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the DNA of your everyday life…

Yesterday I was speed walking through Waterfront Station at my usual frantic pace, distracted from lack of sleep, and suddenly realized I needed to pay attention.  Because I wasn’t on my way to the client – but to the German Consulate –  so I couldn’t just operate on auto-pilot.  I have been traversing this same route a lot in the past couple of months and a routine has been established that I had to break.

It got me thinking about our everyday routines and how ordinary places become part of our life whether we are aware of it or not.  I think lots of people don’t realize there are places and rituals that have become an important component of their life – and that they would miss them if they didn’t do them.  This is why some people feel a bit lost the day after they retire.

Having moved likely about 40 times – changing everything from neighbourhood to town to country – I have always been very conscious of my daily environment.  And have found quite ordinary places and experiences imbued with great meaning and inducing much nostalgia.

Back in 1990, I lived in Sydney, Australia.  When I went back in 2000 for my first return visit, I took the train to Artarmon.  It’s a residential suburb that no one but a local would know and has nothing to attract tourists. But I wanted to get off the train there and retrace the route I had taken so many times.  Check out magazines in the news agent.  Walk by the TAB without placing a bet.  See if the Indian restaurant where I used to look for my boyfriend if he wasn’t in the apartment was still there.  Gaze up at the high rise where I had lived then.  Just soak up the atmosphere of my everyday Sydney life and try to re-live some memories.

Moving so much has taught me to value my everyday life and the relationships I develop in each place.  My hairstylist, my drycleaner, my tailor.  They all KNOW me.  It’s a personal relationship, not just a business transaction.  It makes everyday life sweeter and more meaningful.

The thought loop finished at the German Consulate, which as I expected was in the same building as one of my other clients.  They have moved to a new building but it still feels familiar to enter the door and know where to go.  Which made me think of the fun of new routines.  It’s good to break habits and explore new things.

I once dated someone who used to not take the most direct route when we were walking – but the most interesting or pleasant.  I am all about efficiency (the German Consulate felt like home 🙂 but I had to concede he had a point.  And while I generally take the efficient route to run errands, when I explore new cities or have a day off in my own, I just wander and see what happens.  In Paris, I might find a wonderful patisserie.  In Amsterdam I might encounter someone dressed like Darth Vader.  And here at home I might end up helping a lost tourist find the right bus.  Going beyond the DNA of my everyday life always offers unexpected pleasures…

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life philosophy, travel stories

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cinematic moments

I semi-watched the Oscars last night along with many millions all over the world.  It seems to have lost a lot of its mystique.  More a marketing platform for Harvey Weinstein and a bunch of designers most people can’t afford.  And Angelina Jolie is no Grace Kelly.

They kept trying to channel their past glory.  The one part that did speak to me was various people talking about their early cinematic memories.  The first film that I really remember clearly was Mary Poppins.  I was very into magic in those days and who couldn’t love a word like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.  I still reference Mary Poppins when I am pulling an improbable amount of stuff out of my tiny, perfectly designed evening bag.  Thank you, Longchamp 🙂

Most of my childhood movie memories are Disney films.  My mom thought she was Walt’s missing daughter and we were brainwashed from an early age.  They were perfect films for children and I do think cinema sparks your imagination and encourages you to dream.

I have meandered a very long distance from the life into which I was born.  I am sure some of those early cinematic moments inspired me to think big.  Once I got away from my mother’s strict parental controls, I went to see all sorts of films.  My sheltered youthful self would watch European films in wide-eyed astonishment.  Oh my god, they are naked!  Is that even physically possible?

Somewhere along the line, I started to absorb those lessons so well that my real life began to resemble the stuff I saw on the screen.  Often my real life adventures had a better script and cinematography.  How the concept “life on planetm” developed.  I would describe some recent adventure and my friends would say, “only on planetm!”

Shorthand for “that only happens in the movies”.  Or in marla’s life.  I started to dub them “cinematic moments.”  A fragment of real life with the look and the script of something bigger than real life.  My life has been full of cinematic moments.  Not too many people are sitting in Madrid shortly after the movie “Vicky Christina Barcelona” had come out and overhear some American tourists talking about it and think, “I had my own “Vicky Christina Barcelona” film last night.  I saw the real Spain.  I thought the movie was far-fetched.  But I just hadn’t met Spanish men :)”

How do you make your life cinematic?  You take some chances.  You talk to strangers.  You develop fine-tuned skills for reading people so you can let loose a little but not come to any harm.  You decide that after attending your 25 year college reunion, you will take advantage of the economic crisis and use your points for a business class ticket to Madrid.  You will do your research and not act like a North American.  So you will stay at the hippest hotel in Madrid.  You will be in the bar around 9 waiting to go to dinner.  You will not engage the boring American businessmen in conversation.  So when the cute guy who is sitting next to you – also alone at the bar – buys you a drink, you will be able to talk to him.  His name will be Javier.  You will think, “I want to experience the real Madrid.  And now I have Javier… a local.”  You will eat octopus, throw your refuse on the floor in the tapas bar like the locals and you will end up in the rooftop bar on the top of your hotel overlooking Madrid on a perfect October evening at 4am – when the place is at its peak.  Other crazy stuff will happen and you will come home with a story that Woody Allen would loved to have written.

So I don’t need to go to movies anymore.  I produce them in my everyday life – and always get the starring role 🙂

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artsy stuff, life philosophy, travel stories

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who needs Yoda when you have Yvonne :)

Before Sex and the City popularized the concept, I knew my close friends were like family members.  Many of my friendships now have a decade or two of history… some even more.

Yvonne is one of my oldest friends. She is one of those women who could rule the world… with time left over to have a hobby 🙂  (Women should rule the world of course – but we’ll leave that topic for future posts 😉

We met in the first month of our university education so I didn’t have the frame of reference yet to fully appreciate how impressive she was.  I do remember I was a little intimidated by her.  She didn’t act like she was 18.  She was so much more confident and pulled together than the rest of us.

We have now been friends for 31 years and counting… what is really incredible about the friendship is that we have lived in the same city for maybe 2 years of the 31…  I blame her for my penchant for long distance dating 🙂

There have been many moments that have added glue to our bond but one of the first happened long ago, in our early twenties.  She had a summer job in Lethbridge.  I had a summer job in Calgary.  So one weekend I went down to visit her.  It ended up being a pretty interesting weekend… mostly because I lost her for a while and was the first person in Canada to understand some random Scottish soccer player with a wild Glaswegian accent.  Hey, I loved Bill Forsyth films – and I didn’t need the subtitles!  So by the time I got reconnected with Yvonne I was trying to make sure my new Scottish boyfriend wasn’t going to pick a fight with one of her male friends for talking to me…

But I digress… even though the Scottish soccer player falling madly in love with me just because I could traverse his thick accent is a good story, the memorable part for me was hanging out with Yvonne… and her declaration at the end, “it was so great to see you.  I have met some people this summer but they don’t really KNOW me.  You have been to my hometown, you have met my parents, we dated brothers from the same tiny small town in Manitoba (and we both had a girl crush on their much cooler sister)…

She taught me the true net worth of your life is the sum total of the relationships and the people in it.  It’s the people who know you and participate in your life – in the good times and the bad – that give your life meaning.

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life philosophy, shining examples, travel stories

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the origin of friendship

This afternoon I had a wonderful, much too brief, visit with an old friend on his way from the airport to his mother’s 90th birthday in our favourite city.  I first met him when I was dating his best friend, 20 years ago now.  Yikes!  But we know I’m old so the interesting part of the story is that when I broke up with his friend, he asked if WE could still be friends.  I am pretty unconventional so it was fine with me.  But not a very typical way to acquire friends…

For whatever reason, that seems to be my norm.  I never gave it much thought until friends started playing a party game called, “how did you meet Marla?”  I had this eureka moment that most people develop their friendships from a very limited set of channels.  The typical ones are school, work or sports.  There is nothing wrong with these channels, of course, but it means that most of the people at the party will already know each other.

And likely have a lot of similarities.  How I started throwing parties is another story but I have thrown a lot of them and it’s always a diverse group.  People have commented on how much they enjoy my parties because it’s such a broad mix of people.

I think that stems from my lifestyle.  I have always been a gypsy child.  I spent my first six birthdays in a different town every year so I became used to new people.  But I guess I also yearned for more stability in some ways so once I got old enough to afford stamps, I would stay in touch with anyone I met who really caught my attention.  My criterion was an interesting conversation rather than shared interests or contacts.

I never really set out with a plan to acquire friends.  Just to meet people and treat them well.  But it’s ended up being a wild, wonderful ride.  Some of my best friends have rarely ever lived in the same city as me.  One friendship developed because we always brushed our teeth at the same time in university residence and would invariably end up on the sink counter with our toothbrushes chatting into the night.  Another was my random roommate for six weeks during a summer job in Calgary – we didn’t talk very often but when she taught me the longest word in the English language I knew she was one of my tribe 🙂   Yet another was acquired after I had been instructed to meet new people at an Australia Day party – by another friend who I acquired via a friend I met on a boat cruise by mistaking him for someone else…

You get the idea!  I would encourage everyone to make a goal to try and acquire at least one new friend each decade that you didn’t make via the normal channels… someone you met randomly at a bus stop maybe… we’re still going strong 30 years later… and I am really hoping she will be able to fly in for my 50th birthday party 😉

architects love chicago 🙂

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life philosophy, travel stories

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that minority feeling…

Not long ago I was part of a conversation that included the phrase, “oh, you mean the white girl” in trying to identify a new staff member.  I’d never thought about it but realized that the majority of the employees are not “white” and “a white girl” was an easy identifier.  Really made me think about how cool the world has become 🙂  And my experiences being a visible minority.

The first time I realized how oblivious I was to skin colour was decades ago in a bar in LA.  I was there on a business trip and hanging out with a young colleague.  I wanted him to feel comfortable that he wasn’t stuck with me all night so I said, “you can just tell girls that I am your sister.”  He looked at me quizzically and I got the point so I said, “OK, tell them we don’t have the same father” 😉

I have been a minority a number of times now but one of the experiences that really stands out for me is going to China in 2008.  It was just after the Olympics and China was in the news all the time so it seemed like everyone was traveling to China.  But once I arrived, I quickly noted that, as a little white redhead, I was a huge novelty.

I first clued in to that on my run up the Great Wall.  I took a tour and was convinced to do the more challenging route so was practically running up the Great Wall to reach the high point for a panoramic photo quickly enough to get back in time to not miss the bus back to Beijing.

I’d just taken my scenery shot and was about to head down when some teenage boys made hand gestures that suggested they wanted a photo.  I assumed they wanted a photo of the two of them at the top of the Great Wall.  But the hand gestures implied something was off.  They wanted ME in the photo!  Hardly my best look but the first boy seemed quite pleased so his friend, who was obviously more shy, decided that he wanted to pose with me too.  It became a theme of my visit and how I learned my only Mandarin – xie xie – thank you…

The coolest part of my trip to China was coming back to Vancouver and randomly walking down Seymour Street just as the language schools let out.  It was pretty obvious in China that I was a minority but I walked for at least 5 blocks feeling like I was still in China… and it wasn’t jet lag 🙂

The world is changing.  It used to be run by old white guys.  I would really encourage everyone to get out of your own neighbourhood – where you are likely the majority – and be a minority – at least for a week.  It really expands your perspective to get out of your comfort zone.  Enjoy being a visible minority while you have the opportunity 😉   My goal is to encourage the world to intermix so successfully that the concept of being a visible minority – or a “white girl” – will become obsolete…

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social commentary, travel stories

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38 countries and counting…

I recently met someone barely into his twenties who I thought seemed really well traveled but he proclaimed, “I have only been to 10 countries!” I have never done a count but this inspired me so I decided to count… 38 I think… with at least another 2 new ones already in the 2012 plan… Have decided I need to see 60 before I turn 60 as apparently I am a bit behind!

As the posts progress, there will be lots about travel and other cultures. I realize for some that will not be part of their life agenda but if you have any interest, DO IT as Nike would say. My mother always wanted to go places and inspired my love of travel and other cultures at a young age.

There wasn’t a lot of opportunity for travel in my youth… but my mom and I would write to the local chambers of commerce for information and plot out the driving strategy on a map laid out on the living room floor. Maybe it was just South Dakota and the badlands… but it could involve unplanned encounters with biker festivals and sarsaparilla. Or one of my fondest childhood memories, when my Monty-Python-esque mother told a scared six year old, “yeah, those shadows on the hills are attacking Apaches ready to take our scalps”… they were just trees – but it meant my childhood was never boring 🙂

And I developed a slightly wacked sense of humour that has helped me survive all the bad moments in life. The sun may no longer set on the British Empire but having someone with a British sense of humour by your side during a tragedy can be very helpful. I always say, “if things get really bad, I just start cracking bad jokes and laughing.”

Not all of the travels to the 38 countries reached that level of excitement – but there have been a lot of incredible memories that will be described in more detail as this discourse continues… the story about riding a runaway elephant near the Cambodian border when the Khmer Rouge were still roaming around is over 20 years old but still entertains…

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life philosophy, travel stories

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kiva is a little healthier than heroin :)

One of my best friends introduced me to kiva.org a while ago.  I am one of those people who knows a thing or two about numbers so I have been aware of microfinance for a long time.  I first encountered the developing world in 1991 and saw the dynamics and wondered how I could help.  I really think kiva is definitely one of those solutions.  As part of my 50th birthday party, I decided to set up a planetm team on kiva as I have tons of stuff so don’t need any gifts.  So far we aren’t a very big group but I made some loans to encourage others.  And today seven of my loans had their first repayment so I had credits to use!

The concept of kiva is making loans to people in developing countries – loans, not aid.  You can loan as little as $25 so it’s viable to any person in the developed world.  And anyone who has travelled will recognize that while $25 might get you a glass of champagne in New York, in Tanzania it can really make a difference.

I have found the process to be addictive 😉 It’s a well-designed site run largely by volunteers I gather.  First, you read people’s stories about what they need the money for.  You can select someone based on your personal values or interests.  I have made lots of loans in Tanzania because I travelled there recently and fell in love with the country.  One of my friends with a degree in agriculture made a loan to a pig farmer in Cambodia.  I grew up on a pig farm so that made me smile 🙂

Just $25 will make your day.  You get to join a bunch of other people to fund the loan and once it is fully funded, you will get an email and can go on and see who participated with you to make a difference in the world.  According to the friend who got me started, the default rate is almost nothing so, as I have just discovered, you will have the money you have lent returned really quickly and you can re-lend it and continue to make a difference in people’s lives.  Pretty powerful stuff.  An addiction with no regrets.  And no need for rehab…

http://www.kiva.org/

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life philosophy, shining examples, social commentary, travel stories

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