Contact Treena
Contact Treena
love
Tag:

love

Day in the Life

The Night is Still Young

by treenaorchard

Sixty minutes before my date is set to arrive and I begin doing crunches on the pink area rug in my office. Jhona brings his ball upstairs and plunks it down a few feet away from me. He stares with huge eyes in the dark hallway. I’m feeling calm and a little uncertain as I prepare for the night ahead. I’m listening to music the new man has recommended, Colter Wall. 

I love the dark country jangle and boot stomping sounds that float out of my phone. The singer tells of a Devil who wears a suit and tie and how he saw him on the highway last July. I think of the time my mom told me that she saw the Devil. Hers also wore a suit, grey in color, and he hissed at her from a windowsill. It was when she was a lot younger and given what she’s been through, I believe her. 

There’s so much out there.

As the soulful music twangs away, my fingers trace the contours of my left foot. I throw Jhona’s ball over the banister and hear him scramble on the hardwood floors. The furnace hums on and softly fills the air with warmth. I always forget about my feet. The skin glistens when I apply the body balm, greedily absorbing the oil. This feels like an act of kindness.

The night feels right, it’s slow and safe.

It’s early November and pitch-black by 5pm. Whatever time it is, it always feels later. I’m in this small room wondering what will happen. I do a few more crunches and feel my shaved body bits rub up against the unshaved, naturally soft parts. I wonder what it’s like for these two parts of me to meet. Do they already know each other? 

Given the teeth-clenching, heart-deflating frustrations I’ve encountered over the past few months, I’ve learned to not get too excited about a date. Sometimes this makes me sad, and I wonder if good love or the kind of things I want from a man will ever come to me. I remain curious though. Will he smile wide at me from across the table and hang on my everything? Maybe he won’t be enthralled. 

Will I rush home after dinner to let him touch me? Will he discover the stuffed animal lodged between my pillows? Sometimes I take it out before a date so that if the sheets do get pulled back and my white buffalo stuffie is discovered, they won’t think I’m weird for sleeping with a toy. I leave the faux animal tucked into its spot, like a secret for me to ponder.

Colter sings: 

Well, who will bring back my Johnny Boy’s bones
To lay ‘neath the trees of his Tennessee home
A box, a box made of sturdy white oak
With his arms folded up and his blue eyes all closed

The South is so mournful, but we never really bury it.

It keeps getting resurrected through song, food, politics, ghosts, and tourism. I imagine the singer, a young Prairie man of just 26 years, laying down this track in a Nashville studio. A young man in a cowboy hat, with pocketfulls of pain that line each growly note. I add one of the new songs to my PLAY playlist.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Day in the Life

Why am I obsessed with Big Little Lies?

by treenaorchard
Big Little Lies California setting

I have asked my mom to get me the book Big Little Lies, by Australian author Liane Moriarty, for my birthday. In our family birthday lists are still requested and happily furnished, even on the cusp of my 48th year. Last night I finished watching the two-season series for the second time in as many months. I have also listened to the Soundtrack repeatedly and plan to watch the series again.

I have never been one for multiple reads or watches, with the exception of The Lord of The Rings. I’m not really a fantasy person, in a literary sense at least(wink), and do not plan to crack open a volume of Harry Potter. GASP. So, why did I watch Gandalf and my precious almost to the point of ad nauseam? Let’s just say the escape and number of viewing hours offered by that series saw me through a difficult time in my life, many shires ago. The Twin Towers is my favourite of the three films in case anyone is interested!

Back to the series spawned from Moriarty’s best selling 2014 novel, which is sometimes referred to as “chick lit.” Although that’s a rather disparaging term, it doesn’t detract from the remarkable success of the series, which garnered countless Emmy’s, several Golden Globes, and at its height during the final episode of Season 2 had two million viewers.

Talks of a third season are underway with Moriarty again taking the lead on writing the screenplay. I’m clearly not alone in loving this show, but where does the obsession come from?

The series is beautifully shot and features leagues of natural west coast light. And, let’s face it, against the setting of Monterey most things are going to look dreamy and modern in a way only California can deliver. Multiple editors, a largely female crew, and its focus on the lives of five women lend itself to a production that is told through a uniquely female lens. This is part of the draw for me and I suppose somewhere inside me there is a longing to escape into a world that seems nothing like my own- that’s entertainment.

The series opens with scary, powerful shots of the ocean crashing against the shores while Michael Kiwanuka’s hypnotic song “Cold Little Heart” plays. This chaotic energy is echoed in the lives of the main characters who relentlessly pursue all matter of things beyond their grasp. The beautiful music and symphony of layered watery blue provide a perfect foil for the jittery, pathetic characters that glide across the screen. As they each pass over the Bixby Bridge wearing sunglasses, except for “Jane”, I wait for their drama to spill over into my rather tepid pandemic life, night after night.

Their firm legs, their sculpted lives
The hollowness of luxury and their brokenness
Yet their beauty is so alluring…

Initially, the catfights and petty bitching over coffees or wine seem laughable; the excessive woes of women whose social worlds are very Little. Who would want to be these unhappy people who are bound together by, as Nicole Kidman’s character says, nothing more than a Lie?

In fact, many lies litter their lives, including Big ones related to murder, fear, and survival. Their daily performances of motherhood and womanhood are exhausting and the often limp sex they have with husbands they don’t love is cringey.

I’m enthralled with the sinewy chord that runs through their blonde and black locks, pulls at their designer dresses, and lurks in the sunlight streaming through windowed homes. I recognize it as the noose of false desire and unrequitedness, which threads its way into their weakly tethered pact. Maintaining friendships can be hard and the ones I have with women have gotten increasingly difficult the older we get. As our lives lay a little flatter and our careers round out, reflections about who we were before we got here and how we compare to those we know seem to naturally surface. It can feel sharp and unsteady when they do, urging us to look inside ourselves, which is hard and can reveal things we don’t want to know.

“The Monterey Five” don’t look like me or anyone who I am close with, but they don’t have to when the universal issues of connection, fear, and ambition are on the table. Seeing how other women, even fictious characters, engage with and often fail in some of the same struggles I am waging is comforting. I also like the show’s cutting commentary on the dangers of avarice which, as “The Pardoner” in Geoffrey Chaucer’s 14th century Middle-English blockbuster The Canterbury Tales reminds us, is the root of all evil.

Although I don’t think Liane Moriarty was inspired by Chaucer, her story of domestic violence set against a backdrop of beautiful, disappointed women clutching at the things we are told to aspire to in order to be successful is a modern cautionary tale.

These five women tell us is that we are all flawed, through our own making and the cultural contexts that shape how we are socialized. They also tell us that wealth doesn’t mean shit if the identity you cultivate for yourself is built upon the admiration of others, generic consumerism, and a makeshift sense of self.

This is why I am obsessed with Big Little Lies. It reminds me to be more, first and foremost to myself and to spend time on becoming a person I can love. These are good lessons for all of us, to be someone you would want as a friend, a mother, a partner, or a guide through the uneven tapestry of life. Perhaps most of all, it reminds us to have the courage to tell the truths that matter.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Sex and Dating

In case you missed it

by treenaorchard

We all have our morning routines, right? Mine usually begins with pretending to be asleep while Elliott, my lovable and domineering orange Tabby cat, patrols the parameters of my bed. I lay motionless while she does her rounds and then hops on the bed, heading straight for my face.

There are incredibly urgent things that happen in her feline world that I have no clue about, things that she must inform me of loudly and very persistently.

After temporarily placating her with rhetorical questions like, “Who’s dis?” and “Is this Elliott?”, I reach for my phone. In the darkness that lasts ever-longer during this season I scroll through my platforms and news headlines. I kinda hate that I look at my phone so much. I tell myself that I do this so that I can actually just start my workday when I go downstairs, no surprizes. Maybe that’s true and I’m finally shedding my luddite skin or maybe I’m just addicted like everyone else.

While scrolling through my newsfeed this morning I saw something that surprized me and I thought it was a technical glitch, so I refreshed the feed. There it was again, sandwiched between a story about the latest Canadian city to be declared a “red” Covid zone (Ottawa) and something about a blonde-haired Miley Cyrus. What am I talking about? My first Bumble article, “Love, Lust, and Digital Dating”, which was published fifteen months ago!

There is a synchronicity to the reappearance of this story because just last week I woke up to a barrage of lengthy comments on each Bumble story I’ve posted on my Blog. They were from a man who enjoys my blog and loves to post comments, as he said:

“It’s genuinely cool of you to be so vulnerable and to share this. I find your blog really fascinating despite my criticisms, and I enjoy posting comments.”

(Before anyone worries about the ethical implications of using a quote from him, he gave me permission to do so before I even asked.)

I appreciate his perspectives about Bumble and how men inhabit digital dating platforms. With respect to the tendency for many men to post curiously unflattering or zany profile pictures, he noted that men don’t know what I/we/women will find attractive =  hence the funny, ‘being myself’ look. I get that. I’m not sure if this is still a trend on Bumble because I haven’t used it in over two years. He also expressed disdain for his fellow guys who take the incel-troll approach to anything feminist, which he aptly summed up by saying: “assholes gonna asshole.”

As insightful as his input was, it wasn’t without mansplaining, which he apologized for and acknowledged: “ Sorry for the mansplainin’, just giving my 2 cents!”

But there’s one comment that still stumps me and it’s one that I saw repeatedly in the initial wave of angry male uproar about my article, which has to do with my assessment of my Bumble performance. I was very open with my disappointment about meeting only ten guys in five months. I’m a sexual woman who wants to meet and greet dudes and I wanted more, plain and simple.

Yet this is interpreted by most men, including my cool commentator, as evidence of my cluelessness about men’s dating experiences. I’m also often told that because my results surpassed those of men, I should be happy with my ten guys. BUT I’M NOT WRITING ABOUT MEN’S EXPERIENCES, I’M WRITING ABOUT MINE. Why on earth would I interpret my success through the male experience? I care how men date and their Bumble results, but that’s not the focus of the article. Yes, I mention men but they are not my golden standard or the measure by which my experiences need to be interpreted, compared, or validated. Am I right?

Bumble continues to shatter the glass ceiling in all sorts of ways, like the recent announcement that the company can now claim it has equal male-to-female representation across its C-suite, which is, sadly, still unusual for a company of its size. In case you’re unfamiliar with the term C-Suite, which I was until 10 minutes ago, it refers to the executive-level managers within a company, folks like the chief executive officer (CEO), chief financial officer (CFO), chief operating officer (COO), and chief information officer (CIO).

The bees remain busy and that includes the Queen, who feels sated with sweet inspiration to keep the dream alive of getting my Bumble memoir picked up by an agent/publisher. It’s one of the key activities I’ve outlined in my sabbatical application, which is set to begin next July. Bzzzz.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Sex and Dating

Palm

by treenaorchard
A human palm - where human connection can begin and end

Love travels a sticky flow of energies that ignite, excite, and sometimes cool. The meaningful relationship I Tindered my way into a year ago has come to a close. My heart is tender but ok. This relationship taught me a lot and was by far my most healthy, which I’m proud of and grateful for. Alongside tears and painful discussion there are words, always words. Part salve and part inside teacher, they lay like grey lace over the screen.

***

I take a picture of Elliott crouching in the closet beside the bag that holds his things. Toothbrush, lounge pants, 4 pairs of socks, 3 t-shirts, the slippers I bought. An inventory of disappointment. She takes refuge from the sad uncertainty that dribbles from my almost closed heart. The theme song from Big Little Lies is on repeat and playing loud. Repeat. Repeat.

I made this decision several weeks ago, when I put his things in the bag for the first time. They waited in the darkened closet, like me, for word from the reluctant man.

Big talk, sex, and more Netflix brought us to the same place. No lies, just words and the stated wants of people trying to reach one another from opposite sides of life’s room.

I retreat into Florence Welch, who wrote a square book the colour of wine that beats with brilliance. On one black page sits a golden hand with a bright, blinking eye staring back at me.  I think of the tedious, ferocious, constant care that love demands, that we demand as we labour to craft ourselves and the things we are told to need and hold up like the biggest fucking accomplishment. RELATIONSHIPS.

Our hearts are like beaver dams
Like nests that we plan and rebuild
While the seasons change

Are they our forever home?

Lovers are branches, shiny plastic, fear
With them we file our teeth and hope for the best
While traveling the length of love’s river

That winds around each finger, each mouth
Each palm
Its final resting place

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Culture and People

We love you Michelle, but dating is more than monogamy & marriage

by treenaorchard
Tinder tattoos representing the opportunities for lust, love and romance with the dating app
Twin flames

It feels sacrilegious to disagree with the former First Lady, but her recent comments about Tinder demand some teatime. On the September 6th episode of The Michelle Obama Podcast with guest Conan O’Brien, she said: “you can’t Tinder your way into a long-term relationship.” The dating app dis prompted hundreds of people to post their Tinder success stories on social media, and Michelle’s statement was labelled “Boomer” at best and judgy at worst.

Having found many versions of dating happiness on Tinder, I was right there with the dissed. How could she say that?

Long-term Tinder relationships and marriages happen all the time, so do “Tinder children”. Along with being a brilliant graduate from Harvard and Princeton, Michelle Obama has two daughters. She must be aware of current dating realities, which make her out-of-touch comments all the more curious.

Dating advice that misses the mark

Before delivering her Tinder teardown, she suggested that couples should date with honesty, exclusivity, and seriousness. Sounds fun, right?  Michelle also said that selecting the “right” partner and hard work are the keys to achieving a committed relationship and marriage.

In her opinion, none of this can happen on digital platforms. But she doesn’t know much about what happens on dating apps, including the work it involves. You want to talk about relationship perseverance and resilience, try using Tinder for a few days- the swiping fatigue alone!

What people actually do on dating apps

Michelle suggests that dating apps are exclusively about hooking up, which she views as meaningless. Data collected from Tinder indicate that hooking up is a primary goal for some, but long-term relationships were by far the most-elected choice when users were asked what they were looking for. And, sure, some hookups can be less than satisfying, but they can also provide fun opportunities to learn about sex and intimacy.

I pick you…A team of one?

Another topic Michelle discussed is how to pick your person. Using a basketball analogy, she said it’s best to choose a partner in the same way that a winning team is selected. Anyone who “just dribbles” or only does one position (pun intended) need not apply. Her advice is to seek or wait for someone who can do everything. That’s a tall pick and roll, if you ask me.

Also, the idea of finding “the one” is a myth. Reinforcing it as the ideal can put a tremendous amount of pressure on people as they date, which is already tough enough! It can also make folks stay in unhappy relationships because they think they’ve met their love quota.

More than monogamy

Based on her advice, Michelle Obama seems to think that we all want monogamous relationships and to be married. But we don’t, as reflected in reduced marriage rates and shifting divorce numbers over the past few decades.

Indeed, non-monogamy seems to be where it’s at and not just for Gen Z or the next cohort in line. People of all ages belong to an array of inclusive sexual categories and relationship types. Multiplicity and diversity are the driving forces in today’s love economy, which boasts over 1, 500 unique dating apps.

Where is Michelle coming from?

Michelle’s podcast comments do not reflect her knowledge of dating app trends. They stem from how she thinks people should date and her own romantic journey. The rather conservative advice surprised me because it doesn’t sound like the fem-forward. empowerment perspective we’re used to from the former First Lady.

Her biased dating advice begs the question: Does Michelle’s advocacy end at the 15-foot foul line of sexuality?

Possibly. It’s also worth noting that people love the idea of marriage, even though we often fail at it. Laurie Essig writes in her 2019 book Love, Inc. that the romance industry rides the wave of cultural precarity. The worse things get in the world around us, the more we turn to romance as way to generate hope.

Maybe our precarious times are unduly influencing Michelle Obama’s ideas about Tinder. Whatever the reason for her dated dating insights, they reinforce the simplistic idea that dating apps are only about hookups. Her comments also give the impression that those of us who use dating apps are dating “wrong.”

Call to action

Living through a pandemic makes us question and rethink a lot of things, including the value of love and how we find it. As problematic as her rose-coloured comments are, they’re useful for us to reflect upon as we venture into our uncertain post-pandemic era.

We need one another and want more than Michelle might want to admit. But we don’t need to dilute our diversity to feel stable in the world. We can do that by honouring our desires and one another in our intimate pursuits.

Onward Tinder soldiers!

 

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Day in the Life

Emerald

by treenaorchard
Emerald gemstone, beautiful and green with black flecks

We are drawn to the things we need, so goes the gemstone lore. If courage and protection are required, reach for tiger’s eye. Tapping into calming feminine energies that also ignite your intuition can be accomplished with the blue marble beauty of rainbow moonstone. Emerald recently spoke to me from inside a homespun store full of dried herbs, astrological oils, jewellery, and occult books. I am with one of my sisters, her two boys, and the man who is driving us across the country to be with my family. As he and the owner talk about voodoo and movies, I listen to their male dialogue. 

Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to be a man, to have lumps of flesh hanging outside the body. What do these bits feel like to them?

They seem connected to the self and an array of other spaces both empty in the case of just hanging there and fleshly in the case of self-love and other people’s bodies; always in and always out. The owner writes numbers in the little receipt book and repeatedly stops before the thick double line at the end of the page where the sum total plus HST will appear.

I peek at my sister through the storefront window to share an exaggerated, ‘They’re STILL at it’ look, but she’s busy with the boys who are growing bored. Instead of asking them to wrap it up, I edge closer to the counter and take out my debit card while throwing a smiling glance at my guy. He gets the hint and begins walking to the exit, still discussing movies. The transaction is completed and I leave with my emerald and other treasures and he with a sodalite, one of the stones of awakening.

The dusky green gem holds secrets, all gemstones do. Emerald is a stone of inspiration as well as patience that enhances unity, clairvoyance, and helps bring to the surface that which is unconsciously known. These qualities were essential during our long journey through the prairies, the Canadian shield, and the territory between us. They will continue to shape our emotional destiny and the depths to which we travel in our love and our loyalty to one another and ourselves. 

Long live the summer road trip.
0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Sex and Dating

Why should I perform your erotic capital?

by treenaorchard
Woman at work

The responses to my public writings about dating have been very varied. I’ve had lovely emails, article comments, and DMs from women and men who support and relate to my experiences about sexuality, gender and digital life more broadly. The trolls, incels, and conservatives who ‘believe in equal rights, just not feminism’ have also crawled out of their lairs to mansplain and misogynize.

Some examples of my non-fan mail, which I have shortened for posterity but kept all original, rather poor grammar intact (the “an” though):

“Men quit. Western women are free to go girl! Really, go. Away.”

“I’m not sure you have learned the most fundamental lesson from using the bumble app: It is hard to approach a member of the opposite sex knowing that most times you will be rejected for reasons not readily apparent…Perhaps we live in a matriarchal society, an hypothesis I suspect you are not willing to entertain under any circumstances.”

“I believe in real equality and wish sexual harassment and all the other related crimes don’t exist. But I can’t get behind this whole man-hating, victim playing movement…I would not hire a feminist that’s for sure. Because the moment I promote a male instead of her, she will play that card, instead of taking responsibility for her shortcomings and put in the work to earn it.”

I have responded to more than a handful of these visionary male commentators. DON’T READ THE COMMENTS—I know, but sometimes I can’t help it! When I respond, some guys backtrack in cowardly silence, while others retort with more lame bullshit. About half of those who reply to my replies come back with pleasantly insightful clarifications of their initial position or just say, basically, thank you.

Given what I have learned about the men who read my work, I didn’t think their messages would continue to bug me. Yet, a seemingly ‘innocent’ one I received two days ago has really irked me. FYI: we didn’t “meet” anywhere and we were among 45 participants in an Equity, Diversity & Inclusion webinar.

Hello Dr. Orchard,

I had the privilege of meeting you in today’s meeting on gender equality, etc. It’s seven months that I am in Canada and I have not been able to find a partner. Reading your research area and expertise, I was wondering if you could help me familiarize myself with the dating culture here and maybe introduce me to any dating platform you deem functional/legitimate or any other means you think works. I hope you do not find this email awkward.

My response to this oh-so-awkward email included the following:

Hello X,

The dating culture in London is complex, fun, and takes time to learn about. Looking for a partner is a very specific aim, whereas dating is more open-ended and what I would recommend when using dating apps or online sites that are more causal in nature- like Tinder, OKCupid, Bumble, Plenty of Fish, and so on.  I suggest using broad parameters regarding the distance you will travel (taking Covid parameters into consideration) and the age range of your prospective dates. Use current photos ONLY and mix it up to ensure you are presenting the kind of person you are seeking, whatever that may be (i.e., active, family-oriented, hard- working, cultured, travelled, etc). Include an interesting, original profile that doesn’t just list what you “want” but who you are as a person. 

Best of luck

🙂 Treena

Why has this message gotten under my skin? Because it makes me feel like a service provider. I feel like a purveyor of free knowledge and resources to a male stranger who has not demonstrated what he has done to find anyone. It feels like lazy -and yes, awkward- passive consumption of the dating/erotic capital that I earned the hard way by living it, writing it and incorporating it into my professional life.

Erotic capital is a term that includes experiences related to the sex industry, aesthetics, caregiving, and different pleasure economies (i.e., sex toys, BDSM, travel, leisure, dating). British Sociologist Catherine Hakim (2010) argues that erotic capital is something women participate in more significantly than men (for all sorts of reasons, among them gender inequity), which often leads to its denial in patriarchal culture. This is reflected in the non-fan mail I received, where my dating experiences are decried as ridiculous because I am a feminist and because they violate what men think my dating life and my ideas about my dating life should look like.

[insert history geek] Over 150 years ago, Karl Marx (1867) distinguished between the capacity to do work (labour power) and the physical act of working (labour).  The lonely hearts club man in question has the capacity to engage in dating labour but is asking me to labour for him through the ‘gentle’ request for my expert knowledge.  You want to know the real pisser? Despite being fully cognizant of the inequitable whir of gender and labour all of this represents; I chose to respond and in such a nice way!

WTF?

Friends, this is a perfect example of three things: (1) The slippery slope of symbolic violence, whereby structurally-mediated inequities are misrecognized by marginalized community members as their fault; (2) My desire to see if/how he will respond for shits and for professional insights; and (3) I’m nice, too nice sometimes, which is closely linked with the small ‘p’ pity I felt for the guy.

Long story short: If you want to benefit from someone’s experience and expertise, acknowledge their time, energy, and include at the very least a thank you. An indication of how you will follow up with or perhaps reimburse them for their work is also a good thing to do. We see this increasingly on social media platforms, where folks who use sites like Instagram to generate income are requesting that users sign up for Patreon memberships. These memberships range from $5-$25/month and are a fabulous way to pay the people who provide information and entertainment to us on the regular.

None of us are doing it for free, nor should we.

Works Cited

Hakim, Catherine. “Erotic capital.” European sociological review 26.5 (2010): 499-518.

Marx, Karl (1867). Das Kapital: Kritik der politischen Oekonomie. Volume 1: Der Produktionsprozess des Kapitals (1 ed.). Hamburg: Verlag von Otto Meissner. 

2 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Day in the Life

My Mother’s Jacket

by treenaorchard
My mother's jacket

Moving is fundamentally about deciding which material items stay and which go. Some of my decisions in this regard echo Marie Kondo’s joyful approach to “tidying up” in the sense that I actively engage in a dialogue about what my stuff means to me. Such discussions do not involve the items easily tossed into the “donations”, “no”, or “garbage” piles. Nor are these materialistic monologues about the things I have decided I cannot live without, literally. These narratives circle around the objects, clothes, papers, jewellery, books, and decorative items I’m on the fence about.

The betwixt and between things are often from the past, which is not something fixed or over. The past is a moving force that constitutes the generative DNA of the now.

The more we learn about ourselves the more we can re-read yesterday’s cards and see new things in the tea leaves. That is one of the gifts of healing. We won’t always forgive everything that has happened, but we can see deeper into the eye of time – that wild friend of the cosmos. When we do this, we are dancing with the universe in ways that enable us to lead our destiny.  

For a long time, the many pains I suffered caused me to rewrite my past. There were no happy memories, no gentle loving moments, only sadness and shouldering other people’s issues. Even though it wasn’t true, part of me felt like I needed to do that to the past in order to own the present. Some of this is linked with our rather binary cellular design, which is intended to protect us from danger and encourage us to trust our instinct. Flight OR Fight. Yet, we live most of our waking time in the land of the grey, which makes complex experiences and our orientation to time itself hard to navigate sometimes.

While unpacking, I found a bunch of photos that spanned my most early days until the 1990s. I ran my fingers along the curved, thick edges and marvelled at the people, bad and cute haircuts, places, and feelings that surfaced as I went through the stack repeatedly. I was happy to not just see the smiling faces, including mine, but to register that that little girl was me. She is me. There was much good in those early days, which I was allowing to register. It was like taking that puzzle piece I had been carrying in my purse for years and attaching it to the increasingly complete jigsaw that is my life. It felt really good.

Yesterday, I unpacked the final two boxes. They were layered leftovers from other containers and I dreaded organizing them. It actually took very little time to “yay” or “nay” the contents, until a black dress coat interrupted the flow of decision-making.

My mom bought it many moons ago but can no longer wear it. Instead of giving it away, which she couldn’t bring herself to do because of how expensive it was (which she has told me countless times over the years), she insisted I have it. I have never worn it and even when she was a size ¾, she barely wore it.  

This coat is a symbol of my mother’s struggle for her own body, her own happiness, her own self. I don’t think she was happy when she bought it, but it was a mark of achievement, however fleeting. The past is a powerful place for her, full of both turmoil and freedom. She has done a tremendous amount of work to leave many of the harmful bits a little further away, which I’m thankful for.

I continue to carry her coat from place to place, like a hallowed inheritance. I’m still figuring out what it means to me, then and now.

2 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Day in the Life

The electric moon

by treenaorchard
Just call me Medusa

And then her head exploded
Into a slithering coil of eels
Charged hot and nervous
With mislaid energy
Amid the viral pause of the planet

The old order tumbles out of her body
In layers of opaque feelings
Plants push through
Buds taste the grey air
Yet she cannot grow

Why has she come undone?
No cough, no one in the hospital
Just the cherished cat and a man’s imprint
To moor the isolated woman
Amid the dull waning of the moon

Life inside the pandemic is shaky for me. Sometimes things go along in a good rhythm and then something pokes through the veil. Sometimes it’s a big thing like relationship challenges, but the uncertainty also comes in unexpected rushes that are hard to pinpoint. Whaaat iiis thiis? Why am I suddenly grumpy and walking around pinching the mostly imaginary fat on my stomach? Being unable to name my tangle of feelings is one of the most difficult things in all of this.

I often feel like a loser for struggling because I’m not “doing it” with children, full-time partners, a job, parental care, or working on the front line. I’m also not “taking advantage” of the many Covid research opportunities that have been springing into my inbox for weeks. I don’t want to, and I’m not steady enough. Also, I can’t even figure out Zoom, so how could I possibly conduct a visual-virtual-digital project? It’s just me and Elliott, basically. “Just me” seems like an awful lot these days.

I have been encouraged to take up baking, get outside, meditate and move on, all of which is good advice. I try most of these things and then return to the solitary apartment. Writing has been my best friend through this. I know it’s not all fabulous, but it doesn’t need to be to be my medicine. I hear: it’s ok, we love you, I miss you.  I have so many beautiful people in my life who care for me, but when the normal channels of care- the body- are effectively de-limbed, the love doesn’t come through the same. We need love to survive, obviously, and this experience is really showing us that at the cellular level, where many of the decisions are made.

The image of a box of eels spilling out from my head came to me as I began yesterday’s afternoon nap. When I returned to the words later, my friend and lady of rage and power- Medusa- came to mind. I didn’t change “eels” to “snakes” in the poem though because I like the uneasy zeal of energy that comes with the electric eel. They’re aquatic survivors, like Medusa actually. A Wikipedia search taught me that Medusa is one of three sisters borne from a pair of ancient marine deities (who happen to be siblings, but that’s how they rolled).

The word “Medusa” means “guardian and protectress”, which I love knowing. Like many, if not all women in history and real life, our ideas about Medusa are spun through the uneven spinning wheel of gender that weaves the universal tale of women as wicked and wonderful. What I ALSO found fascinating were ALL of the lifeforms that are named after this mythical goddess. These scientific names span from the early days of modern science (1759) to just a few years ago, a thrilling example of how myth is science and vice versa. We’re really just peasants under it all, which I always find so reassuring.   

I’ve included the names here and some of the links work, but not all. What’s the best thing about this list? Each lifeform named after Medusa live and die in the water, from coral and molluscs to snakes and stalked jellyfish. The one exception to the aquatic theme is Caput medusae– the appearance of distended and engorged superficial epigastric veins, which radiate from the umbilicus across the abdomen. The name caput medusae (Latin for “head of Medusa”) originates from the apparent similarity to Medusa‘s head, which had venomous snakes in place of hair.

Medusa is honoured in the following scientific names (SEE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medusa):

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Day in the Life

Dueling Narratives: Restitution, Chaos & …

by treenaorchard
The bell jars of communication amidst the complexity of COVID-19
“Hello!” from my jar of #socialdistancing to yours

My mind whirs less and attaches itself to familiar things. Work is finally possible, previously purchased food is eaten, and love still flows. This slowing down has been tempered, however, by another feeling that has surfaced: guilt. In unprecedented times, letting my guard down signals danger to the ancient flight-fight response system that streams through my receptors and synapses.

Is it unsafe to let up? What is the alternative – chaos and chattering fear on the viral precipice?

These questions arise as I try to normalize the abnormal. Two nights ago, I dreamed my apartment was on fire, which may symbolize transformation or my inability to fully comprehend what the pandemic is doing to me. It’s likely both because I am moving, happily, in two months and I am continuing to process my uneasy passage through Covid-19.

Making sense of all this is a staggering task. How do we do it?

Anthropologists and other researchers study how people interpret devastating, bizarre events, many of which are health-related. “Illness narratives” refers to the language, symbols and activities we adopt while seeking to understand and incorporate new ways of being into our lives. I have explored these things in my own work, which adds to the surrealness of dwelling under a planetary bell jar.

There are clinical narratives, the kind we tell our physicians, hospital administrators, pharmacists, and sometimes the Uber drivers who take us to the clinic. Often explanatory, they are told in ways that help the ones we tell determine the origin of the affliction:

“I first noticed the cough two days ago after visiting…” In these narratives, the medical ‘thing’ is positioned as a foreign guest- “the cough.”

We aren’t diseased. We have been visited by an unwanted invader who can’t be convinced to leave through the usual practices we adopt to strengthen and care for ourselves. Of course, there are those who milk the riches of illness by personalizing the ailment right out of the gates; it’s always been theirs for reasons feeble and deep.  

For most of us, the thing becomes “my” cough when it persists or becomes chronic. The transition from host to reluctant owner reveals how porous the boundaries are between inside and outside, between me and it. This flexibility enables us to shift our ideas about all the points of reference that make up our personal models of cause and effect. 

What is sickness if not a product of layered conditions? As they say in yoga class: everything you’ve ever done has brought you to this moment. It may not be comforting to think this way about a pandemic or a violent encounter, but it’s equally true.

Every step, breath, and nano decision we make paves the way for the next episode of emotions and events, our emotions and events. This doesn’t necessarily mean we are at fault, just that one thing leads to another.

Many have noted the swift onset of the coronavirus following the cataclysmic Australian fires. Surely, they’re connected given the floral and faunal devastation generated by climate change, which is linked with ongoing environmental pollution and the fast spin of post-industrial inequities.  Twisted biospheres are ripe with instability and sometimes, they are places of no return. In all of this, what kinds of stories do we tell ourselves?

In her dead-on chronicle of American life in the late 1960s and early 1970s, The White Album, Didion tells us that we spin these collections of words “in order to live.” Do we adopt restitution or “happy ending” narratives or those driven by chaos?

How we travel between these interpretive spaces?

Is there another narrative?

How are you making sense of it?

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Newer Posts
Older Posts

Dr. Treena Orchard

London, Ontario
Canada


torchar2@uwo.ca

Twitter Instagram Linkedin

Treena Orchard © 2023. All Rights Reserved.