Natasha Regehr
“Are you going to give me instructions?” I asked.
“Yes, of course! But the less you know, the better!” he replied.
I suppose there is some truth in that. It’s best not to think about all the things that could go wrong when you leap from an airplane with 4000 metres of nothingness between you and planet Earth.
Here are the things no one told me before I signed the 14 waivers required to make the jump:
Continue readingI love the idea of Places.
There are just so very many of them. Inner Places, outer Places, upper Places, lower Places. Even those of us who collect Places can never hope to find them all.
You think you know a Place, until you see it from the sky. And then you think you know the sky, until you’re falling through it. How the sky feels in an airplane, in a free-fall, in the cushion of a parachute; how the river feels beneath a bridge, beneath a raft, above your head; how a mountain feels, within, without, above, below; there are oh so many Places. Did you know that every Place has a verticality?
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Here we are in the Ides of March, and it’s the Ides of Ex-pat Angst.
It’s the season where many among us who live abroad have decided to move on, but now find the abyss of the unknown gaping before us.
It was not an abyss six months ago, when horizons were broad and sunny, possibilities were endless, and we were itching for a change. Whether it’s our insatiable wanderlust, or the inescapable pull homeward to our roots, or (in most cases), a combination of the two, we are people on the move, and it’s time to go.
Continue readingDo you like the idea of going to remote places? If not, you will find this piece quite funny. You will roll your eyes a lot, and wonder why I’m like this. You will also spend the next few minutes thanking the merciful heavens that you did not join me on this vacation.
If, however, you do like the idea of going to remote places, this post might be just what you have been waiting for. I, on your behalf, will visit a remote place, and tell you all about it. And then you will laugh, roll your eyes, and think twice about your own vacation preferences. Continue reading
I have a little book, in which I record the small happinesses of each day. It started a dozen years ago when my life was miserable, as a way of ending my days with thankfulness instead of bitterness. The misery has long since passed, but the habit of searching for and preserving morsels of goodness remains.
I write a few words in my little book each night, and publish them once a year. In so doing, I find a perspective that eludes me when I am absorbed in the minutia of my jam-packed life.
Here, then, is my 2018 Gratitude list. It’s been an epic year: Continue reading
A few weeks ago, I posted my very first French blog. I am re-posting it today, with two critical changes:
(with many thanks to my good friend in Vichy, for teaching me how to say “hockey” in French, and for letting me teach her a few Canadianisms as well)
For those of you who didn’t read the original story and have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s where it all began…
This summer I got to do a little creative writing in my French class! We were asked to write a funny story that exaggerates the stereotypes that foreigners have of our home countries. My Spanish, Mexican, Brazilian, Korean, American, and Basque classmates shared their stories, and then I offered up this little piece of Canadiana, inspired in part by our beloved Bob and Doug McKenzie.
Warning: This is my very first blog-worthy French composition. There might be errors. You might be offended. Be gentle with me.
Venez! Venez! Venez au Canada! On vous accueille, comme on accueille tout le monde, tout le temps! Venez!
Dès que vous arriverez, on vous mènera à votre igloo, où vous dormirez en tout confort, en portant votre anorak et votre toque!
Le lendemain matin, vous prendrez votre déjeuner (au Canada, nos repas sont tous mélangées): un bonne portion de poutine avec une bonne portion de bière (Molson Canadian, bien sûr). On vous donnera vos patins pour votre premier match de hockey.
Here is my embarrassing, uncensored rant, in all of its original pathetic-ness. Please, if you must read it, read my Royal Wedding Recant, too.
I hated the royal wedding. I hated every minute of it. I hated the pomp, the false religiosity, the needless expenditures, the manufactured sentimentalism. I hated the way the swooning public lapped it up, as dished to them by the cooing media. I am dumbfounded that people would camp out for hours for a glimpse of what is really just two human beings signing a perfectly ordinary contract.
What I hated the most were the promises. Have and hold, love and cherish, blah blah blah… Imperfect human beings simply cannot keep those promises, regardless of their lineage, their celebrity status, or their perceived levels of infatuation with one another. Do you realize what you’re doing? You are making a solemn vow that you will need to keep for your entire life. And you won’t be able to do it. Continue reading
Greeks can be gruff. This is my studied opinion after spending a week in the myth-infused homeland of the gods, with its gruesome stories of bickering deities vying for power and favour.
My Airbnb hostess in Athens was the first to freak out at me. “Why are you late? You should have called! I have a baby! I’ve been waiting for you in this apartment for eight hours now!” For the record, I was not eight hours late, my hostess lived a mere 15 minutes away from the apartment, and I communicated with her the instant my plane landed, so now that I think about it, I’m kind of sorrynotsorry…
Then came the old couple on the ferry. The ones who freaked out when I took one of six empty seats around a table, because they had, in absentia, appropriated all six seats for themselves – only to abandon them after I meekly relocated. I sat at the next table and gave them the evil eye for the rest of the trip. Yeah, mister. You’d better get out your worry beads. Continue reading
I told a fib today. It was easy, because it was in French.
You see, I’ve been seeking a new artistic outlet that will allow me to get out into the community and interact with other people. By “new artistic outlet,” I mean something that fosters self-expression but that will take me away from my 9-5 life of intoning “do-re-mi-fa-sol” on repeat five days a week. By “community,” I mean “outside of my all-consuming place of work.” And by “other people,” I mean “nice strangers who speak French.” Because this is a linguistic undertaking as much as anything else. Continue reading
That last post was a little too light-hearted for its content — or rather, for the trajectory of its content. Because what happened next was not at all funny. Continue reading
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