Reader's Digest Canada - 01.02 2020

In Los Angeles, Paul Rocha was Getzler Vaughan frantically multi-
watching the thread with interest. tasked, working by phone, text and
Lythcott had mustered sufficient con- email, receiving and parsing a land-
sciousness to let commenters know slide of information from the Face-
that he could hear running water book posse: screenshots, maps, tips,
nearby. Using Spevak’s screenshots, phone numbers, Lythcott’s date of
plus Lythcott’s detail about the flowing birth, his family contacts—all with
water, Rocha, a self-professed map the aim of sending a physical search
nerd, created a new map of his own, party to the correct location. Some-
with a circle indicating the likeliest one had even alerted the U.S. State
search area. Then he posted his update. Department’s operations center in
Washington, D.C.
A more precise picture of the situa-
tion was emerging: Lythcott and Eno Getzler Vaughan passed on what she
were outside of Ubud in the jungle near knew to officials in Bali. Around 5:30
a place called Sweet Waterfall. On the a.m., less than an hour after his Face-
thread, friends from all over the world book SOS, she texted Lythcott: “Some-
had begun posting contact information one from our office in Bali has the info
for police, hospitals and ambulance your friends have sent us.”
services in Bali, and many of them
were bombarding those numbers with “Can’t move,” he typed back. Then
calls. Someone posted the number for he added: “6 perrxcntt batt.”
the U.S. consulate in Indonesia.
tempers were beginning to fray on Lyth-
In Surabaya, Indonesia, one island cott’s feed. His well-intentioned friends
away from Bali, Christine Getzler were clogging the thread by voicing con-
Vaughan, who was the public affairs cern or requesting updates. In so doing,
officer at the U.S. consulate general at they were burying important informa-
the time, was monitoring the night-duty tion Balinese authorities would need
emergency phone when it began to ring. if they were to rescue him and Eno.
“My friend posted on Facebook that he’s
hurt and needs help,” the caller said. “For Christ’s sake, EVERYONE STOP
POSTING,” one poster snapped. “Unless
Getzler Vaughan grabbed her note- you have an update we need this thread
book. “What’s his name?” she asked. to STOP NOW.”
“What’s his last known location?” The
caller supplied as much detail as pos- Another took exception: “Dude.
sible. Seconds after they hung up, the Please stop yelling.” The reply: “Our
phone rang again: another one of friend is in serious trouble. I’ll yell my
Lythcott’s friends. And so it went for face off if that helps get a point across.”
the next two hours.
Meanwhile, Eno and Lythcott lay
bleeding in the ravine.

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reader’s digest

“Try to hang on,” Lythcott said. sigh of relief. Their sentiments could
“Help is coming.” be summed up by a post from a friend
named Jay Holmes: “Thank you, that’s
“How long?” what we all needed to hear.”
He had no idea. His phone battery
had died. Now they were truly all alone. eno spent seven days at a hospital in
Bali before returning to her teaching
about three hours after the crash, job in South Korea. She had suffered a
Lythcott was drifting in and out of con- fractured wrist, shattered cheekbones,
sciousness when he heard the sound severe injuries to her mouth and tongue,
of brush rustling. He tensed up. Bali and a badly broken nose. Lythcott’s
has snakes—cobras and pythons—and condition was worse: internal bleeding,
he wasn’t exactly in a condition to collapsed lungs, a broken wrist, cracked
defend himself. He heard voices. A ribs, an injured neck, a fractured skull, a
search party! perforated bowel and a lacerated liver.
But three weeks after the crash, he was
Speaking English, four rescuers care-
fully cradled Lythcott’s neck as they

LYTHCOTT WAS DRIFTING IN AND OUT OF
CONSCIOUSNESS WHEN HE HEARD THE SOUND

OF THE BRUSH RUSTLING. HE TENSED UP.

carried him up to a flatbed truck and out of hospital and recuperating at his
placed him beside Eno in the cargo sister’s house in Atlanta. Officials still
area. Her hair was soaked and matted aren’t sure what caused the crash. Since
with blood and grime. More blood cov- Lythcott had been sober and driving
ered her torso and legs. Lythcott barely carefully, the leading theory is that the
recognized her. pair was affected by a powerful earth-
quake that hit while they were driving.
At 8:14 a.m.—four hours after Lyth-
cott posted his plea for help—Caitlin The rescue was miraculous, it also
from Prague, who had been regularly illustrated an important lesson. As
checking with the hospital in Ubud for Georgia Chapman Costa, one of Lyth-
Lythcott’s arrival, posted: “UPDATE— cott’s Facebook friends, put it on the
HE IS OKAY AND IN THE HOSPITAL!” thread that saved Lythcott and Eno:
“When people come together, wonder-
Friends from Portland to Prague, ful things happen.”
Seattle to Sydney, breathed a collective

50 january/february 2020

DOWN TO BUSINESS Why does no one tell
you that 50 per cent of
having any adult job is
pretending to look busy
for eight hours a day?

— @SYDNEYLEEMARCO

I’m about to arrive 10
minutes early to a meet-
ing. Where can I pick up
my medal?

— @TIMHERERRA

Taking the Initiative
My boss told me to have
a good day...

so I went home.
— DEREK YOUNG, Toronto

MIKE SHIELL Real Romance Interview Advice One of my students just
Marriage vows should Bring extra peanut but- called me a “cruel
be rewritten as “to have ter and jelly sandwiches beastie,” which I’m tak-
and to hold and to lis- for the interviewers. It ing as a sign of affection.
ten to stories about looks selfish if you’re
your workplace drama the only one eating. — @BORROWEDHORSES
until death do us part.”
— @SHANEHASABEARD There is no slower pas-
— @COPYMAMA sage of time than the
During every pause at a hours spent supervising
I have 80 unread emails, job interview, ask your a middle-school dance.
and obviously the only potential boss, “What
solution is to chuck my are you thinking about — @ERICA_SAGE
computer into the sea. right now?”
Are you in need of some
— ASHLEY NICOLE BLACK, — ANNE T. DONAHUE, professional motivation?
Send us a work anecdote,
comedian writer and you could receive
$50. To submit your
stories, visit rd.ca/joke.

rd.ca 51

reader’s digest

SOCIETY

I’d stopped feeling shame about my
size. But why was I going to the gym,

if I didn’t want to lose weight?

BY Meaghan Wray FROM FL ARE

photograph by may truong

rd.ca 53

reader’s digest

I’ve been living a lie. Or,
at least, it’s been feeling
like that lately.

I openly reject diet culture, almost as possible, skipping meals when no
exclusively promote self-love on my one noticed. When that led to bingeing
Instagram and make a point of not on food until I felt sick, I shifted to con-
knowing my weight. My doctor—the suming 1,200 calories a day, an arbi-
only person who knows the exact num- trary number thrown around by many
ber on the scale—says I’m perfectly fitness bloggers. (Health Canada states
healthy. But according to prevailing that the average adult requires around
health standards I’m overweight. 2,000 calories per day, children 1,500.)

As a chubby kid, I came to believe my Today, as a 28-year-old journalist
worth was intrinsically tied to my body living in Toronto, I still struggle with
size, and endured two decades of bully- the belief that I can’t be beautiful until
ing and emotional trauma. Throughout my waist is smaller and my legs are
my life, I wished I looked like someone more toned. This is in direct conflict
else: Britney Spears or Christina Aguil- with the philosophy of body positivity,
era or Kim Kardashian. I was constantly which asserts that all bodies are good
aiming for unrealistic body standards, bodies regardless of race, weight, gender
always missing and feeling unworthy identity, sexual orientation and ability.
of love. Ever since I first understood The idea of body positivity gained trac-
what a calorie is, I’ve tried to eat as few tion with the creation, in 1969, of the

54 january/february 2020

National Association to Advance Fat separating dieting and weight-loss-
Acceptance. It has since evolved, thanks motivated exercise from my overall
in part to body-positive bloggers, writ- health, and unlearning beauty stan-
ers and influencers like Shay Neary, dards based on body shape and size.
Stephanie Yeboah, Harnaam Kaur, Gabi I’ve found my groove with weightlifting
Gregg and Tess Holliday. Nadia Aboul- and regular spin classes but find it tough
hosn, a plus-size fashion blogger, got not to fall back into obsessive calorie
her big break when editors at Seventeen counting. I know I’m not alone in this
magazine asked her to model, after struggle; a few women have reached
seeing photos on her blog. (Seven years out to me on Instagram with a seem-
and more than 600,000 Instagram fol- ingly simple question: Can I be body
lowers later, she launched her latest positive while wanting to lose weight?
plus-size fashion collection in 2019.)
There’s no simple answer. Some-
Body positivity helps people living where along the line, I forgot how phys-
in marginalized bodies feel entitled to ical movement made me feel, and that
self-love, long denied amid the inun- it’s entirely possible to exercise without
dation of Western beauty standards. the goal of losing weight. I never would
But on top of the self-esteem issue is a have called myself an athlete, but as a
financial one. Lower wages can be tied kid I played soccer for eight years, com-
to body size: a 2015 study out of Nash- petitively danced for three and rode
ville’s Vanderbilt University found that horseback for a decade. Moving my
overweight women earned 4 per cent body was about self-expression, stress
less than slimmer women performing relief and challenging my mind. It was
the same job; obese and morbidly healthy escapism, and I learned how to
obese women earned 6 and 16 per cent trust what my body could do and ignore
less, respectively. what the world told me it couldn’t.

Despite deleting MyFitnessPal (the By Grade 6, however, I was being so
calorie-counting dieting app) for the horribly bullied for my weight and
millionth time and constantly lectur- appearance that I was afraid to try out
ing my friends about why they should for the soccer team, scared of making
reject diet culture, I feel like a fraud. myself an even bigger target for ridi-
Because when general life anxiety cule. Though I went on to play again
creeps in, I still turn to control: con- after switching schools, that emotional
trolling what I eat and, ultimately, try- wound, and fear of being laughed at,
ing to control my weight. remained. Exercise as a form of self-
punishment—for eating, for being fat,
WHEN I EMBRACED body positivity, I for hating myself—took the place of
was forced to confront my own beliefs, movement for the love of it.

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reader’s digest

Like other body-positive people, I Toronto and Newmarket, Ont., first
now go to the gym to perform move- started working as a gym trainer when
ment, not to exercise, because the term she was 18. While she was helping her
“exercise” is so often associated with a clients lose weight, she was waging war
desire for weight loss. I’ve rediscovered on her own body through restrictive
my love for movement through spin- eating and excessive exercise to get her
ning. What started as an alternative to body-fat percentage as low as possible.
going out on weekends became the “I was constantly fighting it to portray
healthiest addiction I’ve ever had. But, what a trainer was supposed to look
if I’m being completely honest, I still like. It was an unhealthy and twisted
hoped that my new hobby would also way of thinking,” Doak says. It wasn’t
lead to weight loss. (Well, it did not.) I until she embraced the principles of
couldn’t accept that perhaps my new body positivity—focusing on health,
vision of health meant getting used to happiness and loving herself the way
being in a bigger body. she is—that things changed.

WEIGHT, BODY-FAT PERCENTAGE AND INCHES
AREN’T NECESSARILY INDICATORS OF OVERALL
WELL-BEING. HEALTH STARTS ON THE INSIDE.

My frustration over that fact eventu- As she stopped focusing on weight
ally forced me to look inside, and I loss and dieting, Doak started natu-
gradually started appreciating every- rally gaining weight. She realized there
thing else that improved as a result of wasn’t really a place for bigger people
regular movement—my muscle tone, or people of different abilities to work
my endurance and, most important of out. “The gym was intimidating if you
all, my self-confidence. weren’t trying to lose weight,” she says.
So, a year ago, she opened her own
EVEN WITH THIS kind of hard-earned gym. “I wanted to teach people how to
perspective, not falling back into a self- move for reasons other than just want-
destructive way of thinking proves to ing to change their body,” she says.
be an ongoing challenge. Toronto-area In Doak’s gym, there are no weight
body-positive trainer Jenna Doak assessments. Instead, she talks to cli-
knows this very well. The 32-year-old, ents about the benefits of exercise that
who heads Body Positive Fitness in have little to do with slimming down.

56 january/february 2020

“If somebody comes to me with spe- with an individual to achieve positive
cific goals that they want, body-wise, I self-esteem and an overall health pro-
try to help them understand that losing file, not a specific number on a scale.”
inches or changing your body fat dras-
tically isn’t as attainable as everybody That’s how it happened for Cleo
makes it out to be,” she says. Ellis, who runs a communications con-
sultancy in Toronto. After living in
Besides, factors such as weight, Edmonton and Vancouver, she found
body-fat percentage and inches aren’t Toronto to be a much more walkable
necessarily indicators of overall well- city—and realized how unfit she was.
being. Dr. Valerie H. Taylor, head of “I didn’t hate my bigger body, but I
psychiatry at the University of Calgary, wanted to make it stronger and give it
says long-lasting health starts on the all that I could,” explains Ellis. Even
inside. “It is gradual behaviour change though she ended up losing 40 pounds,
that improves the quality of life. Some- body positivity, for her, means accept-
times weight loss is inevitable with ing bodies of all sizes. “My journey has

REJECTING SMALL-IS-BEAUTIFUL BELIEFS
IS DAILY PRACTICE. EVERY DAY, I MUST DECIDE

TO BE MY TEAMMATE AND NOT MY ENEMY.

that, sometimes it’s not,” she explains. never been focused on a particular
“A person can have a healthier mindset number on the scale,” she says.
and become psychologically happier
at whatever weight they are; it’s not Ellis’s experience brings me back to
about a particular body mass index.” the question of whether you can be
truly body positive while still wanting
Some of Taylor’s research centres to lose weight. To me, the answer is a
around the intersection of mental tentative yes—tentative, because in my
health and obesity, with the develop- case the true answer depends on me
ment of compassionate approaches to getting rid of body shame, and trans-
weight management. She thinks we forming how I view beauty and my
should remove societal pressures to relationship to it. As Doak puts it, you
look a certain way and instead focus need to ask yourself why you’d want to
on personal happiness. “There’s no lose weight. “If it’s to be prettier or sex-
such thing as the right way to lose ier, that’s not body positive,” she says.
weight,” she says. “It’s about working “But if you do it for reasons that don’t

rd.ca 57

reader’s digest

have anything to do with what you look relieve stress—without the intention of
like, then yes, that is body positive. It’s losing weight—is difficult when I’ve
thinking of yourself in a positive way.” always believed that exercise only
serves the purpose of getting smaller.
The answer, then, lies in intention. It
requires a constant examination of the The shame I sometimes feel as a
culture we live in, which tells us we body-positive activist who occasionally
need to be smaller to be beautiful and still feels the pressure to lose weight
reinforces restrictive eating and exer- serves no purpose. Pretending I didn’t
cise for penance, not pleasure. Reject- grow up in a society that wanted me to
ing these beliefs is daily practice for shrink doesn’t help. Judging women
me. Every day, I must decide to be my who are at a different point in their
teammate and not my enemy. self-love journeys does nothing to
change the culture of unattainable per-
Growing up, I had a lot of enemies: fection we’re still mired in. Sometimes
my peers, my bullies, the gym, food, I find my mind drifting off to a fantasy
scales, my doctor, the list goes on. There life in which I’m thin, conventionally
were few areas of my life, few places I beautiful and living a supposedly per-
could go, that didn’t remind me how fect life. But, ultimately, I don’t dwell
unworthy I was because of my weight. in that hypothetical world anymore.
Re-entering these once-scary spaces, None of us belongs there.
as I did to get to my first spin class, is
easier said than done. And continuing © 2019, MEAGHAN WRAY/ST. JOSEPH COMMUNICATIONS.
with a form of movement that lets me FROM “I IDENTIFY AS BODY POSITIVE, BUT I STILL THINK
reconnect with my body, unwind and ABOUT LOSING WEIGHT *A LOT*,” FLARE (FEBRUARY 25,
2019), FLARE.COM

Reviews That Missed the Mark

“No trace of imagination, good taste, or ingenuity…
I say it’s a stinkeroo.”

THE NEW YORKER ON THE WIZARD OF OZ

“I can’t recall a more elaborately ineffective scare movie.”

THE WASHINGTON POST ON THE SHINING

“A sugarcoated lie that people seem to want to eat... The single most repressive
influence on artistic freedom in movies.”

McCALL’S ON THE SOUND OF MUSIC

“[A] squalid shoot-em-up for the moron trade.”

NEWSWEEK ON BONNIE AND CLYDE

58 january/february 2020

WORLD WIDE WEIRD

BY Erica Lenti

pierre loranger Copy Cat New Hampshire, last June, they were
In August 2019, Gary weren’t sure what uncertain they’d be
Samuel Lambe broke they’d find last April able to find him in the
into a commercial when they opened a streets of Toronto. So,
property in Toronto. He safe that had been left when animal services
wasn’t exactly discreet. untouched for years. recovered a ball python
Midway through the Rumour had it a nearby the following
break-and-enter, the 50-year-old time cap- month, the Sannellas
54-year-old stopped to sule might be inside. jumped at the chance
eat some food, leaving But upon cracking the to be reunited. Once
scraps behind. Then, he safe, they discovered it the snake was home,
left an even bigger clue: empty. News archives however, they noticed
he headed over to the revealed a second sur- his distinctive spots
office printer and made prise: the capsule may didn’t match their past
a photocopy of his face. have never been in the photos. It was a case of
Toronto police released safe in the first place— “mis-snaken identity”—
a copy—featuring and instead got buried the imposter turned
Lambe’s blurry visage in an adjacent parkette. out to be another rogue
and his white, wide- Library staff headed out python, lost to the city’s
brimmed fedora—to with metal detectors in underbelly. Fortu-
the public, and the search of the missing nately, Monty was
fugitive was identified capsule, but returned found in the Sanella’s
when he was arrested empty handed, leaving basement four months
on a separate matter Derry waiting indefi- after his disappearance.
later that month. The nitely on their blast But Torontonians are
bright side: Lambe from the past. left to wonder: just how
now has a much clearer many pythons are still
portrait—his mugshot. Sss-ayonara for Now! slithering through the
When the Sannella city’s sewers?
Empty Promises family’s pet snake,
Library staff in Derry, Monty, went missing

rd.ca 59

reader’s digest

LIFE LESSON

WOULDA,
COULDA,

How to get past the regret trap

SHOULDA

BY Dawn Calleja

illustration by hanna barczyk

farrah* stood on the porch, stunned. that something was off in her mar-
Lying on the grass, surrounded by their riage. Her husband chatted constantly
closest friends, was her husband of about his new colleague, but Farrah
seven years, staring longingly into the dismissed it as an innocent crush.
eyes of a female coworker who had “I believed he would never cheat on
become part of their social circle. Far- me,” she says.
rah, who lives in Vancouver and is in
her 40s, had known for at least a year Looking back now, eight years after
the fact, it’s obvious to her that he
*NAME HAS BEEN CHANGED. was having an affair. At the time, how-
ever, Farrah couldn’t even admit it to

rd.ca 61

reader’s digest

herself, let alone call him out. And “They think, ‘He could’ve been the
so  the relationship dragged on for love of my life.’”
another year, with Farrah experiencing
chronic pain and fatigue—her body Sure, the best-case scenario might’ve
seeming to know what was coming come true. But just as likely it wouldn’t
before her brain did. have—and besides, you probably had
some very good reasons at the time for
The end, when it finally came, was going another way. Maybe you were
ugly. And almost immediately, she too young to accept that marriage pro-
began to beat herself up. “I regretted posal or too broke to pursue that mas-
not valuing myself enough to ask the ter’s degree. Unfortunately, we tend to
hard questions, and I regretted the time lose that perspective when we’re in
I wasted,” she says. In her darkest brood mode. “Regret is using what we
moments, her regret even extended know now to look back and punish
back a full decade, to when they first got ourselves for decisions we made back
together. Why did she let the relation- then,” says Dr. Natasha Williams, a
ship bloom when she knew they had so Toronto-based clinical psychologist.
little in common? What might her life
have looked like if she’d never met him? Although it can be difficult to do, it’s
crucial to be compassionate toward
Feeling regret is a normal part of life, your past self and, as Williams puts it,
but wallowing in the woulda-coulda- “take off the knapsack of responsibility.”
shouldas can lead to anxiety and
depression—and prevent you from FOCUS ON THE NOW
moving forward. Here are some tips to
train your brain to move on. Only a couple generations ago, we
lived in a world of very few choices.
GIVE YOUR PAST SELF You grew up and did pretty much what
SOME SLACK your parents did.

In the field of psychology, regret is “The problem these days is that we
known as “downward counterfactual have seemingly limitless possibilities,
thinking”—reimagining a past where and opportunity creates regret,” says
the decisions we make lead to the Sherry. Should I have studied engin-
best possible outcomes. eering instead of history? Should I
have gone travelling instead of settling
“When people engage in regretful down and starting a family? It doesn’t
thinking, they don’t think, ‘If I’d gone help to see your friends posting images
out with that guy, he might’ve been a of their best lives on social media,
serial killer,’” says Dr. Simon Sherry, causing what Sherry calls “upward
who leads a personality research team social comparison” (and kids call
at Dalhousie University in Halifax. FOMO, or fear of missing out).

62 january/february 2020

But ruminating on the past is coun- fixed, however—say, wishing you hadn’t
terproductive. It leads to inaction, since put in 70-hour workweeks at the cost
regretful people are often too busy sur- of watching your kids grow up. In those
rendering to retrospective self-loathing cases, Morrison suggests engaging in
to get off the couch. One immediate “positive reframing,” like vowing to
antidote is to get moving: go to the spend more time with your grandkids.
gym, pick up a guitar, tackle a complex “There are ways any regret can have
recipe. The point is to keep your brain some potential future value,” he says.
too busy to obsess—after all, it’s hard
to brood while gasping your way This is where the word “but” can come
through a 5K, says Sherry. in handy. “You need to get to a space
where you can say, ‘I regret what I did,
Practising mindfulness—a form of but here’s how I’m addressing it and
meditation that encourages you to moving forward,’” says Williams. “When
allow your regretful thoughts to pass in I’m ready to get into another relation-
and out of your head without getting ship, I can use those regrets to help
stuck there—is another way to do away identify red flags and flip the script.”
with anguish about the past. “Mindful-
ness is almost the antithesis of regret, That’s what Farrah did. With the
in that you make a deliberate effort to help of a therapist, she spent two years
direct your attention to the present processing where she went wrong and
moment,” says Sherry. figuring out how to avoid making the
same mistakes in her next relationship.
LEARN FROM Part of that work included making a list
YOUR MISTAKES of the values she considered to be most
important in a partner. High among
While regrets can be enormously pain- them: an ability to have open and hon-
ful, they can also provide a powerful est communication about difficult
motivation for self-improvement. subjects—something she and her hus-
“Over time, regret can become less band had never done well.
intense because those feelings trigger
you to do something about it,” says Dr. When she met her current partner,
Mike Morrison, a professor at King’s she soon knew he was right for her.
University College. He’s not perfect, of course—who is?—
but he was open to talking about his
In many cases, it’s not too late to sat- feelings and sharing his vulnerabilities.
isfy a long-standing itch: you can go They’ve been together for five years.
back to school, take another crack at “It’s not that it’s not hard, because we
that novel or mend fences with an old still have disconnects,” says Farrah.
friend even after many years. The tough- “But we talk about them, and that
est regrets are ones that aren’t so easily makes all the difference.”

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reader’s digest

AS KIDS SEE IT

“If you get to be a stay-at-home dad, why can’t I be a stay-at-home kid?”

I had to take my six-year- blood pressure and brain, I finally realized SUSAN CAMILLERI KONAR
old son to the walk-in some were to look in the what caused the confu-
clinic on the weekend. eyes, ears and throat. sion: we were at the
As we were waiting, “But you said we were walk-in clinic.
he started to ask ques- at the foot doctor,” he — LISA MARQUES, Kelowna
tions about the equip- replied. Confused, I
ment in the room. I told him that I hadn’t One of our cordless
explained that some said that. He insisted phones didn’t work, so
tools were to check I had. Racking my I told my wife and our

64 january/february 2020

six-year-old daughter My kid just said good nightmare instead
that we had to buy a of good night, so no, I will not be sleeping
new one. The phone this evening.
died, I said. The next
day, I was surprised to — @DADDYDOUBTS
find that my daughter
had left a note on the my face and said, “I My daughter is in her
phone. It read: “Thank didn’t know you could first year of middle
you. RIP.” be old and get a pim- school and I asked if
ple,” so it turns out she’s planning to go to
— VENUGOPAL GANESAN, she’ll be fine. any of the dances. She
— JESSICA VALENTI, writer said, “Only if there’s
Port Moody, B.C. going to be food.”
My neighbour walked
One evening while by with his grandson — @VALEEGRRL
playing cards with my Rodney in tow. I asked
nine-year-old nephew, Rodney how old he was. There is nothing quite
he started acting up. like being conde-
His father said, “If you “I’m four,” he replied. scended to by a four-
want to play cards with I said, “You look year-old with her shoes
the adults, you have to pretty big for four. on the wrong feet.
act like one.” Without When are you going
missing a beat, he to be five?” — @THECATWHISPRER
replied “Well, pass the Rodney said, “When
whisky, then.” I’m finished being four!” The girl I babysit: I want
to be tall and skinny
— FRANK WESTERLAKEN, — CHARLIE GALLANT, when I grow up.
Me, realizing the dam-
Munster, Ont. Antigonish, N.S. age society does to
young girls but too tired
Me: Get yourself ready As my sister removed to correct her: Me too.
for school. her glasses at bedtime, Girl: Like Abraham
Five-year-old: Why? my eight-year-old niece Lincoln.
Me: It’s Monday. looked at her, puzzled.
Five-year-old: Can’t we Finally, she asked, — @HALEYFLYNNSTEAD
just do Sunday again? “Auntie, if you remove
your glasses, how will Send us your original
— @XPLODINGUNICORN you see when you jokes! You could earn $50
dream tonight?” and be featured in the
Sometimes I worry that magazine. See page 9 or
my nine-year-old is too — SANDRA BAILEY-ANGLIN, rd.ca/joke for details.
sweet for this world, but
recently she looked at Maple, Ont.

rd.ca 65

reader’s digest

The author on
a mountain hike
in the Azores.

TRAVEL

FLY ING SOLO

My life had become a blur of people, duties and
deadlines. I was burnt-out, anxious, disconnected.

The cure was right in front of me.

BY Sophie Kohn FROM CHATEL AINE

rd.ca 67

reader’s digest

WELL, GREAT. I’m stuck at the bottom car into reverse and am startled yet (PREVIOUS SPREAD AND OPPOSITE PAGE) COURTESY OF SOPHIE KOHN
of an enormous hill. In a finicky for- again by its abrupt zigzag backward at
eign rental car. On the island of São a hazardous speed. I slam on the gas
Miguel in the Portuguese Azores, a and take a run up the hill, wrenching
mystical archipelago in the middle of the wheel to the left just before my
the Atlantic. And I’m alone. wildly uncontrolled merge onto the
road ends in disaster. Seconds later,
The ground is soaked, a soft, sprawl- the windows are down and I’m flying
ing carpet of electric-green moss, on the highway. Okay. Okay! I’m under
engorged and heaving after an intense control. I’ve got this.
burst of rain. Everything is supernatur-
ally neon and lush, which also means This is the rhythm of a week alone:
my tires have zero traction. I’ve pushed moments of angsty, tangled loneliness
the car and I’ve pleaded with it, repeat- that burst into soaring straight lines
edly slamming my full weight onto the where everything’s suddenly simple,
gas pedal, which only exacerbates full of momentum and so unexpect-
the unsettling feeling that it’s sinking edly liberating that I have to laugh.
into the earth forever. It’s fine. It’s funny,
even. “Find this funny!” I instruct BOOKING THIS TRIP felt like a quietly
myself, casually dancing in the sub- radical act. I don’t know how most
urbs of panic. women arrive in their late 30s, but for
me it was unexpectedly, with a pang of
Since I’m travelling alone, the bad disbelief, like your math teacher hand-
news is I have to solve this myself. But ing out a test you’d vaguely known was
since I’m travelling alone, the good coming but had forgotten to prepare
news is I can talk myself through it for: wait, that’s now?
with as many awful Mrs. Doubtfire
accents and expletives as needed. For I’d been so wrapped up in the day-to-
the 91st time, I yank my tiny automatic day grind of my life in Toronto—staying
afloat as a comedy writer and producer
with wildly fluctuating levels of stability
and job security—that I’d neglected an
honest conversation with myself about
the bigger questions. Was I actually
fulfilled in all this constant busyness?
Could I hit “pause” on everything to
write a book one day? How should I
navigate the paralyzing ambivalence
around having kids that existed in my
long-term relationship—a situation

68 january/february 2020

that was becoming increasingly difficult aerial view of my life. I booked 10 days
to ignore as my 30s galloped along and off with no particular plan. For weeks,
our social circle became a cavalcade of My Time Off sat in my peripheral
strollers. A situation that, if left unexam- vision, police tape carefully stretched
ined much longer, would be rendered around a mystery.
irrelevant by nature. I was burnt-out
and feeling disconnected from myself. For travel inspiration, I traipsed
My days were a blur of people and around Instagram past tanned cou-
deadlines and duties. I’d stopped really ples, honeymooners, drunken friends,
registering my accomplishments; they armfuls of wet kids smiling behind
had become things anxiously checked snorkel masks. That’s when I realized:
off a list. I felt unsure of how much I this time, I didn’t really want to be with
was actually choosing. anyone. I wanted a thorough, quality
hangout with myself, the way you
And so, as my friends with toddlers crave a long, lingering dinner date with
were learning to wield the power of a friend you haven’t seen in months.
the “time out,” I decided to take one
for myself, a chance to reassess and I took a strange pleasure in disrupt-
recalibrate. I’d step on a plane to get an ing friends’ and colleagues’ notions of
travel as either a romantic music video

Kohn visiting
a hot spring
on the island
of São Miguel.

reader’s digest

or a family-bonding exercise. Their my solitude as they ambled up the vol-
reactions ranged from wistful, envious cano and struggled to fit into a selfie.
sighs to confusion to unspoken but The mother longingly surveyed the
visible concern about whether every- staggering vastness before attending to
thing was okay. And it was! My partner, her kids’ pleas to head back down. In
who used to guide bike trips overseas that moment, I saw the best and worst
and has a bottomless lust for adven- parts of travelling alone: you’re never
ture, understood my plan completely. beholden to anyone else’s schedule,
moods or preferences, but between the
After determining that I wanted to unfamiliar food, astonishing heights
be alone, I knew I had to be some- and gorgeous, sprawling oceans, a sur-
where rugged and wild—somewhere prising amount of travel hinges on excit-
in nature, which always places a gen- edly confirming with the person next to
tle, steadying hand on my chest. More you that, yes, this is actually happening.
than one friend mentioned the Azores,
and I was smitten after googling about Each morning began with bewilder-
three photos. Which is how, ridicu- ing possibility, a pang of being so clearly
lously, I began my liberating solo trip and precisely me that it was like I was
by promptly trapping myself in a deep meeting my adult self for the first time.
trench of mud at the bottom of a hill. I’d wake up to chickens conferring in
the backyard of my Airbnb, and there’d
WITH NO ONE be one simple question floating gently
JUDGING MY CHOICES, among the dust motes in the morning
sun: what do I actually want to do today?
I’D EXCLUSIVELY
DO THINGS I TRULY For most women, the purity of that
question is continually muddied by out-
WANTED TO DO. side forces. A week of solo travel meant
actively intending every detail of every
Hours earlier, giddy and thought- day. With no one beside me to suggest
less, I’d rolled down that hill and aban- activities, excursions, meals, naps or
doned the car in the rain to hike up to lazy beach days (or to judge whichever
Miradouro da Boca do Inferno, a look- of those captivated me most), I’d exclu-
out over a sunlit volcanic crater cra- sively be doing things I truly wanted
dling twin lakes. I’d inhaled the still- to do. I would be constantly forced to
ness and a granola bar. I offered to take make decisions from a real and honest
a photo for a sprawling German family, place. The night I left Toronto, that
their yelps and shuffles seeping into muscle felt timid and weak.

Every Azores travel blog and friend of
a friend told me to get on a boat. There’s

70 january/february 2020

whale-watching! Snorkelling! Island- surroundings. But I come as close as a
hopping! Since childhood, I’ve dutifully solo woman can get to freedom.
struggled through some genre of boat-
based activity on every trip I’ve taken, IT’S AT NIGHT, when everything slows
even though it makes me next-level and softens, that I feel how unaccus-
nauseous and claustrophobic. This tomed I am to sitting at a table with just
time, I make a startling and triumphant a vague plan for tomorrow, with no
decision: I will not do a single boat one to bounce it off—almost like giving
thing! I feel the week stretch and yawn, it language makes it real. I feel how
unclenching, a soft and peaceful thing quickly I’m tempted to paper over
instead of a tense and nervous one. loneliness with movies and Facebook
and noise, how reflexive that’s become.
I spend the mornings in cafés, with
books and alarmingly strong espresso. AFTER A FEW DAYS,
I hike the steep cobblestone streets of MY JAGGED UNEASE
Ponta Delgada, exploring a monastery
and pineapple plantations. I take on a AND LONELINESS
tortuous vertical forest trail, Salto do BECOMES WELCOME
Prego, that rewards the cardiovascu-
larly blessed with a pristine waterfall SOLITUDE.
at the top. I get in my temperamental
car and drive ocean roads lined with Because that busyness has fallen
cows and clamouring purple flowers. away, because I’m not pretending or
I soak, lazy and languid, in hot springs performing for anyone, I’m left with an
under sun-dappled trees. achy, amorphous kind of sadness. But
after a few days, while lying on a beach
After dinner, I stroll around the pier in Povoação, it begins to seem okay to
with gelato, people-watching. As a be weighed down and vaguely wistful
woman travelling alone, my body sometimes. It doesn’t feel like some-
intuitively avoids the skinny alleys and thing I need to run from or deny.
any wooded areas that feel too quiet When I let myself just sit in it, let the
or remote. At times, I’m resentful that waves come and go, the jagged unease
I can’t sit on the steps of a dark and melts into acceptance; loneliness
moody cathedral all night with a note- thawed becomes welcome solitude.
book or lie back in the ocean at mid-
night under a sprinkle of stars and lose The melancholy was never about
track of time. anything specific. It’s just a human
feeling of having accumulated enough
I’m frustrated that hiking is at best
90 per cent meditative and 10 per cent
a nervous and continual scan of my

rd.ca 71

reader’s digest

life: enough agony and unresolved at who I also was, so many selves ago.
stories and people left behind. Getting But now I get to be here instead, grate-
on a plane to go greet the vastness of fully in my 30s with freedom, time,
things—the churn of the ocean, the some money and many unfunny men
sheer number of unfamiliar streets and behind me, whose jokes I gradually real-
words and people in the world—cracks ized I didn’t have to laugh at. And now
me open, releases me from something, tomorrow seems impossibly alive, a
gives me permission to just be a real thing I can’t wait to run to and wrangle.
person, sad and hopeful, messy and
searching. It’s perhaps because that I understand then that I won’t really
vastness so perfectly mirrors the return home with any thunderous
infinite uncertainty inside. epiphanies. Instead, I’ve accepted how
necessary it is to take this time to hear
But every day, just before the under- myself, to check in with myself—even
tow in my chest got too powerful, some- if all I find waiting there is a strange
thing small and quietly miraculous and messy room. And that I need to do
would happen. (You pay more atten- it regularly. And that it will always feel
tion in a new country, after all.) Turn- decadent and then inconvenient and
ing up my narrow street, Rua do Passal, then uncomfortable. Until maybe one
after the beach, I see a teenage couple day it won’t.
lingering over a Vespa, flirting. He’s
doing all the talking, and she’s forcing I quietly reverse out of the sinking
an anxious, continuous laugh. I don’t feeling, and there’s a sudden and sim-
speak Portuguese, but that sound of ple rush back up the hill, and I’m flying
nervous butterfly love, of constant pre- down the road again, with the win-
tending and performing, is so instantly dows rolled down. Okay. Okay! I’m
familiar that it makes me laugh with under control. I’ve got this.
cringing recognition and amusement
© 2019, SOPHIE KOHN. FROM “I BOOKED A SOLO TRIP TO
GET AN AERIAL VIEW OF MY LIFE,” CHATELAINE (MAY 13,
2019), CHATELAINE.COM

Saving Face

I’ve never been cool—and I don’t care.

CELINE DION

Beauty, to me, is about being comfortable in your own skin.
That, or a kick-ass red lipstick.

GWYNETH PALTROW

I hate when TV characters go to sleep with all their makeup on.

@ EMILYNUSSBAUM

72 january/february 2020

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reader’s digest
74 january/february 2020

FAMILY

As the average family
size shrinks, the middle
child—natural diplomats

renowned for being
patient, caring and nice—

is facing extinction.

THE

MIS ING

MIDDLE

BY Adam Sternbergh FROM NEW YORK

illustration by sébastien thibault

rd.ca 75

reader’s digest

i don’t need to ask you what you did called middle-child syndrome. There’s
last August 12. You no doubt attended no official oldest-child syndrome or
your local Middle Child Day parade youngest-child syndrome. We’re the
or took in a lecture on Famous Middle only ones with a real syndrome.” I cer-
Children Throughout History, then tainly was always aware that the middle
came home and cracked open a bottle was not a position to be envied, even as
of Middle Sister wine to celebrate. (It’s I came to see typical middle-child traits
a real product, created “for middle sis- in myself. Middle children are natural
ters everywhere.”) mediators; I avoid conflict and habitu-
ally act as the family peacemaker. Mid-
Or maybe you spent National Middle dle children tend to be private but also
Child Day contemplating the extinction starved for affection; I keep to myself
of the middle child. Because, like the but am not exactly attention-averse.
mountain gorilla and the hawksbill sea
turtle, the North American middle child Mostly, what I learned as a middle
is now an endangered species. As mil- child is that being the middle means
lennials are waiting longer on average being defined by what you are not.
to get married and have children, According to studies, middles typically
two-child families have become the receive less financial and emotional
norm. According to a study by the Pew support from their parents. They also
Research Center, in 1976, 65 per cent typically have less intimate relation-
of mothers between ages 40 and 44 had ships with their mothers and fathers
three or more children. Today, nearly compared with other siblings, so they
two-thirds of women with children have tend to have more friends, presumably
only one or two. Middle children, the in compensation.
most populous birth-order demo-
graphic throughout most of history, Middles are reliably cast in the cul-
will soon be the tiniest. ture as oddballs, outcasts and misfits.
On TV family sitcoms, the middle child
As a middle child, I am dismayed at is the misunderstood smart aleck,
the potential disappearance of my ilk. whether it’s Lisa Simpson (The Simp-
I’m the middle of three—two boys, one sons) or Alex Dunphy (Modern Fam-
girl—so I’m what’s sometimes referred ily). Then there are Peter and Jan Brady
to as a “classic middle,” as opposed to, of The Brady Bunch, the middles in
say, the five middle kids between the their respective gender troikas.
oldest and youngest in a family of seven.
Poor Jan, sandwiched between per-
Being a middle child is, of course, fect Marcia and adorable Cindy, became
not something you aspire to; it’s some- pop culture’s most enduring embodi-
thing that happens to you. As one mid- ment of the middle child, a character so
dle child said to me, “There is a thing epically persecuted by her birth-order

76 january/february 2020

NICEST OF THE NICE: CANADA’S MIDDLES

Avril Lavigne Douglas Coupland Margaret Atwood Hayden Christensen Lawrence Hill

(LAVIGNE) IMAGE PRESS AGENCY/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; (COUPLAND) UPI/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; (ATWOOD) LIAM SHARP 2019; status that her cri de middledom—“Mar- would have been history’s first middle
(CHRISTENSEN) WENN RIGHTS LTD/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; (HILL) LISA SAKULENSKY cia, Marcia, Marcia!”—could well be child had he not become history’s first
the Latin motto emblazoned above the murder victim.
family crest of Middle Children.
It’s possible, of course, that the entire
In the book The Power of Middle Chil- theory of birth-order attribution is over-
dren, psychologist Catherine Salmon, blown. Many psychologists discount it
a leading expert on middle children, altogether. While oldest kids may grow
cites research conducted by the City up to be CEOs (they disproportionately
College of New York. In the study, par- do) and youngest kids may grow up to
ticipants were asked to choose words be comedians (many are), people tend
they associate with first, last and mid- to recognize and agree with personality
dle kids. Positive attributes such as traits that seem to be tailored specif-
“caring” and “ambitious” were cited in ically for them, even when they’re gen-
reference to all three birth orders. Only eral enough to apply to a large group. (If
middles, however, were described with you’re told that, say, redheads are “nice,
such negative terms as “overlooked” but occasionally stubborn,” you’ll agree
and “confused.” if you’re a redhead, even though that
could really describe anyone.)
The true evidence, though, comes
from middles themselves. Candace, The best counter-argument in favour
the middle of seven, told me, “Nobody of birth order’s importance is that it
took baby pictures of me—which I helps explain—along with genetics—
didn’t realize until I was in my 40s and why siblings can be so different from
asked for them. That was a strange, one another. After all, siblings are gen-
awful discovery.” And as Bruce Hop- erally exposed to the same develop-
man, a comedy writer and the founder mental conditions. The only obvious
of the tongue-in-cheek International variances in siblings are gender and
Middle Child Union (and himself a birth order.
classic middle child), pointed out to
me, Abel—Adam and Eve’s middle son Donald Trump is a middle child.
and the brother to Cain and Seth— He’s the fourth of five children, and the
second-born son. And while he shares

rd.ca 77

reader’s digest

the middle child’s proclivity for negoti- middle-childness. “I’m the model mid-
ation, here’s the catch: Trump, a CEO dle kid,” she explained. “I am patient,
and now president—roles we might and I like to take care of everyone.
expect to see filled by an eldest child—is Being called nice is a compliment.
what’s referred to as “functionally first- It’s not a boring way to describe me.”
born,” meaning the particular circum- Patient. Caring. Nice. And yes, even
stances of his family may have shaped boring. Doesn’t it feel like those are
him like a first-born son. In his case, attributes we need more of right now?
Trump’s older brother died prematurely
from alcoholism. In such situations, the These qualities, of course, will not
second-born son assumes the mantle of disappear entirely. But as family size
the first, stepping up to seek the parental continues to shrink and the number of
approval he was initially denied. middle children dwindles, there is real
reason to fear. Because the irony is that
birth–order theory suggests that, the strengths associated with middle
because they aren’t burdened by exces- children come not from parental nur-
sive expectation (like the first-born) or turing but from parental inattention.
excessive attention (like the last-born), That means these virtues are especially
middle-borns are uniquely poised to difficult to cultivate in other kids. The
succeed. They are skilled diplomats by secret power of middles, says Salmon,
virtue of being stuck between two sib- “points away from the notion that
lings. They’re seen as loyal romantic successful parenting is all about time
partners because they are both hungry and attention.” Middles are forged in
for intimate bonds and willing to com- benign neglect.
promise to maintain relationships. And
they’re believed to be natural innov- It’s hard to imagine a world without
ators, since they’re less likely to feel the so many of the middle children we
weight of parental expectation. know. There’s Nelson Mandela and
Susan B. Anthony and David Letterman
That’s why, even though I’m a mid- and Charles Darwin and Charlotte and
dle myself, my mourning for the disap- Emily Brontë and Martin Luther King Jr.
pearance of middles isn’t entirely self- You could no doubt make lists of first-
ish. I’m thinking instead of the world borns and last-borns and only children
left behind—a world of fewer diplo- whom it would be just as hard to imag-
mats, a world with fewer hardy types ine the world without. But we’ve never
whose upbringing gives them a knack had a problem celebrating the Marcias
for empathy. Jennifer Garner, when and the Cindys. Maybe it’s time for Jan
asked about raising kids in Hollywood, to have her day.
once referred to her own essential
NEW YORK, COPYRIGHT © 2019, BY NEW YORK MEDIA
LLC, THECUT.COM.

78 january/february 2020

LIFE’S LIKE THAT The Price of Quitting
My dad, a tugboat cap-
The book I ordered from Ikea arrived! tain, recently told my
daughters about how
— @DITZMCGEEE he quit smoking cold
turkey when he was a
My wife’s clinic called jump out of a perfectly younger man. “I was
my home number to good plane? about to become a
tell me that they Me: Yes. father,” he said, “so I
couldn’t accept 911 as Uncle G: How much held the pack of ciga-
her emergency contact. does it cost to stay in it? rettes and I said, ‘I’m
stronger than you,’
— SAI GAUTAM, — KERRY HAGAN, then balled up the
pack and tossed it
Mississauga Corunna, Ont. overboard.”

Me: I’m going to go Directions: Allow food He did not receive
skydiving for my 40th to sit and cool for at the admiring reaction
birthday. Should be least five minutes he expected when both
fun, but it costs $500. before eating. girls exclaimed in hor-
My Uncle G: You’re Me: No. ror, “Papa, you littered
going to pay $500 to in the ocean?”
— @ABBYHASISSUES
— GAIL ROBERTSON,

Mechanicsville, Alta.

It’s 1 a.m., finally time
to stop watching TV
on my laptop and go
to bed and watch TV
on my phone.

— ALYSSA LIMPERIS,

comedian

Send us your original
jokes! You could earn $50
and be featured in the
magazine. See page 9 or
rd.ca/joke for details.

rd.ca 79

reader’s digest

PHOTO CREDIT TO COME RD CLASSIC

While hiking in remote
British Columbia, I was
approached by a black bear.
I offered him a fish. He
offered me his friendship.

BMoysPcalo
BY Robert Franklin Leslie FROM READER’S DIGEST, 1965

rd.ca 81

reader’s digest

met Bosco in the remote wilder- after supper i built up the fire, sat on (PREVIOUS SPREAD) MICHELLE VALBERG
ness near British Columbia’s the sleeping bag under the lean-to and
Mount Robson. At the end of a lit my pipe. All this time Bosco had sat
long day of backpacking, I had just outside the heat perimeter of the
made a lean-to in a clearing fire, but the moment I was comfortably
settled he walked over and sat down
I beside a stream and was pre- beside me. Overlooking the stench of
paring to catch supper. Then I wet fur, I rather enjoyed his warmth. I
looked up, and there he was: an enor- listened to the rain thumping on the
mous black bear, slowly circling the tarp in time with the steady, powerful
clearing within 30 yards. cur-rump, cur-rump of his heartbeat
He wasn’t Bosco to me yet, and I beneath his thick coat. When smoke
viewed his presence with trepidation. blew our way, he snorted and sneezed,
My provisions were vulnerable if he and I imitated most of his body move-
was in a piratical mood, since I was ments, even the sneezing and snorting,
unarmed. However, I decided to go swaying my head in every direction,
about my fishing. The bear came along. sniffing the air as he did.
I’ve lived with wild creatures for
30 years, always respecting their first Then Bosco began licking my hands.
fear—fast movements—so I let the bear Guessing what he wanted, I got him
see every slow, deliberate move I made. a handful of salt. He enthusiastically
Soon he was sitting on his haunches nailed my hand to the ground with his
less than five feet away, intensely two-inch claws—claws capable of
interested in my activity. When I peeling the bark from a full-grown
landed a 35-centimetre Loch Leven cedar, claws that carried his 225 kilo-
trout, I tossed it to him. He gulped grams at full speed to the top of the
without bothering to chew. And when tallest tree, claws that could rip a man’s
I flipped out the fly again, he moved body like a band saw. Finally, the last
closer, planted his well-upholstered grain of salt was gone, and again we
fanny on the turf beside my boot and sat together. I wondered if this could
leaned half his 225 kilograms against be for real.
my right leg!
When drizzly darkness set in, I was Bosco stood up on all fours, burped
still fishing for that bear, fascinated as a long, fishy belch and stepped out into
much by his gentle manners as by his the rainy blackness. But he soon was
insatiable capacity. I began to think of back—with a message. He sat down
him in a friendly way as Big Bosco, and near the sleeping bag and attempted
I didn’t mind when he followed me to scratch the area of his rump just
back to camp. above his tail, but he couldn’t reach it.
Again and again he nudged me and

82 january/february 2020

growled savagely at the itch. Finally bear to respond to the call “Bosco!”

I got the message and laid a light hand One evening, he walked over to the

on his back. He flattened out to occupy log where I was enjoying my pipe and

the total seven feet of the lean-to as began to dig at my boots. When I

I began to scratch through his dense, stood up, he led me straight over to a

oily hair. dead hollow bee tree at which he

Then the full significance of his visit clawed unsuccessfully.

hit me. Just above his stubby tail, sev- Returning to camp, I covered my

eral engorged ticks were dangerously head with mosquito netting; tied shirt,

embedded in swollen flesh. When I pants and glove openings; and got the

twisted out the first parasite, I thought hatchet. I built a smoke fire near the

I was in for a mauling—his roar shook base of the tree and hacked away until

the forest. But I was determined to fin- the hollow shell crashed to earth, split

ish the job. Each time I removed a tick, wide open and exposed the hive’s total

I showed it to him for a sniff before summer production. For my under-

dropping it on the fire, and by the last standing and efforts, I received three

one he was affably licking my hand. stinging welts. Bosco ate 20 pounds of

honeycomb, bee bread and hundreds

a cold, sniffling nose awakened me of bees. He snored most of that night

several times during the night as the at the foot of the sleeping bag.

bear came and went. He left the

sleeping bag wetter and muddier Robert Franklin Leslie and his 1968
each time he crawled around and breakthrough book about adopting three
over me, but he never put his full bear cubs in British Columbia.
weight down when he touched any

part of my body.

The next day I set off again, over

a ridge, down through a chilly river,

up to the next crest, through thick-

ets of birch and alder and down a

wide, north-running river canyon.

(BOOK) MATTHEW COHEN To my surprise, Bosco followed like

a faithful dog, digging grubs or

bulbs when I stopped to rest. That

evening, I fished for Bosco’s supper.

As the days passed and I hiked

north, I used a system of trout, salt

and scratch rewards to teach the

rd.ca 83

reader’s digest

at campsites, bosco never tolerated could not possess or exaggerate those
long periods of relaxation and reflec- he had. I simply studied him for what
tion, and true to my sucker form he was and saw him manifest only the
where animals are concerned, I babied normal qualities of his species, which
his every whim. When he wanted his were formidable enough without
back scratched, I scratched; when he exaggeration. Other than calling him
wanted a fish dinner, I fished; when Bosco, I never attempted human train-
he wanted to romp and roll with me ing upon him. On the contrary; I did
in the meadow, I romped and rolled— everything possible to train myself to
and still wear scars to prove that he become a fellow bear.
played games consummately out of
my league. The affection Bosco and I developed
for each other was spontaneous and
WHEN I WOKE UP, genuinely brotherly. When it occurred
BOSCO WAS LICKING to him to waddle over my way on his
hind legs, grab me in a smothering bear
MY WOUND. HIS hug and express an overflowing emo-
SHAME AND REMORSE tion with a face licking, I went along
WERE INCONSOLABLE. with it for two reasons. First, I was
crazy about that varmint. Second, I
During one particularly rough ses- nourished a healthy respect for what
sion, I tackled his right front leg, bowl- one swat from the ambidextrous giant
ing him over on his back. As I sat on his could accomplish.
belly, he retaliated with a left hook
that not only opened a five-centimetre Although his size and strength made
gash down the front of my chin but Bosco almost invulnerable to attack by
also spun me across the meadow. other animals, he had his own collec-
When I woke up, Bosco was licking my tion of phobias. Thunder and lightning
wound. His shame and remorse were made him cringe and whine. When
inconsolable. He sat down with his whisky jacks flew into camp looking for
ears back and bawled like a whipped food, he fled in terror, the cacophonic
pup once I was able to put my arm birds power-diving and pecking him
around his neck and repeat all the soft out of sight.
ursine vocabulary he had taught me.
Bosco’s phenomenal sense of smell
It is not my intention to attribute amazed me. Trudging along behind
character traits to the bear that he me, he would suddenly stop, sniff the
air and make a beeline for a big, suc-
culent mushroom 200 yards away, or
to a flat rock across the river under
which chipmunks had warehoused

84 january/february 2020

their winter seed supply or to a berry that night, we sat longer than usual at
patch two ridges over. the campfire. Bosco nudged, pawed,
talked at great length and looked me
One afternoon when we were cross- long in the eye before allowing me to
ing a heath where dwarf willows grew retire. In my ignorance, I assumed it
in hedge-like clumps, Bosco suddenly was a rehash of that afternoon’s battle.
reared up and let out a “maw!” I could He was gone most of the night.
detect no reason for alarm, but Bosco
stood erect and forbade me to move. Along toward next mid-afternoon,
He advanced, began to snarl—and I sensed something was wrong. Bosco
pandemonium broke out. From every didn’t forage but clung to my heels. I
clump of willows sprouted an upright was looking over a streamside campsite
bear! Black bear, brown bear, cinna- when the big bear about-faced and
mon bear and one champagne. broke into a headlong, swinging lope up
the hill we had just descended. I didn’t
But these were young bears, two- call to him as he went over the crest full
year-olds, and no match for Bosco. He steam without once looking back.
charged his closest contestant with the
fury of a Sherman tank, and before the That evening, I cooked supper with
two-year-old could pick himself up, one eye on the hillside, then lay awake
Bosco dispatched a second bear and for hours waiting for the familiar nudge.
tore into a thicket to dislodge a third. By morning, I was desolate: I knew
At the end of the circuit, my gladiator I would never again see big brother
friend remembered me and trudged Bosco. He left behind a relationship
back, unscathed and still champion. I shall treasure.

Canadian Wits

Doing nothing is very hard to do, because you never know
when you’re finished.

LESLIE NIELSON

Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes.

JIM CARREY

There are few, if any, Canadian men that have never spelled
their name in a snow bank.

DOUGLAS COUPLAND

My theory is that all of Scottish cuisine is based on a dare.

MIKE MYERS

rd.ca 85

HUMOUR

ARE YOU TOO BORING
FOR THERAPY?

Six tips for spicing worried that your dull problems and
up the relationship weak-sauce neuroses are putting your
therapist to sleep? Spent yet another
BY Cassie Barradas tedious session talking about your
mother? Again?
illustration by steven twigg
Don’t fear: therapy is about self-
improvement. Yes, your counsellor is in
this field because she wants to make a
positive difference in the lives of others,
but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t
make her day positively different. This

86 january/february 2020

reader’s digest

helpful guide can help you spice up schedule appointments during all avail-
your sessions—and self-actualize in able work hours.” Exhilarating!
ways neither of you have expected!
INCORPORATE SURPRISES.
SHARE YOUR INTERESTS. Saying “Thank you for helping me to
She may know nearly everything about see my worth” is so boring, and your
your relationships with your family and kind, professional therapist deserves
friends. But does she know about your more. Try instead, “I bought a duck
relationship to the hit 1990s television farm, but I’m not sure what to name all
series Friends? While it’s true that your the ducks.” I assure you, she has never
therapist pursued her career path to heard this line before, and that’s a
help others navigate life’s toughest cir- much better thank you.
cumstances, it’s also true that an hour
spent determining whether you’re a CHANGE YOUR MAKEUP ROUTINE!
Ross or a Phoebe is a valuable psycho- It’s really amazing how your therapist
logical exploration that says a lot about has helped you make boundaries for
both of your capabilities. yourself. You can reflect that by liter-
ally drawing a line on one side of your
DRESS FOR THE OCCASION. face with a thick black Sharpie and not
Your therapist may have a master’s ever acknowledging it. She probably
degree in psychology, but you can still gets pretty tired of seeing all her other
wow her with your mastery of fashion. clients’ faces without lines drawn on
A nine-foot velvet cape makes a pow- them. This is sure to leave a mark on
erful statement without you having to your face—but also in her heart.
use any words at all.
GO ON ADVENTURES TOGETHER.
ADD SOME MYSTERY. So many of your appointments involve
Even the most professional relationship talking about the same locations:
needs the element of surprise. Yes, it’s work, home, your innermost self.
been wonderful having your therapist While it might be wildly inappropriate
help you unpack your emotions every to literally travel with your therapist,
Thursday afternoon. But mixing things a bit of emotional sightseeing could
up with a Monday session will have her be just what you need to keep things
saying, “Did your schedule change?” fresh. Use mixed metaphors to let her
know that “This early bird has bigger
You can eagerly reply, “No, it did not. fish to fry.” The biggest adventure of
I just thought this would make things all will be figuring out what you even
more interesting for you,” to which she meant by that!
will doubtless respond, “I’m happy to

rd.ca 87

reader’s digest

HEART

Written
on the
I wanted the medical Body
students who studied my
parents’ donated corpses

to know about their

determination in the face

COURTESY OF THE CLARKE FAMILY of impossible challenges, MY PARENTS DIED within weeks of each
about the stories behind other. Mom left in November 2017 and
their scars and crooked Dad followed her in January. They were
both 85 years old, their birthdays hav-
spines, and most of ing been just a day apart. They had been
all about the love that together since they were 17, meeting
endured through their on a summer evening at the Wagon
Wheel Dance Hall in the small commu-
60-year marriage. nity of Pointe-du-Chêne, N.B. Growing
old, they both remembered details
from that long-ago Saturday night,

BY Linda E. Clarke when Mom wore a soft yellow sweater
set and a pair of pedal pushers, and
FROM THE GLOBE AND MAIL Dad, nervous, made his way across the

floor to ask her for a dance.

rd.ca 89

reader’s digest

As they were aging, they never dis- anatomy lab of the medical school
cussed or specified their care needs or where I was working, and I would have
wishes; Mom was especially reticent to loved to know more about the people
talk about it. But they knew that after whose bodies I was looking at.
dying, they wanted to have their bod-
ies donated to a medical school. That I WANTED THE students to pay atten-
was a long-standing and clearly stated tion to my father’s hands. They would
desire, and my brother and sister and see that his left hand was rough, the
I were proud of them for making that fingers calloused and bent from
decision. After they passed away, their decades of creation in his workshop.
bodies were taken to a medical school There might even be speckles of paint
laboratory where they stayed for close on the palm or the finger on which he
to a year and a half, teaching a new rested his paintbrush.
generation of health care professionals.
Dad had a massive stroke when he
I WISHED THAT THE was only 58 and, as a result, he lost the
STUDENTS WOULD SEE use of his right hand; perhaps a stu-
dent would notice that it was the softer
DAD’S LION HEART: hand. For years after that stroke, he
LARGE AND BRUISED, tried, unsuccessfully, to bring life back
to that paralyzed hand, massaging and
BUT STRONG. exercising it. Luckily, his dominant
hand was the left one—thank fate for
I filled out a form that invited us to such a mercy.
tell the students what we thought was
important for them to know about I hoped his fingernails were trimmed.
Mom and Dad. Another form asked for As he aged, he became more and more
medical information. I wrote a couple sensitive and it was increasingly diffi-
of paragraphs about both of them and cult to cut his nails. And maybe he was
listed their many medical conditions. less trusting of his grown children to
The woman who coordinated the do the job the way he wanted it done.
donation program assured me that
Mom and Dad would lie side by side Over the decades that followed his
in the lab, and that the students who stroke, Dad became an artist, making
worked with them would know they’d thousands of dollhouses, birdhouses
been married. Some years prior, I had and pieces of furniture, giving them
the opportunity to spend time in the to family and friends. Then, when age
sanded his words away, he sat and
painted. Hundreds of paintings. His art
gave him a voice when his speech had
been twisted. His workshop and, in

90 january/february 2020

time, his bedroom, gave him a place to cracked over and over as both he and
craft beauty in wood and paint and Mom battled their ways through deep
whimsy—the joy of creating. illness. That demon stroke must have
burned into his heart, too, but he lived
WHEN THOSE STUDENTS would look at on after it, defying the wicked clot that
my mother’s back, I wished a volume tried to take him away.
of things. I hoped for them to notice
the pathway of pain that was my mom’s I wished for the students to see
crooked spine. That pain aged with her Dad’s throat, where there must have
and, in time, put her in a wheelchair, been a battalion of words, trapped. He
bending her neck low. And when they fought to find them and to speak, right
would examine her heart, I wished for up until the day he was put to bed and
them to know that it had been troubled demanded I take his glasses off. He
yet tough. Perhaps a student cardiolo- died three days later.
gist would note the wonky valve that
caused her so much fear throughout I WANTED THEM TO
her life and, just maybe, that student KNOW THAT MY MOM
would also be touched by the fact she
had loved so fiercely with that heart. WAS FUNNY AND
She did not love perfectly, but she did SMART, AND, ONCE IN A
so mightily, and worked every day of
her life to love better. WHILE, VERY BRAVE.

And when Mom’s brain would be The students would perhaps notice
studied, I wished that the future neur- the crooked bones of his hips, and I
ologist would see the worn passages of hoped they would realize the pain he
anxiety and the dark pools of depres- was in when he sat with Mom, and she
sion, and be impressed by the way she with him, at the end of their long lives
navigated life with that brain. I wanted together. Finally, I wished for them to
them to know that she was funny and look at Dad’s brain, with its increasing
smart, and, once in a while, very brave. damage. I wished to say to them: Imag-
ine the strength it took to stay through
I WISHED THAT the students learning all of that, and to do it because of love
to read the human body would see and duty and that long-ago dance.
Dad’s lion heart. I imagined it large,
bruised, scarred but strong. He fell in For those with eyes to see, Mom and
love that summer night so many years Dad’s bodies were tapestries.
ago—surely that was marked on his
heart, which would also have been © 2019, BY LINDA E. CLARKE. THE GLOBE AND MAIL
(JUNE 19, 2019), GLOBEANDMAIL.COM

rd.ca 91

EDITORS’ CHOICE

FoBrotwh Faeredt
Dorothy Ellen Palmer spent decades trying to
hide her congenital anomalies. A story of teenage
heartbreak, finding the strength to love herself and
redefining what it means to live with a disability.
ADAPTED FROM FALLING FOR MYSELF: A MEMOIR
photograph by jennifer roberts

92 january/february 2020

reader’s digest

reader’s digest

I fall down. Repeatedly. I trace my history
by the scars on my body, by the times and
places I’ve fallen. At my birth in 1955, I fell
from an unwilling womb into the arms of the
Toronto Children’s Aid Society. Falling short
of my adoptive mother’s expectations, I spent
my girlhood on my knees, apologizing for
bloody leotards. When corrective surgeries for
my feet’s fused bones and their other congenital
anomalies failed to correct much of anything,
I fell using crutches and walking casts. In a
heart-cracking moment as a new mom, I
smacked the sidewalk with my firstborn in
his blanket. To the delight of a Grade 10 drama
class I was teaching, I once fell right off the
stage. I spent my forties fighting not to need a
crutch and my fifties resisting a walker. A face
plant into a moving streetcar changed my mind.

94 january/february 2020

I’m a faller and will always be one. off falling as clumsy, or one teensy drink
But I’m learning to channel shame too many. I refused to be demoted to the
into solidarity, anger into analysis and humiliation of being seen as disabled.
loss into love. After half a century of
falling down, I’m falling up. I’m falling I pushed my true-born self into what
for myself. my disabled community calls “the dis-
abled closet.” But in my ripe old age,
AT SIZE 2.5, my left foot goes by the I’m coming out. “Almost human” is a
persnickety-sounding name of Her- role I now simply refuse to play. Today,
kimer because he’s finely boned, fussy I’m a disabled whole.
and bossy. A full size smaller at 1.5, my
fat right foot, Horatio, took his name In short, all four foot 10 of me won’t
from a book my grandmother gave be telling you a tall tale about defeating
me about Horatio Nelson, the much- disability. Mine can’t be hidden, halted
injured Royal Navy captain who bravely or healed. We need to stop falling for
the lie that all disabled people can be,
or should want to be, healed. Instead,

FOR MOST OF MY LIFE, I COULD PASS IN THE
WALKING WORLD. FROM THE SHOES UP,
I LOOKED “NORMAL.”

fought sea battles despite suffering life- I will do my best to redress my aging
long seasickness. He is my martyred body. A life in pain is both delicate
workhorse. Since there are two of them and resilient. I long to show you the
and one of me, I’m frequently out- extraordinary ordinariness of mine.
voted. Especially lately. My condition
is degenerative, complicated by a Let’s name the target of this story:
creeping, whole-body arthritis. When ableism. It’s a word I didn’t learn until
I fall on my knees, I don’t hear angel my fifties, when I found the online
voices. I hear cursing—mine. disability community. Like all isms,
ableism wields both a carrot and a stick.
For most of my life, I could pass in It normalizes, values, rewards, entitles,
the walking world. From my shoes up, enriches and empowers those with
I looked “normal.” Pushing past pain, I “normal” minds and bodies. It shames,
could fake a reasonable facsimile of marginalizes, impoverishes, silences,
the gait of my peers. And my tongue punishes, incarcerates and kills dis-
was always quick on its feet. I passed abled and neurodivergent people.

rd.ca 95

reader’s digest

Internalized ableism made me a liar used his wide thumb like a shoehorn COURTESY OF DOROTHY ELLEN PALMER
for half a century. Today, I know any to help me pull on my slippers. When
aim I take at it must target both the I asked him why even slippers hurt, he
discrimination and the privilege. affirmed my feet were “different” from
other children’s feet. He said he hoped
To that end, Herkimer, Horatio and I’d “grow out of it,” but if I didn’t, they’d
I invite you to come trip with us down have me “fixed.”
memory lane.
My mother always seemed to see
IN MY FIRST baby picture, I’m almost my “clumsiness” as a selfish campaign
three years old. I’m wearing the velve- to make more work for her. In an era
teen ensemble my parents brought to when girls couldn’t wear pants to
court. They wanted me to look nice for school, she kept me in knee socks until
the judge and for the photograph the worst of winter. When I wore leo-
memorializing “the day we brought tards, mashing my knees on a daily
you home.” It’s the winter of 1958. basis cost her money. I must not be
rewarded with new leotards. She made
The photos are in black and white, me wash out the blood with Javex,
but I remember my outfit in living made me stand by her mending chair
colour. From head to toe, I’m the blush to watch her shove her darning ham
pink of a newborn rose. I even have down the throat of my leotards.
hand-knit pink mittens. They dangle
on a pink string, attached to my coat One Sunday night, she announced
collar with a pink safety pin. One thing it was time for me to learn to do my
ruins the picture: my shoes. own darning. “Now that you’re a big
girl mending for yourself, Dorothy, I’ll
When my new father slipped an try not to lose my temper about how
ensemble-completing pair of unwear- much you fall. I hope you know that
able pink shoes into his overcoat having little feet is very feminine.
pocket, my new mother sighed. I had Nothing to be ashamed of, not at all.”
to wear my baby booties instead. She patted my hand. “But never take
Curved over sideways, with broken your shoes off in public.”
laces, they matched my feet.
FROM THE KNEES up, Gerald was the
Ever since, my disability has been cutest boy I’d ever seen. Blue eyes.
enmeshed with my adoption. The two Unruly blond hair a tad too long. Mus-
required the same hushed tones or, cular arms. A slow, crooked smile. His
preferably, no words at all. They both family had a cottage north of Toronto
embodied the same sense of shame in Muskoka, he was president of his
and “second-bestness.” debate team and he had been to Paris,

During my school years, Daddy put
down his newspaper each night and

96 january/february 2020

The author in 1958,
shortly after moving
in with her adoptive
parents (above and
right); in Grade 7
(bottom right); and,
in kindergarten.

reader’s digest

France. In 1971, when I was 16 and he I had to be seen as a normal teenage
was 18, he lived up the hill from me in girl, had to believe I was one. I told
Alderwood, Ont. All the mothers loved myself bell-bottoms would always be
him, including mine. in style. I could hide my feet forever.

But Gerald was a “feeb.” Teachers The second time, he knocked on our
frowned on ethnic slurs, but all of side door. With what I believe to this day
Alderwood waved at Gerald with the was calculated geometric precision, he
same joke: “Hey, gimp boy! Where’s then backed off to the exact spot where
the circus?” he could see if I tried to escape out any
back window, or the front door. My
My parents’ generation grew up mother pushed me to the side door and
with polio; they had friends who lived made me open it. All three of us sat in
with it and died from it. But then Dr. the living room for a half-hour. Then she
Jonas Salk developed the poliomyeli- stood up, shook his hand as if he were a
tis vaccine. He released it in 1955 and

I HAD TO BE SEEN AS A NORMAL TEENAGE GIRL.
I TOLD MYSELF BELL-BOTTOMS WOULD ALWAYS

BE IN STYLE, FOREVER HIDING MY FEET.

the vaccine quickly eradicated the charming Fuller Brush salesman and
nerve-damaging disease in Canada. invited him back for Sunday lunch.
After that lunch, I invited him back.
Born two years before that, Gerald
had not been so lucky. He couldn’t He brought me books, two copies of
wear bell-bottoms. Two heavy black each. Ears turning scarlet, he asked
boots entombed his feet and calves. me which book I might like to read
Six leather straps and buckles cinched together first.
up his shins. His boots, studded with
metal knobs, hooked into the metal By Thanksgiving, I’d set our bound-
braces that armoured both sides of aries. From opposite corners of my
each leg. In summer, he used a crutch basement, we worshipped Dickens and
in his left hand; in winter, he needed despised Moby Dick. We read Alice
one in each hand. Munro’s Lives of Girls and Women, hot
off the presses. It’s impossible to explain
The first time Gerald knocked on our what a miracle that was, four decades
front door, I climbed out the bathroom ago: a book by a living Canadian writer,
window. I refused to be seen with him. by a young woman.

98 january/february 2020