In the dentists's chair

I had to go to the dentist today and what I thought would be a 30 minute appointment ended up taking three hours. It was a long three hours (I haven't had my mouth open that long since I was 20) but during this time I had the pleasure of listening to the conversation in the room next to mine. Therein lay a Yorkville Lady (YK) in the chair (yes, I am stereotyping, so this means puffed up lips, very very thin hips and a fabulous LV bag) and the oral hygienist (oh) next to her. I found it interesting that YK could speak as much as she did, because when I get my teeth cleaned I cannot utter any type of understandable words. 

This is what their wise words taught me today:

One: Trump has it hard.

Yes, you heard it. Apparently while his views may not be the most progressive, he is being treated extremely harshly and unfairly. It would seem that the majority of America resonates with Trump. 

Two: Trump will get in if Hillary gets the ticket.

The first 3 minutes were spent trying to determine if Hillary is still running. Once this fact was established, though without true certainty, it was decided that Trump would definitely get in should she win the ticket. According to YK or oh, Hillary is not popular. 

At this point oh complimented YK on being "politically astute". Or maybe it was the other way around.

Three: The Canadian emigration policy has been significantly altered.

It became apparent that either oh or YK were of emigrant roots. I was soon to learn that things were very different in those days, compared to today. At this moment I reflected back on my own emigration experience to try and draw parallels. When I came to, I learned that emigrants of earlier days had to show that they were going to contribute in some way to the Canadian economy, that they absolutely had to speak English and that they could not just arrive and have things handed to them on a platter. This made them a lot more grateful. I wracked my brains to think about a recent emigration story that this may have been referenced to. My mind drew a blank. 

Four: White people are becoming extinct.

This was truly my favorite part of the discussion. It would seem that there is so much inter-racial mixing that soon white people will cease to exist. And this is of critical concern to either oh or YK (I could not figure out who was who and tried very hard to listen for the sounds of words coming from a mouth full of fingers and metal instruments). Apparently like should stay with like, as she told her 8th grade daughter who announced that she liked a Chinese boy. And who was immediately told to stick with her own race. At this point ok or YK announced that they were of a mixed-race family and god dammit, the dentist inserted a drill into my mouth and pounded away, drowning out the delicious sounds coming from the room next door. 

I giggled, the dental assistant looked at me and said "You're listening to the conversion next door aren't you?". 

And unlike my counterpart, with a mouth full (which is not something I am used to), I said "uh huh"

42.15

An ordentlike affair

It's past midnight and I almost forgot to blog! It won't be a long one tonight, or one that is very deep. Sometimes it's just gonna be a diary entry. I went to the Gentleman's Christmas tonight. This is an annual event in Toronto for charity, mostly to collect toys for kids. If you want to be invited you need to get on the list (Step 1). This is not an easy thing to do. I first got on the list three years ago. Tonight was the first time I attended. 

Step 2 is to wait for the RSVP email that is sent out sometime at the end of November each year. And then Ar Es Vee Pee as soon as you can. Last year I responded immediately and within minutes got an email back letting me know that I was on the waiting list. I happened to see my friend Stuart later that day and mentioned to him that I was disappointed to be waitlisted and he casually let me know that he had replied AFTER me and got in. I was devastated at the blatant favouritism. 

I happened to be checking email when the invite came in this year and I responded without hesitation. You're in, she replied. And life was good. 

Everyone dresses up for this shindig and so I got myself a three-piece suit together with pocket square and bow tie that everyone was impressed with as it was freshly tied and not clipped on. We placed gifts under the tree and hobnobbed with vodka sodas in our hands. I remember a few years ago going out and feeling sad that I didn't know people. In South Africa I would go to a bar or club and know everyone. Tonight was like old SA. I bumped into familiar faces, I chatted to friends and even got introduced to people that I had seen around but never formally met. I smiled at the new faces and many smiled back. 

It was a civilized night of giving. The air outside was chilled but felt more like a fall evening than winter. The buildings are lit up. The city is alive. 

And so am I. 

42.14

Reflection

Stood in the sunlight and stared through the glass,

In it I saw a reflection of myself and my self,

Not always the same. 

42.13

Welcome to Canada / bienvenue au Canada

This was my Facebook status last night

 and this is why......

According to the WWW, "by the end of August 2014, the UN estimated 6.5 million people had been displaced in Syria, while more than 3 million refugees had fled to countries such as Lebanon (1.14 million), Jordan (608,000) and Turkey (815,000)."

There are hundreds of thousands of refugees living in camps in these countries. I can only image what the conditions are like. 

Actually, I probably can't. 

I arrived in Canada after a leisurely business class flight from Johannesburg.  Keith did the same a month or so later. The dogs (three of them) flew here via Amsterdam in warm crates with blankets and toys. Our entire household was packed up, boxed, and shipped to Toronto via Montreal. Every box was packed in Johannesburg, and unpacked in Toronto. We didn't lift a finger. I had a job. There was no disruption of my salary other than a conversion from South African Rand to Canadian Dollar. Sure, I lost a little with the exchange rate and so for the first year at least we "dropped our standard of living" by buying groceries at No Frills, went without a car for 4 years and only ate out once a week. 

I believe that we (Keith and I) worked hard to integrate and we made a concerted effort to learn the Canadian way but we had it easy. And we have benefited immensely from this opportunity, and from the attitude that is Canada, that welcomes you with open arms, because approximately 20% of the population of Canada comprises foreign-born individuals who arrived as emigrants, and that is one of the things that makes this country great. 

There was no prouder day for me than the day that I stood in front of a Judge and took my Oath of Citizenship. I have written before about how I used to ridicule Americans for their overt patriotism because as a South African, while I love and adore Africa, didn't feel that allegiance to my country. But I felt (feel) it for Canada. Now I get it.

There are those that have challenged the processes that you have to follow to become a Canadian Citizen and I have been very vocal about this both in person and on Facebook. Canada prides itself on being liberal, tolerant, accepting and anti-discriminatory. This, in my opinion, has lead to some occurrences of abuse. There is a fine line between acceptance, and integration. On one side we pride ourselves in being able to accommodate all cultures, religions and views and yet on the other there is the battle to maintain the Canada that has fought hard to distinguish itself from others. There are those that want to become Citizens, but refuse to take the Oath because it involves swearing allegiance to the Queen; there is the recent debate around a woman's refusal to remove her Niqab and show her face during the ceremony. My opinion, and my opinion alone, is that as an emigrant I am lucky and grateful to have been accepted by this Country and as such it is my duty to accept the country for what it is according to the existing rules by which it is governed. I did not have to become a Citizen, I could have remained a Permanent Resident indefinitely. I chose to become a Citizen and as such, I chose to accept the rules and requirements associated. I think that Citizens have the right to voice their opinions and decide on changes, but I do not agree that non-Citizens have the right to make changes, in order for, or prior to them to become Citizens. Regardless, I would bet that the majority of us, whether we agree or nor, have had plenty opportunities and choices.

The Syrian refugees do not.

A few months ago we (well, most of us) proudly welcomed in Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister. I voted for him; not only because he's really cute, but because he IS Canada (to me). Last night he waited at the airport as the first refugees arrived in Canada. There are tears in my eyes every time I watch the news coverage, see the gift packages, clothes,  hear of the multitude of families that are contributing privately to assist these people in their journey. My father was a refugee out of Romania, my great grandparents fled Lithuania. I didn't flee South Africa, but I left because I was seeking a better life.

Of the arriving refugees, Mr. Trudeau said "Tonight they step off the plane as refugees but they walk out this terminal as permanent residents of Canada with social insurance numbers, with health cards, and with an opportunity to become full Canadians".

Watch the video below, and tell me you didn't feel something.

Welcome to Canada / bienvenue au Canada

 'You Are Home': Canada's Justin Trudeau Welcomes Syrian Refugees 

42.12
 

Not the A-gay, but yet all the moms love me

I loved my childhood. This despite any of the hardships that you have heard about.  I loved school, especially high school. I would like to think that I was popular; I had a fantastic group of friends. I never felt that I didn't fit in. I was never excluded. I am still close to many of those friends today. 

Keith and I commented today about birthday posts for a young 18-year old that we know. He is your typical straight boy, and his guy friends were writing long, emotional messages to him on Facebook today. It's wonderful to see boys unafraid to show emotion, as opposed to the days when it was frowned upon; maybe not as much during my childhood as it was for Keith. 

This post is not about knowing when I was gay. It's a frequent question though. You just know. But even though I knew, I only had girlfriends at school and into at least my second year of University. The answer to the second question is Yes. I do however I suspect that the fact that I spent many nights lying in the bath crying, while listening to Michael Bolton, after one girlfriend dumped me, was a clear indication of where my life was headed. 

Coming out was a slow process and for a while I lead two separate lives. But I think I will leave that story for another blog given that I have 354 posts to go. 

Any type of social group has it's hierarchy. And in many of these you find the popular mean girls (the Plastics) at the top. In my world I call them the A-gays. These are the boys with beautiful, chiseled bodies. The Jock equivalent in the straight world. They have perfect hair, they spend hours in the gym, they drink protein shakes and they take their shirts off at any opportunity. While many will find themselves in relationships the majority struggle because there is always something better around the corner; they seem to always be looking for the next best thing. 

The B-gays are your boy next door, the guy your mom loves ("what a waste", she says), who may be just as good looking (or not), who goes to the gym and tries to hard to eat healthy but would never take his shirt off in a club unless it was very very dark. I think I'm a B.

The C-gays are in relationships. Wait, I may be a C.

D-gays are anyone over 30. Too old to be a gay and may as well be 60. Oh Jesus, I turned 42 two weeks ago, I'm a D.

All ex-boyfriends are E-gays.  I'm definitely someone's E. 

Like woman (I think), but unlike the average straight man (I think), there is a huge amount of pressure on the gay man to be thin, be good looking, have a gym body, be young. I am a pretty extroverted guy and yet I am extremely self-conscious. I think that I am not very good looking, and on the chubby (Keith calls it beefy) side. I blame some of this on Jewish genes (not my fault) and I blame some on my love of food (not my fault).

There was a time that I would catch my reflection in the mirror and shudder. And I would feel depressed for the rest of the day. I would tell myself that there is nothing wrong with the way I look and yet I couldn't stop the self-hatred. Because I was not an A-gay. I still feel it sometimes, but not as much. Turning 40 changed that - another possible blog.

Keith used to tell me to enjoy my body while I had control over it, because the time would come that I would not have that control, and I would regret not enjoying it when I did. He was right. But he is also the most content guy I know, so comfortable in his own skin. I've never been comfortable in mine. 

I have one A-gay friend that I believe became my friend by accident. Yet we have been friends for over 20 years. An A and a B/C/D/E. It happens.

I would be lying if I said I didn't (in the past) have friends that I thought made me look better in public. I have an ex-boyfriend who refused to be friendly with fat people. There are other reasons why he is an ex-boyfriend. 

I'm going on vacation in January that will include a beach. There are days when I look at myself and think that I'm OK. On others I look at myself and cringe, because I don't have the willpower not to eat that slab of chocolate, because I didn't make it to the gym for two days, because I think that people are staring at the ugly boy, because I think that nobody will notice me. There are also days that none of this matters.

Many of you reading this will be surprised to know how much I worry about what I look like. But this also means that I probably have no idea what your issues are when I look at you. Often the things I hate about myself, are the things I love about other people. For example, I think a bald man can be extremely sexy, yet I wish I had a full head of luscious hair. I have absolutely no interest in the muscled guy and think that a guy with a few extra kg's can be pretty attractive, yet I HATE the extra weight that I carry. 

What I know for sure, is that when I look at anyone I take them for what they are. My sister taught me this. Keith taught me this. 

So I will continue to strive to take myself for what I am, with all my complexities, because I am the best that I can be.

42.11

Copy and paste

I find that I am often multi-tasking. I sit at my desk with my computer in front of me, email open, spreadsheets open, online document management software open. I have my personal email and my work email. Facebook is open. My phone is on my desk beeping. There are two desktops, one laptop, two iPads and many phones in this house. There are TVs and USB sticks and external hard drives. The stove says "Hello chef" when I walk past. My car can parallel park itself. 

I respond to emails, and texts and switch between screens. I edit a document and then hear the beep of an email coming in and check it quickly. I respond. My phone beeps. I check. I think to myself I'll respond later. I go back to my email. I've forgotten the document I was working on.  

I cut and paste. I forward. 

I do my best to make sure that when I respond to an email I check the name of the person in the "To" field. I do my best to check that I don't reply all when I have something private to say. I don't always succeed. 

My nephew and I send each other messages. Bad ones. Naughty ones. Sometimes we use email, sometimes we text, sometimes we WhatsApp.

I had a naughty message today. It was sent via WhatsApp. I copied it and forwarded it to Louis via iMessage.

Later on I was texting a friend and colleague. A woman. Whom I respect. I was asking work-related advise. She is the person that makes sure things are done the right way. I copied a link from my phones browser where I had looked up something on the FDA website, and texted it to her. But my phone pasted the last thing I had sent. It was the bad, naughty video I had sent Louis earlier. I hit send and then looked. I didn't check like I normally do when I send an email because I've mistakenly sent messages by email before so I have learned that lesson. Clearly I haven't learned this one. I wish I could blame the phone. 

The colour drained from my face as I read the response:

"My eyes!!!!!!!!"

My sincere and public apologies to KM. I promise always to check before I send bad, naughty messages. 

42.10

Becoming Pfeiffer

I first saw Keith at the Melrose Arch gym. The gym is attached to a hotel so frequented by international visitors. When we first laid eyes on each other I saw this well-built, tattooed skinhead who gave off a very straight air so I didn't pay him much attention. He thought I was a Spanish tourist. I then flew off to Vancouver to see my friends Merle and Sid get married and so disappeared for a few weeks. About a month later I saw him again at the same gym and according to Keith, this time he waited outside for me to come out, and after 45 minutes he gave up and left. Keith is prone to exaggeration (and impatience), I think he probably waited 5 minutes. 

These were the days after mIRC but before Grindr. We used Gaydar then and one day I was surfing the profiles and came across "cableguyza" who had a very familiar profile pic. I immediately messaged him and said "Remember me?". And boy did he; we had a dinner date planned within minutes. 

I arrived at the Thai Restaurant in Sandton Square and noticed that he smoked the same brand of cigarettes I have given up the previous year. It took me 11 years to get him to give those up. I think that dinner was good, I don't really remember. Afterwards he invited me back to his place and we were standing in line at the pay station when I turned back to him and said "Hey, what car do you drive?". He told me and I replied with "Meet me here, I'll follow you home". The guy behind him looked shocked, thinking I had just picked up this stranger while getting my parking ticket. I suppose he wasn't far off, I've done worse.

That was 12 years ago, and we've been together pretty much ever since. A few nights later I wasn't feeling well and cancelled plans to see Keith. Instead of accepting a rain check he invited me over and cooked me soup. I was stubbornly single at the time and this was in September. I was due to go to the Sydney Mardis Gras the following March with my friends Daniel and Adrian and there was no way I was tying myself to one guy. So I denied any form of relationship for the next 6 months even though we were together constantly and happily flew off to party in Australia. We did. It was amazing. And I called Keith every day to say "Hi!". I returned and declared myself to be "in a relationship". 

I started to meet Keith's friends who claimed that our relationship would not last a year. He started to meet mine who said that if we ever split up they would choose him over me. He introduced me to his family. This blog is for them. 

Kenneth: We used to visit Keith's older brother at his house in Hyde Park for the occasional lunch. It took me some time to get to know him. Ken was a straight oak who kinda intimidated me. But the more time we spent together the more I got to know him and love him. We share a love of scuba diving and one year went away to Mozambique together. I hadn't dived in a few years and Ken and I pretty much went out on a dive two or three times a day for a week. It reignited my love for being under water and it created a bond between us. Later on we went sky-diving together. When Keith had his stroke Ken got hold of me immediately and told me that no matter what, he would always look after me. We don't communicate often but when we are together it's like no time has passed. Nobody makes Oxtail like Ken does.

Dora: Doreen has told me from day one that I am her favorite. I don't care if she says that to the whole world, it makes me smile every time she says it. She used to make CD mixes full of music for Keith that I would steal and put in my car. I still have some of them. She was the first person to visit us in Toronto, she saw our first New Year in with us. She left her shoes at our house and Keith gave them away; I wonder if she's forgiven him? Doreen's art lines our offices in Johannesburg and our hallway in Toronto.

Traci: We met Traci shortly after Ken and she started dating. You couldn't find yourself a more genuine person if you tried. She makes me laugh, she spams me with silly emails, she calls me her brother. We have traveled together, we have cried together, we got stoned in Amsterdam together. If I thought Ken was intimidating when I first met him, I was yet to be introduced to her brother-in-law Jack; the gentlest giant, the warmest guy. And gorgeous Nicole, and Jess and Tristan who accept us without question.

Louis: Keith's nephew and I have a special relationship. I adore him (but don't tell him that). On any given day we are exchanging words that should never be written down. He has a sick, incredible sense of humour that I love. And he calls me Aunty Lolly. I think he wants to be like me when he grows up.

Nats: The most beautiful person inside and out. I once flew to New York to meet her and we painted the town red, green and blue. We almost licked a NYC Cop and we crashed a Drag Queen's Birthday Party. The family celebrated Louis and Natalie's wedding in Spain a few months before Keith and I emigrated to Canada. It was magical and beautiful. The wedding lasted a whole day; we had lunch, and speeches, and a wedding on the beach following by late night pizza in the sand. I cried that night because my heart was broken at having to say goodbye. They have since added Gabriella and Leah to the family mix and I love seeing their Instagram pics; and am sad that I'm not watching them grow up.

There are more, there's Nat's family in Alan and Louisa, and Brigitte and Michael (who I am still waiting to visit us in Canada) and Eric and Tammy. 

The hardest part about emigration is being split apart from the people that you love, and who love you. 

When I was younger I yearned to be able to sit around a huge table of family of my own and I found it when I met Keith. If I only get to experience it once a year, it's not enough, but its enough to last me a lifetime.

Last year we flew to South Africa to attend Ken and Traci's wedding. After that day I became the last one in the group that was not officially a Pfeiffer. People often ask me if Keith and I will ever get married and most of the time I laugh and make some snide comment about gay marriage. But the truth is that we aren't married because we don't need to be. 

I became a Pfeiffer a long time ago.  

This blog is dedicated to my family. I love you all.

42.9

Keeping it simple

Conversation this morning:

Lawrence: Did you read my blog?

Keith: Yes

Lawrence: The one from last night?

Keith: I did

Lawrence: What did you think?

Keith: Why do your blogs always have to be so long? 

This blog is dedicated to Keith

42.8

Losing my religion

Today is the start of Channukah and many of my friends are posting pics of their Menorah on Facebook or Instagram. Today is also the anniversary of my Barmitzvah, it's been 29 years since I stood at the Bimah and read my portion from the Torah (the holy scrolls). 

At dinner tonight someone made a comment about being Jewish and I reminded them I was a member of the tribe too. 

I grew up pretty religious. South African Jews, in contrast to many parts of the world, would be considered pretty Orthodox. My mother kept a Kosher home because she felt it important to give my sister and me the option. On Pesach we hauled out the special crockery and cutlery (one set for meat and one for milk) and sealed up the chometz (all bread and associated goods). On the night before the festival started we would turn off the lights and follow the tradition of seeking out crumbs of bread with a candle and feather. 

I went to Shul (Synagogue or "Jewish Church" as I've heard it be referred to) every Friday night. I went to a Jewish school where we prayed every morning and I laid Tefilin. In the evenings I studied aspects of religion with a Rabbi that I was friendly with. My extended family thought I was way too religious and on the path of becoming a Rabbi myself. 

My Jewish identity was strong. 

For me Judaism is about religion but it's also about family and tradition. It's about community. Again, at dinner tonight, I made a comment that not everything needs to be blamed on ones childhood. Some things just are. Yet here I am about to lay the blame myself. 

My mother suffered from depression and other ailments and by some coincidence would sabotage events of seeming importance. She would be fine until a birthday approached and would suddenly fall ill. On High Holidays like Rosh Hashana or Yom Kippur we would often be invited to friends and she would fall ill the afternoon of the event having to suddenly cancel. My sister and I would end up making dinner for ourselves and watch TV while my mother lay in bed. It didn't happen all the time but it happened. 

My family was broken and fragmented and I yearned to sit at a table full of food and loud mouths. Over the years I had opportunity to do this first with family-by-girlfriend and later with family-by-boyfriend. I was blessed to be made to feel as much a part of those families had I been born into them. 

But I questioned my religion and beliefs. I questioned the rules. My favorite saying was "why believe in a religion that preaches freedom of choice and yet punishes you for choices you make". Naive as it was, things didn't seem to make sense. I then met a wonderful person who started to teach me about things that weren't my religion. We spoke about eastern philosophy, and Egyptology, and crystals and sacred geometry and Wicca! We meditated and we made spells. I studied Reiki. And I drifted farther and farther away from Judaism. I designed my own beliefs and came to my own conclusions. It's been 20 years. 

Earlier this year my friend Christina decided to make the Pesach dinner for me. She invited some friends and she did her research. We arrived to a table laid out perfectly with all the traditional and symbolic foods. We sat at the table and we began the Sedar (the story of the Jews wandering the desert). I had forgotten how much I knew, I remembered instantly, the words came back to me, the tunes to the songs flowed easily. It was a magnificent evening that took me back to the days when my identity was strong. 

It's been a long time since I was inside a Shul. I think that if I had married a nice Jewish girl and had nice Jewish kids I would likely not have stopped. For whatever reason I tied my sense of religious self to my feelings about family and because those were broken I thought the other was irrelevant. I blamed my childhood.  

For me, religion and faith are not the same. For me, family is not necessarily blood. I've written about that before. 

I was at a table of 11 tonight. We ate, we drank, we laughed, we snapped at eachother, we shared. We were family. We are all different, of different blood and religion, and yet there is something common that brings us together. I looked at my family around the table and I felt fulfilled. This is my religion. 

42.7

Talking Rubbish Part 1

It's Saturday night and I am multi-tasking at the kitchen counter. There is a bottle of wine next to my computer and a glassful. Masterchef Junior is on the TV. Keith is snoring, Troy is licking the carpet, Tyson is on the leather chair. I am working. I have one window open on my laptop where I am slowly re-naming files in the way that a client wants them; that seems stupid and requires me to look at a spreadsheet on my iPad next to me to figure out what number they want to call the file, rather than the number on the page itself. My friend Carrie and I are also chatting via iMessage. 

I am so touched by the response I have had to my first few blogs. There have been comments on Facebook, and on my Blog, and some private messages. I feel challenged and supported, and challenged. I am going to do my utmost best to write something every single day until my 43rd birthday but that means that sometimes my blog is just going to be a load of rubbish. Tonight may be one of those nights. 

When I started out on this career path I was motivated and I climbed the ladder very quickly. I would like to think that I learned from my managers how not to manage, and made myself a better manager. I have always worked with amazing people and I have always been committed to my work regardless of any frustration I may feel. I am fiercely proud of being able to do a good job and to be good at what I do. I am by no means perfect, I make mistakes. But my dedication has meant that I answer emails all the time, I take phone calls at stupid hours, I work at night, over weekends and there have been times that I have worked for 30 - 40 straight hours to meet a deadline or fix someones fuck-up. Yes, fuck-up. I loved it.

But something has changed. I think part of it is the environment we find ourselves in today and I could likely write about this for hours because there are so many elements that are different. When I started at my first job there was no email or internet, it was just being introduced to South Africa. We had internal company email. We spoke to each other a lot, we had meetings. We closed down our computers at the end of the day and we went home. Not many of us had cell phones. If we had a laptop it certainly wasn't connect to the net. When I traveled, especially into Africa, I was off the grid for weeks. The connected world we live in today has created a huge amount of expectations especially in terms of response times. But it has also changed how we communicate, we text and email rather than speak on the phone and though we shouldn't we have instilled tone and intent into our written words. 

 

I started out in the Industry in a position called Clinical Research Associate (CRA). In this role, you are assigned responsibility to learn and understand a certain aspect of drug or device development where these new products are being tested on human beings; generally in the manner in which they were intended. In early research we work with healthy human volunteers, but later on as we gather more and more information we start attempting to treat the disease itself. This is not a debate about the ethical standards of the pharmaceutical research industry.

Being a CRA is the best job I have ever had. Anyone that knows me, knows this. Despite my climb up the proverbial ladder I have always done my best to keep some CRA responsibility within my job. 

Things have happened to me in my life that has changed how I view the work world. I have done my best to strive for that elusive work-life balance. Frankly I think I have done a good job so far. I speak often about that dream to give things up, go for the easier life, move to the Country (O.M.G. I would be "living the dream!"). 

My sister was a hard worker, she and her husband never had much money. Fancy things were far out of their affordable reach; holidays were few and far between. My sister was brilliant; she had an incredible imagination and sense of humour, she had degrees in Journalism and Political Science. She was an English girl who studied at an Afrikaans University. People thought I was the clever sibling but they were so wrong. When she suddenly died at 33 she was studying Patent Law and she was getting top marks. I wish she had played more.

My mother died inside when my father died for real. She has never been the same. She merely exists. I wish she had met someone else.

I am now, and have been for some time, a part of "upper management" and I say this with a slight smirk (the silly kind, not the smug, conceited one). I am pretty good at listening, talking and finding a way to the solution. Yet I find myself sitting in meetings listening to clients rant about deadlines, and the tone of an email they didn't care for, and the person that did what they wanted them to do but not the way they wanted it done even though the end result is kinda the same. And I am bored. Because if it isn't me sitting there it will be someone else. And I'm not sure anyone would notice. And if it isn't them complaining it will be someone else. And they have all become the same to me. 

It used to be easier and it used to be much more fun. For me, I know what the problem is. The problem is that I am not in the trenches anymore, where the fun happens. It is an interesting realization to come to when you see that you are the person that you looked up at, and that you have had to make way for the younger group to come in. For me, this is true of my workplace, and it is true of my life. But it doesn't mean that it has to stay that way.

Now for those of you reading this that work with me, or (gasp) are my clients. This is my truth. It doesn't mean that I wont give you my 100%. It means that I am finally able to distinguish the parts of my life that I love, the parts that I don't, those that I have to keep doing, and those that I can change or give up. And without each of you, I would not know this.

We work, we produce, we create, we change, we make money, we pay our bills. We strive for more, we strive for less. We look for meaning. We look for balance. And if we are lucky enough, we change. 

One of the greatest things about "Keith and me" is that we have taken risks and we have made changes. And we are yet to regret any of them. Life is short, make those changes. Take those risks. Find the balance. 

And to any of you who work with me and are reading this, don't check email (too frequently) after hours, take your weekends, things can wait, there is always tomorrow.

42.6

Mommy met daddy's in-laws before she became his wife

Carl Jung is said to have first explained the concept of Synchronicity. His belief was that, just as events may be connected by causality, they may also be connected by meaning. Events connected by meaning need not have an explanation in terms of causality. This principal gave credence to Jung's work in archetypes and the collective unconscious. I have written previously about my beliefs not only in archetypes but in the concept of the sacred contract which in itself lends itself to agreement with the collective unconscious paradigm.

My father was a Romanian immigrant who left his country during the war. He and his family moved to Israel but he didn't stay there for very long. After spending time in Europe he ended up in South Africa where he met and married a young lady named Pearl. He was 32, she was 22. "Hang on," I hear you say, "your mom's name is Joan?"

Yup.

Pearl suffered from a condition called lupus or systemic lupus erythematosus, an autoimmune disease where your immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissue. Pearl was told that she should never give birth due to the increased risks associated with pregnancy. I believe that she miscarried a few times but I'm not sure this fact is true. What I know is that she and my dad wanted a baby, and they found a doctor that agreed to help her get to term. Something happened in her 7th month and Pearl was rushed to hospital. The baby died that night, and Pearl lay in ICU for two days before she too passed away. Her death was apparently due to complications from the surgery. She was 30 years old.

My mother studied Radiography after school and in 1971 she was 25 years old. One night she was called to the hospital where she worked to take X-rays of a patient undergoing emergency surgery. The patient was in critical condition and going into renal failure. My mom remembers offering the elderly couple sitting outside a cup of tea.

Two years later my mom met my dad on a blind date. I know you know where this is going. She was the girl taking the X-Ray; the couple she offered tea were his in-laws. He was the guy soon to become a widower.

And I was born not many months later. 

 

I read a great blog a few months ago by Tim Lawrence in which he says:

 

"Let me be crystal clear: if you've faced a tragedy and someone tells you in any way, shape or form that your tragedy was meant to be, that it happened for a reason, that it will make you a better person, or that taking responsibility for it will fix it, you have every right to remove them from your life.

Grief is brutally painful. Grief does not only occur when someone dies. When relationships fall apart, you grieve. When opportunities are shattered, you grieve. When dreams die, you grieve. When illnesses wreck you, you grieve.

So I’m going to repeat a few words I’ve uttered countless times; words so powerful and honest they tear at the hubris of every jackass who participates in the debasing of the grieving:

Some things in life cannot be fixed. They can only be carried."
 
I have friends that look for the lesson in every aspect of life. They constantly strive for meaning for reasons I cannot understand. But I do not understand it because it is not something I need; and they do. Sometimes things happen, that's it.

What resonates with me in the words above is the statement that things in life cannot be fixed, they only be carried. Of this I am certain. It allows you the acceptance of that which you cannot control.

If I am anything, I am that because of the things I carry.

I don't know if things happen for a reason or not. But this does not mean that things aren't connected. And this is where I think Synchronicity comes in to play. Maybe what Synchronicity means is that things don't necessarily happen for a reason (causality) but they are connected (have meaning). 

 

The events that connected my mom and dad before they even met gave them a story. Gave me a third Grandparent in my Grandpa David. Gave my dad hope. Gave my mom love. Gave me life.

In Memory of Pearl Touba Reiter (Ford) 1941 - 1971

42.5

Tales of a tabular weapon designed to discharge projectiles

I grew up in a safer South Africa than the one that I emigrated from. As a kid I rode my bike around town every afternoon and my parents didn't know where I was. We left doors open and worried little about electric fences and security gates. By the time I left I had attended more funerals than I cared to; more than any of my Canadian friends have attended. This is not an anti-South Africa post. 

Hijackings and crime became a way of life for many of us. I know few that have not been affected in some way. We would sit at the dinner table and a conversation could conceivably go like this:

"X was hijacked today (no exclamation mark because that would imply emphasis)"

"Oh, is he OK?"

"Yes, but they took the car and his cell phone"

"Oh"

"Shame"

I remember feeling frustrated at the frivolity of our responses to stories like this. We had become numb, immune. Well at least I had. 

When I was about 18 I decided to carry a gun. I was very proud of myself and thought I was a very big man. I went to the shooting range and shot targets but they were made of paper. One day someone asked me if I would be prepared to use that gun to kill someone. Or if I realized that the chances were greater that gun would be used against me. I sold it the next day. Legally. 

There was a mass shooting in the US yesterday. Another one. Apparently there have been 1029 mass shootings in the US since 2012. Messages of "thoughts and sympathy" poured out. I listened to pathetic "meaningless platitudes" throughout the day on CNN. Someone said that this was a wonderful opportunity for change. People are theorizing about whether this is an act of terrorism but doesn't anyone realize that in the broader sense the definition refers to ANY act designed to cause terror? The word has gotten lost in the political arena, at least I think it has. 

I keep hearing that guns aren't the problem, that people kill, not guns. But if this were true, would all drugs be legal?

When something happens often enough it becomes less of an exclamation mark and part of our dinner conversation. I don't care for the politics. I think that everyone is due their own opinion, rights and freedom. 

I think that when 10 people say you are tired, that you should lie down.

42.4

You can take the boy out of the city

Earlier this year Keith and I were talking about selling the house and moving. Naturally I wanted to stay in Cabbagetown; there wasn't even a hint in my mind of not being in Toronto. 

Many of the things I love about Canada are those that are so different to South Africa. There should be a Facebook or Huffington post called "Things I love about Canada that are different to South Africa:"

- not having a car for the first 4 and a half years of our local life,

- walking to the movies,

- crackheads and a weird, very tall lady with fishnets and short shorts (you can really see everything),

- buying milk from Domingo at the corner convenience store,

- buying meat from Mark the butcher,

- Bulldog coffee,

- riding my bike to gym and pretty much everywhere else because Toronto is a flat city,

- high speed internet,

- the sense of community in Cabbagetown,

- the dog park,

- the friends we've made at the dog park,

- noise,

- lots of other things. 

The above mentioned post could also be named "Things I love about Toronto that are different to the County".

Keith has often been found surfing the net for properties on the water; it's always been his dream. 

I've often spoken about the desire to "give it all up" and leave a job that has, over the past few years, become more frustrating than stimulating. I've dreamed of the doggy daycare, the coffee shop and becoming a dive instructor in Thailand. We all do it, few of us try it and even fewer succeed at it. 

So I wasn't surprised when Keith suggested we look at homes in the Prince Edward County area, a beautiful half-island two hours east of Toronto that is much like Stellenbosch in the Cape. I happened to be going to Kingston, a city close to the County, and Keith decided to go with me and check things out. And he fell in love. And I didn't pay much attention to it.

Keith and I rarely fight. In the beginning of our relationship I avoided fighting because I thought that it would lead to a breakup which is not optimal in my mind as that would mean having to train a new partner. Keith would say that the opposite holds more truth but I could argue that my training is yet to be completed. There he would undoubtedly agree (reference this morning's interaction when I was told once again, for the trillionth time, that there was mud everywhere from the dogs' feet). Over time we have learned to fight and that has lead to very constructive communication except when we sell a house. And that happens often enough because Keith gets bored and change is fun. Changing house is one of the most stressful times because we don't seem to convey our messages appropriately and so there is a lot of scorpion snide remarking and sagittarian cloud-living. This time seems to have been worse than any others because suddenly I was faced with a move out of Toronto and I didn't like it. I love Toronto, my soul resonates with the city; I have felt a belonging here since the day I first arrived and I'm not talking about the day I emigrated, I am talking about December 1991. 

I couldn't decide if I wanted to move to the County, I was drawn to its beauty and the idea of the idyllic life and yet tied to the city. That lack of ability to make a decision caused more friction. We spent a few more weekends driving back and forth looking at homes. I remember when I started telling people that we were moving to Canada, the first thing they would say was "but what about the weather?". Similarly when I told people about a possible move to the County I would be told "oh, you will be so lonely, wait till winter (the weather is very important in Canada)" and it hit me that people are often very quick to warn you, from their perspective, about the mistakes you are about to make instead of supporting you in a decision irrespective that it may or may not be the best one. I realise that people want the best for us, and it's not that I didn't feel supported, and that our friend's were sad that we would be far away, but sometimes the wishes seemed to be accompanied by a caveat. 

I always tell my friends that I would support any decision even those that I didn't necessarily agree with because I truly understand that how their decisions are not mine and so who am I to not be supportive? I can say without a shadow of a doubt that even with the warnings, I felt the support. I am surrounded by incredible friends. Keith was getting more and more frustrated with me, and I know that he really wanted to try this out, and finally I sat down and made a list of pro's and con's and decided that we would make the move. The pro's list was long, the con's short and I thought to myself that this may just be the closest I would ever get to that coffee shop or dive instructor gig in Thailand. We agreed that the worst that could happen would be a "shit, let's move back". And knowing that we've taken bigger risks than this, and are lucky enough to do it, we did. And people were saying "you're living the dream". Within 24 hours of that decision the deal was done.

We move to the County in August. We were supposed to send the dogs to the kennels and spend a night at a hotel nearby but Tyson developed an eye infection and I wanted to keep a (healthy) eye on him so Keith stayed at the hotel and the dogs and I spent the night in an empty house on the floor. The house is beautiful, it's no bigger or smaller than any home we've lived in but the property is huge. We have rolling green lawn, a vegetable garden and we walk right down to the water that is often more ocean-like than the fresh water lake it is. The water is like glass in the mornings, crystal clear and flat and waves crash against the rocks during a storm. Tyson and Troy spend their hours wandering around a fence-less property, rolling and running but always staying within the invisible boundary. Friends come and go, instead of a lunch here or a dinner there we have sleepovers, and dogs visit too. The internet sucks. I will say no more on this issue.

In the few months since we moved I have hated living here and I have loved living here. "Things I don't like about living in the County":
- the need to drive anywhere to get anything,
- driving to the gym,
- internet (or lack thereof - I lied about saying no more),
- not being able to wander down the street,
- (the lack of) people.

A huge part of my life is still in Toronto; work, doctors, dentist, friends, restaurants and these all keep me going back and forth. A huge part of my life is in the County; Keith, Tyson and Troy.

I have learned that the grass is not greener on the other side. I have learned that the grass was green in Toronto. I have learned that only a select few of us will ever become successful at "the dream" but that we will always continue to dream. I've learned that pro's and con's lists are theoretical until experienced for real.

Today I realised that I was actually pretty happy here. And I realised that I was happy because the house is full of people. I went to the gym, got myself a coffee and came home to contractors doing work. They are a sociable, fun bunch of guys. They sing (badly) to the radio, they accept Tyson's supervisory activities, they stop to chat and they fill the house and our space. It is this that makes the difference. It is this that makes my day. I miss living in Toronto. I miss living in Cabbagetown. But if I had never left South Africa I would not have had Cabbagetown in Toronto. And if we had not moved to the County I would not have known how amazing that is. In 8 short years I have lived on 4 different streets and in two different cities. I have met people and made friends. I have experienced more than I could have, had we have stayed in one spot. There are never regrets; I know I will always look back and enjoy the memories of each experience.

I don't know if we will stay or not. I don't think it really matters. My #fwp (first world problems) may seem dire to me, but I know that as long as I am surrounded by people I will be OK. And I know for sure that I am surrounded by incredible people. I know that as long as Keith, Tyson and Troy are nearby we will always be OK.

And I know that one day I will look back and know for sure that I did live the dream.

42.3

The day I watched my father die

Often when I log on to Facebook I get the "Lawrence, we care about you and the memories you share here. We thought you'd like to look back on this post from 4 years ago." message. Generally it's something that makes me smile and thankfully not some rant about how awful my life is. It could be worse, it could be one of these 21 Annoying Facebook Status Updates that Need to STOP.  

We didn't have Facebook 30 years ago, we didn't have cell phones and if I remember correctly we had only recently started using ATM cards in South Africa. I was insanely jealous of my friends Janine, Elian and Mandy who had a cordless phone like the one they had on Dallas. Our phone numbers consisted of 4 to 6 digits. We lived in a small town in the Far Northern Transvaal in South Africa, called Pietersburg. My family had moved there from Johannesburg; my mother worked at the local hospital which in those days had a "white side" and a "black side" and my dad was involved in various businesses. I don't think that we had much money but we had a big house with a garden, pool and tree house. The tree house was a wooden floor at the top of a ladder in a tree. There were no walls. We routinely climbed up there dragging blankets, food, books and anything else our hands could carry and often left everything there. My parents would likely be accused of child endangerment in today's world and we would probably be discussed on HLN's Nancy Grace or dissected by Dr. Drew. We had a miniature Poodle named Snoopy and a Boxer, of course, and I rode my bike around most afternoons, went on treasure hunts designed by Janine's mom and walked to school and back. Our parents were at work while we roamed around freely and without any worries. 

The 1st of December 1985 fell on a Sunday, 2 days after my 12th birthday. My sister was 10 years old. My mom was 39, my dad was 54. It was summer and we had one week left at school; in fact I think I was going in to my last year at Primary school. My mother was on call and had to stay at home, close to a telephone so my dad took my sister and me to the grocery store to buy chips (crisps) to take to school that week for the end of the year parties. We drove to Checkers, parked and went inside. True to my nature (Keith will attest to this) I ran ahead and off down one of the aisles. I remember being one aisle over from my father and wanting to ask or tell him something and so I ran over to where he was, next to the flour, and as I approached him I watched him fall to the side and then to the ground. His face had a funny gray/bluish tinge to it and I started screaming. A lady ran over and started doing something to him that I didn't recognise at that time as CPR. Pietersburg was a relatively small town so it was no coincidence that someone there knew us, and my sister and I were quickly taken away by Aunty Bessie. I remember walking out of the store and noticing someone that I knew from school laughing at me because I was screaming and crying so hysterically. We were driven home; there was no option to quickly call my mom on her cellphone, and I ran up the driveway shouting to my mom that my dad had fallen down. 

A few hours later my mom came home with the news that my dad had died. I was later sitting in a chair in the living room and someone was looking at me sorrowfully, shaking her head, telling me that I had to now be the man of the family. People started arriving, food appeared and my sister and I played outside with our friends oblivious to the 360 degree change that had just hit our lives. A few days later Bessie and her husband drove us to Johannesburg to bury my father. My mother claims that he had some kind of premonition a few months earlier when he had woken up in the middle of the night and made my mother promise him that if anything happened she would bury him in Johannesburg. My sister and I didn't go to his funeral; we were apparently too young and so we stayed at home with my Grandmother. More people, more food and then back to Pietersburg. 

I often tell people that I have little to no memories of my childhood which is in stark contrast to those friends who can remember doing something at 3 years old. My mind is blank, what I see are photographs in albums or picture made up from stories that my mother has told me. Life went on after my father died, we went back to school and my mother sometimes went to work. Her major depressions started around then, or at least that's when I noticed them. I remember her crying one night when I mistakenly set the table for four instead of three. For some reason my sister and I were sent to a therapist and I remember lying in his chair, listening to him speak and feeling an intense floating sensation. Today I assume that he was putting me into some state of suggested relaxation and I suspect that in an attempt to help me deal with the horror of watching my father die in front of me in a grocery store he somehow wiped away my memories. It's the only explanation other than me doing it to myself as a coping mechanism or result of the experience. I have since undergone hypnotherapy to try and find those memories but they aren't there. And that's OK. But my life is shaped by everything that happened after my father died, because I know no life before. 

I have suffered great losses in my life, certainly no more or less than many people, but it is these that have shaped in a significant (and positive) way who I am as a person today. I am by no means the only one. Anderson Cooper said "I think that anytime you experience traumatic loss early on it changes who you are and drastically affects your view of the world". You can read about it here.

@andersoncooper gr8 show re girls abandoned. Yr comment on being defined by loss resonated - I lost my father & sister too at a young age.

— Lawrence Reiter (@LawrenceReiter) September 18, 2011

While I may not have the memories, I have some stories but it's taken me to my forties to understand the importance of knowing where I come from. My father was born in Romania, fought in the Israeli 6-Day war, lived in Spain, married in Rhodesia, lost a spouse and a child during childbirth and re-married (my mom) in South Africa. The younger me didn't take the time to ask questions and when I think to some stories my mother has told me I realise that they are often frightfully fabricated. My mother is a story-teller, my previous posts have alluded to her manic and depressive episodes, and she pretty much alienated whatever family we had. Despite all that I remember everyone on her side, I know their story, I picture their faces. My father's sister lives in Israel where there exists a huge family of children, grandchildren, cousins and friends of whom I know none. This is partly due to my mother and partly due to my younger self that didn't think it important to keep the connection. Till now. Suddenly I want to know about my father, I want to know what he was like, what he liked and hated, where he went to school and who his friends were. A few months ago I googled his name for the fun of it and happened across a family tree that included me! It was being maintained by my family in Israel and I made some updates and reached out to my father's sister. I received an incredible response not only from her, but from a cousin and a niece that resulted in trading emails and photos and a promise to visit Israel. I am planning to go next year. 

30 long and very quick years have passed. Today I honour the man that I know I resemble, who I hope I am somewhat like, who I wish I could have known, who I accept could not be here, who I plan to learn more about, who is remembered. 

42.2

Untitled

I realized today that I am the age my father was when I was born. Tomorrow is 30 years since my father died. Today is the first day of my year-long blog. Trump is blabbering away on TV about something; he started off with a meager loan of $1mil from his father.  We are bound by time and measurement. 

I'd like my blog to become something of a diary but in order for this to happen I will need to write with a certain degree of truth and that is not always practical in a public setting. When I was growing up people would keep secret diaries that were locked away in a box or under the bed. My sister kept one that I would break into every now and then and read about her elaborate plots to kill me. My sister suffered from no lack of imagination but her private thoughts were just that. Some diaries have been published (remember Adrian Mole and Spud?) and some blogs have become diaries. My friend Jodi kept diaries and also thousands of photographs that were in albums, labelled and cataloged and cross-referenced to their negatives. They were a diary too.

In a way I want you to become familiar with the people in my life, like characters in a novel or a movie. Yet at the same time there is no reason for you to know my private thoughts and stretches of imagination. And should I be ranting about the client that annoys me or the colleague that my colleagues hate or the friend that lies or the neighbour who doesn't pick up his dogs shit? (disclaimer: only some of these examples are real). I don't want to only write the good flowery stuff because Facebook does a pretty decent job of making my life appear to be way more glamorous than it is (my life is pretty good; I just don't post about annoying clients, colleagues that hate colleagues or non-picking-up-dog-shit-neighbours). 

Consider this the ramblings of someone attempting to set the scene. Luckily I only have a few followers so slim chance of losing interest; hang around though. I'm sure I'll come up with something interesting.

42.1

Happy Birthday to me

It is the eve of my 42nd birthday and more than a year since I last posted on my blog. When I started this blog I intended it to be a way to record my emigration experience and for that purpose it served me well. I never wanted to be that person who felt the need to post something every day for the sake of writing and so my subsequent posts appeared only when I felt that I had something relevant to say that was worth (in my mind) reading.

Or remembering.

We live in an online world; Keith was browsing through YouTube today looking at videos of some revolution and marveled at how much there is out there. Often I sit staring at my computer thinking of a something to add to the www and draw a blank, because there is so much out there, and also so little.

A lot has changed this year but it's been a great year and every now and then I remember something I forgot. So I've decided that this year I'll join the community of over-sharers and (attempt to) write something every day until the eve of my 43rd. Maybe this will be my own personal challenge and maybe this in itself will challenge me.

And maybe I will fulfill my wish so often described in my previous posts; to be remembered.

More to come. I hope.

Being one dimensional amidst an existential crisis

Whether I can truly put into words what I want to say remains to be seen (or read). I have written before about the mind-fuck that I call Surfing the Timeline and my slight obsession with the past, present and future from the perspective that I am now existing where an entirely different world was, yet on the same soil, and no doubt where another will be. 

I think about these things constantly, and more so when I am questioning where I am, and where I want to be. Right now I am wondering what the next step is, feeling pretty unfulfilled and unchallenged in my routine day-to-day, totally fulfilled in my social day-to-day and with the knowledge that it could change in a heartbeat as it has so many times before. 

Social media binds us. We criticize it and yet can't stay away from it. We wonder to ourselves how we existed without the ability to immediately contact anyone and yet we did. As did our parents who likely looked at us rushing to the telephone straight after school to call the friends we had just spent the day with, wondering how they coped with even less ability to connect. We feel a need to share information immediately and often things that are quite trivial. We "check in" EVERYWHERE, we upload pictures of EVERYTHING, we HASH-FUCKING-TAG without any thought as to why #'s were created in the first place. We blog.....thinking that the world truly is interested in what we have to say. We read articles about how one-dimensional this all is, that it creates depression and is an indication of how lonely people are, how self-centred we have become, and how the world we see online is so very far from the one we live in. 

But what if we just forgot about all of that for one moment? What if we let the self-indulgence be that, the instant gratification be instant. What if the "like"s of the instant uploads aren't that different to the joy we felt when we went to collect our spool of photos that took 1-hour to be developed? 

Imagine if we could surf someones timeline, who lived 500 years ago, and see what they posted? What a gift it may be to get an insight into their life. I can't do it for my dad, or anyone before him. I sure would like to. I can't do it for my sister, but given the notion that once it's out there, it's out there means that in 500 years someone may just surf mine. And they may get a glimpse into my one-dimensional (and pretty kinda happy) life. And because I won't have children, or grandchildren or great-grandchildren I may just be remembered. I often take my dogs through the cemetery and there are really old tombstones, some with the writing so weathered that you have no idea who they belong to. I read the names and the dates, and calculate how old they were in my head, and I wonder what their life was like; whether someone thinks about them today. Imagine if I could surf their timeline.