From Scratch – Adventures in Independent Music Making

Posts Tagged ‘New Year’s Eve’

“Winter Walk” Jody McNary Photography (Creative Commons License 2.0)

“Maggot!”, she says with the feeling of satisfaction one obtains from correctly pronouncing a new acquaintance’s name for the first time. I smile without correcting her. Partially because I suspect a speech impediment may have been the cause for the unintentional bastardization of my name and partially because I’m afraid that if I open my mouth, I’ll start laughing (which might offend and confuse the elderly lady who beckoned my aide at the corner of Queen West and Dufferin St).

I hear my phone ringing in my pocket, but can’t answer it because the lady is at my elbow and I have her multitude of parcels in my other arm, including a bouquet of flowers for her friend Sylvia. With absolutely no idea where we are going and a growing concern over the health of this lady who didn’t want me to call 911 even though she claimed to be experiencing an epileptic seizure, we stop our shaky walk to her house just long enough for her to plant a slobbery kiss on my right cheek. Though I understand it to be a sign of gratitude, I can’t help but feel a wee bit grossed out as the saliva dries to my skin at an uncomfortably slow pace on this unusually warm evening in December.

That is what I experienced around 5pm this evening (though she would insist it was 8pm, if you asked her.). I don’t often go that far down Queen St, but with it being New Year’s Eve, I decided to invest $4 of my modest grocery budget in a personal sized bottle of cheap champagne to crack open when the clock strikes 12 tonight. On my way back from the LCBO (for those of you back home, in Ontario they have separate stores for Beer and Liquor. It is Canada though, so you can still find a few varieties of beer at the LCBO if you don’t have time to go to The Beer Store –yep, that’s what it’s called. No false advertising there! hahaha), as I crossed the street, I saw this lady leaning up against the bus shelter with her two hands full of errand bags, struggling to yell “Help Me!”.

The couple ahead of me had passed by her without even looking. Sadly, I had considered doing the same thing. Not because I didn’t want to help someone in need, but because of fear. It is easy to become desensitized to cries for help in Toronto due to constantly being faced on the streets by: homeless people begging (sometimes physically and sometimes in rather aggressive/ demanding ways); mentally unstable people shouting nonsensical and sometimes frightening sentiments; and people who claim to be “perfectly sane” but are yelling angrily at someone on the other end of their blue tooth headset (which you don’t always see, and thus appear to be yelling at themselves)… I put the word sane in quotation marks for a reason. It’s not just the frequency of these observations that cause one to be deterred from interacting, but it’s also the societal beliefs (taught to us through the news, crime shows, movies, “common sense”, etc.) that instill a degree of paranoia with thoughts that we might endanger ourselves by engaging these people (being robbed, assaulted, raped, maybe even killed) because they are desperate and/or unstable (and thus, unpredictable and irrational). As such, the cries become perceived as “crazy talk”, representations of hostility or confrontation, or sadder still: as ambient noise, no more significant than the sound of a loose tail pipe rattling as the car idles at a red light.

Even as a lone female walking the street at dusk, in most other places I wouldn’t hesitate to help. This evening in Toronto, however, my initial reaction was to avoid eye contact and continue on my way… but my conscience got the better of me and I felt disgusted that I had become afraid to help an old lady in need. Despite that feeling, I was still a bit apprehensive, but thought it would be a step in the right direction to at least ask her what she needed help with. I figured if what she told me seemed rational, then I’d know she wasn’t just shouting nonsense, and my guard could be eased. She was elderly, after all -how much harm could she cause? lol

It took about an hour with the snail paced waddling and a couple stops for smoke breaks in non-smoking areas, before we got to her nursing home a mere 3 blocks away. Up until the first break I was feeling quite comfortable and pleased with myself for allowing myself to act upon my empathy. She continuously praised me for being such a “beautiful person” for being the “only one that would help [her]” and for “saving [her] life” (which I laughed off, because I’m horrible at taking compliments … particularly from strangers… especially ones that slobber-kiss me. And because I was coming to see that my efforts really weren’t all that heroic. Meaning, I don’t think she was really having a seizure, even if she thought she was. The first cigarette seemed to calm her nerves quite effectively. lol).

Then, as we were about to pick up and continue our journey, she casually put out her cigarette with her shoe and looked up at me with a very serious face and said slowly … with intent: “I could tell you stories that would make your hair curl” … (cue the twilight zone theme song. AH!!!!). Feeling a bit spooked, I kindly suggested that she not share those stories. Ironically, later in the walk I learned that she hates horror movies (something we have in common).

So we continued along the increasingly dark and drizzly sidewalk, up a side street that housed numerous abandoned buildings. She told me that she learned a very important lesson that day: “don’t ever get in the car of a stranger. They’ll take you and kill you in the tall grass”.  Fight-or-Flight instincts kicked in. What have I got myself into? Is there going to be someone lurking around the corner? Is this forlorned creature some kind of bait on the lure of a bigger predator? But I stuck through it. I reasoned that she might be a bit disturbed, perhaps senile, but she was still elderly and shaking and needed help to get back to her home. It would have felt a hell of a lot less intimidating if she hadn’t been bigger than me. hahaha

The grim surroundings were quite appropriate given the statements she would come to reveal to me about her daughter being tortured with electro shock therapy (after pointing out the house her daughter “had lived in”), about “the place behind here. That’s a baaad place” (before describing how much she loved her parents even though they forced her into a mental institution for 15 years and how she hated the “dark room”), about how much she couldn’t wait to see her husband (whom she had been married to for “73 years” and was “so good to [her]” … though he apparently also beat her over the knee with a bottle of baby powder “50 times” causing her to almost “lose [her] leg”).

It was an adventure, to say the least. When we finally arrived at the nursing home, one of the nurses had come outside for a smoke break. Jean (who coincidentally shares the name of my grandmother) didn’t know he was there and while she had another cigarette she told me about how they tortured her in there (after recently telling me how much she loved her home). The nurse guy seemed friendly, but a bit off… perhaps a stressful shift… and was in disbelief that Jean had being experiencing a seizure. Rather, he accused her of just wanting someone to carry her bags home for her. I felt like such a fool. Before he went back inside I jokingly asked him “you guys don’t really torture them in there, do you?”. “Naw!” he shakes it off. Then he raised his eyebrows, his eyes becoming very wide and the corners of his mouth curled up in an almost sinister smile that sent shivers down my spine (twilight zone theme song writers receive another royalty cheque).

I was eager to be on my way and herded Jean into the building to drop off her belongings. Seeing her completely infatuated with her meatloaf dinner and interacting with a few staff members, I felt much more at ease and carried on my formerly festive and merry way.

Now it actually is 8pm and I’ve got my cheap champagne chilling in the fridge, feeling good about my good deed and feeling inspired to sit down to reflect on 2009 and to create some new year’s resolutions for 2010 (which I wasn’t thinking too seriously about prior to my walk with Jean). Though I have many invitations to celebrate the big night with many wonderful people I’d love to hang out with, doing fantastically entertaining things in fun and exciting places (wow… that sounds kind of dirty… don’t take it that way!), I’ve decided to bring in the New Year on my own … writing music.

This past year has been filled with struggle, fear, and uncertainty in many ways and I’ve been heavily reliant on my friends and family for emotional support. Last year, I celebrated NYE in a dim closet as a coat check girl at a restaurant where the ‘big boss’ looked down upon me. I want to start this year off with a statement of strength, focus, unwavering commitment to my passion, confidence in my ability to improve upon my situation, and the satisfaction of being able to stand on my own two feet as my own ‘big boss’.

I wish you all a memorable evening, a meaningful 2010, and a life of doing exactly what makes you happy.

All the best!

-MeghaN : )

… I guess that makes the slobbery cheek kiss from Jean my New Year’s kiss :S ewwww!!!! lol