t choose the evil villainous cow; you usually choose the sweet one, with her heart in the right place, who gets on with her family and has a decent job and smiles a lot and makes claims that she’s in love with you and wants to have a family with you.

Talking Smack About Others Gets You Nowhere

There’s a real pattern on The Bachelor that girls who bring up the flaws and intentions and deviance of the obligatory villain are always sent home. Like clockwork. I’m sure there are many reasons for this (denial perhaps, being one of them) but also, people (who are quality) don’t enjoy petty drama, little cat fights, talking behind someone’s back, and potential liars. To get ahead in the world, you shouldn’t have to put others down to get ahead. And to get ahead on The Bachelor, this is true. FYI, the villains of the world KNOW you’re going to do this! They purposely get under your skin and torment you into dishing all their dirt; but their smoke-and-mirrors two-facedness is difficult to see through. Your catty honesty is right in front of their face. Think about it.