TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup on Tsawwassen Beach

THIS is why we do it.

Over 300lbs of miscellaneous, large-items were found along the beach.

Over 152 golf balls and 8 "toys" were found in the tidal flats.

Team 1 sets out towards the ferry causeway.

Abandoned Cars embedded in the beach in Pacific Rim National Park

Over the past few months we have been inspired by the 100 Mile Challenge, the eat local movement, films like "Blue Gold: World Water Wars" http://www.bluegold-worldwaterwars.com/ from Purple Turtle Films and Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth". We went to the Vancouver Aquarium and found literature on Ocean Wise http://www.vanaqua.org/oceanwise/ and found out that there are entire restaurants who's menus are built on local, sustainable and ocean-wise foods.

In May, we spent a week in Tofino in the Pacific Rim National Park. We were so taken aback by the raw, natural beauty and the power of the ocean. If you took some time, you could imagine it looking not much different before people (specifically in later history) came in to log, fish and use the resources for profit. We went for a day-long walk on the beach during our week there and came upon a stream that flowed right over the whole depth of the beach, on its way to the tide line. This stream was a different colour. It was the colour of rust. As we followed the stream further, the colour of the sand also became rust coloured and further still, we found the source. Car parts. Batteries, tires, wheel drums, entire car chassis, steering columns...and among the 5 or 6 whole car chassis we found, there was also the added bonus of slowly leaking engine oil and gasoline. Oily rainbows slicked the sand and the stream as it meandered its way into the tide line at the ocean. This, automobile pollution, left in the sand and dunes, in a National Park that citizens of Canada and visitors from around the world laud as an epitome of nature preservation. We were dumbfounded. How had this been left? How had no one come to remove these car skeletons and clean up the oil and gasoline? How does this still happen? Why?

While out on our Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary RHIB, we have seen plenty of garbage and debris floating on the surface of the water: Tim Horton's disposeable cups, Starbucks cups, aluminum cans and plastic bags. We can't stop to pick it up. That's not part of our mission in the CCGA-P.

But, we then came home to Ladner and went looking for something to add our energies to, some sort of thought-into-action gesture that COUNTS for something. To make things better on a scale that we CAN have an impact on.

This weekend, we did it. We got together with strangers, united in our intent to clean up a shoreline.

We found the TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup through the Vancouver Aquarium web site. We found out that during the September 19th through 27th span, not only Canada, but the World was participating in shoreline clean-ups. We sifted through the Canada-wide map and saw that zero shoreline cleanups were registered as open to the public in Delta. So, instead of waiting for some intrepid Delta coordinator, we decided to site coordinate our very own. Why wait?!

It has certainly been a learning process. Site coordinators have to perform a veritable plethora of tasks: register the site, communicate with the municipality, register the cleanup with them, organize the municipality's pickup of the garbage and recycling, communicate key information with every person that registers as a participant, make sure to familiarize oneself with all the media Q & A's, know the history of the event, INSPIRE PEOPLE TO PARTICIPATE, make sure the data cards are filled out correctly, compile the data and send everything back in.

We met our volunteer crew at the local Tim Hortons - both an easy-to-find meeting place and a convenient source of doughnuts and coffee :)

We caravaned down to Tsawwassen Beach, set up, signed waivers and talked data collection. The beach itself is approximately 3 kilometres long and stretches between the ferry causeway and the border at Point Roberts. That's a lot of ground to cover...

I set the first team free on their shoreline cleanup quest. Within the hour, more people showed and some residents of Tsawwassen Beach came out to participate. I sent them off as Team 2. An entire family showed up ready to go, and I sent them out as Team 3. With 12 people scouring the beach and the tidal flats, still more people came out to unofficially participate. They brought me garbage they had found on their own, and I catalogued what they found so the data wouldn't be lost.

Tsawwassen Beach was supposed to be a "clean beach" because residents do their own daily cleanup. However, at the end of the afternoon, after 3.5 hours of shoreline cleanup, my three teams and 5 unofficial participants had collected and cleaned up over 300lbs of large item garbage including deck furniture, construction debris, re-bar and a railway tie. They collected over 60lbs of recyclables and 180lbs of regular garbage that could be catalogued.

Strange and unique to Tsawwassen Beach, was the collection of approximately 152 golf balls embedded within the tidal flats all along the stretch of beach.

I'm immensely grateful to all of the participants who registered and all of those who just showed-up and gave their time and energy to remove all of that human-derived waste from the shoreline and tidal flats.

I'm very proud of what we all accomplished yesterday and we're already thinking about what to do next year.

I can only hope that next year, more people in Canada and across Delta will come and participate in the TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup to help conserve shore and ocean habitats, keep beaches and the food chain garbage-free.

But no matter what, even if its just me and my partner, next year we'll be out there again. Its so worth it. So, so, so worth every, stinky, filled garbage bag.

The Key to Friendship

What is the key to friendship? To a genuine connection? To a blend of people who understand each other on subcutaneous levels without or perhaps in spite of, superficial differences?

Is it really only birds of a feather stick together?

Is it that opposites attract?

Is it that two people agree on all things? See the same things through the same eyes?

Is it a healthy blend of difference of opinion built on a base of shared experience?

Is it a foregone conclusion, that to maintain a friendship, two people give each other unconditional "yes"'s to questions? Does one bite one's tongue, refrain from sharing harsh truths in order to keep the other feeling supported?

What is the role of a friend at the crossroads of opinion?

Personally, I don't think compromising truth for the sake of the "yes" requirement is the key to a real friendship.

Perhaps I've lost the key to that door.

Well, they do say that when one door closes, another will open. Maybe I'll take my chances with some windows...

One step forward, hurry up and wait.

He finally said it. He finally told me that September was NOT going to be feasible, that I would be lucky to get to defend the thesis by the 2nd week of October.

All this time, he has not answered my direct questions about September. Now I know why. Now I'm on the hook to pay for a whole extra semester just for the privilege of defending the thesis.

Grad school feels like extortion.

My positive spin will be, that Fall is my favourite season. That Fall is about the ending of one season and the beginning of another. That Fall is about finishing and then resting. Fall is about celebrating bounty with loved ones and friends. Fall is about giving thanks.

So, I will defend my thesis in October. (OK, make that November). I will finish the grad school phase of my life and move forward into a new phase of life. I will celebrate this rite of passage with my partner, my loved ones and my dearest friends. Tequila and I may break up. But not until after the celebration. I will celebrate the bounty of the Fall and give thanks.

Then, I will rest. My brain will hibernate until spring. In the spring, I can read anything I want. Yes, even FICTION.

Right now however, I must hurry up - and wait.

The What-If's

I have a case of the what-if's again. Those dastardly, continuous, nagging worries that ride a merry go 'round in one's mind.

So many what-ifs...

What if I don't get to defend in September, before the deadline when I'll be on the hook for a whole semester of tuition?

What if I don't defend successfully?

What if the Government doesn't follow through on the promise to provide me 2 years of public service employment when I successfully defend my thesis?

What if there are just no jobs IN the government to be had by the time I get there?

What if I get a job that I hate?

What if I can't find a decent job at all, on my own?

What happens if my savings run out before I find employment?

What happens if I get a job that has NOTHING to do with my specialization in Gerontology and health promotion?

I wish I could quiet my mind. I'm getting tired of the merry go 'round...

The High Road, the Low Road and Leaving Baggage Behind

In the past week, the past and its dreaded baggage came snapping at my heels.

I hate baggage. I also largely hate my past and do everything I can not to spend precious energy thinking about it or moseying down memory lane.

I have an ex. I also have an ex-house and an ex-dog and ex-cat.

When it was painfully clear that happiness was unattainable in the relationship as it stood and that no changes would be made by the ex, I left the ex and 95% of the accoutrements and trappings that went with the ex-relationship.

I didn't look back. I didn't really miss what I didn't take with me (except for the ex-dog and the ex-cat...I still miss them). What I haven't needed in the past 6 years, I couldn't anticipate needing in the future. After all, a person can always attain more "stuff"...we do live in a capitalistic, retail-therapy world of sorts.

There were things I asked for, documents that were important that could seemingly never be located by the ex and I just had to accept that they were gone forever.

Until last week.

The ex's new spouse contacted me through my own sibling, to tell me they are trying to sell the ex-house and that a whole upstairs bedroom was filled with my former-relationship stuff. I was to provide a location for drop-off so they could put the place on the market. The one caveat being I wasn't to go to the ex-house. That would make the ex's new spouse uncomfortable.

Seriously? I left him, remember?

Anyway, things spiralled into a must-remove-this-weekend situation. The ex's new spouse got so intent on ridding her space of my haunting past, that she broke down and called me to arrange this sifting and dumping of the past. She called ME. Impressive.

I told her to throw everything in the garbage. To me, it could only BE garbage. Its detritus of the past...I don't want to carry it around with me...and why the hell is it still sitting there 6 years post-split?!

Reality? The ex was "never comfortable" throwing out my wedding dress, my old undergrad text books, receipts from Canadian Tire for that ex-hose, dried out acrylic paints or ex-wedding photos.

Some of us like to cling to the past and others of us like to shed it. I'm a shedder.

I gave in, went solo to the ex-house, made the ex's new spouse uncomfortable, visited with the ex-dog and ex-kitty, sifted through the detritus of the ex-relationship and gave explicit go-ahead to shed the remains of the past.

I came away with some pots and pans I was previously not allowed to have, a locket with pictures of my grama and grampa inside and a heart-shaped box my mom painted for my 21st birthday.

When I left with these useful items of the past, I felt heavy. Weighed-down. I realized it wasn't the stuff in the trunk, but the feeling I always carried when I lived in the ex-house with the ex-spouse. Going "home again" meant going back to why I left in the first place, again. I hate that feeling.

When I got home and showed my partner all of the new-to-us old stuff, the phone rang. We were in the middle of organizing, so we didn't answer.

The past called again, to tell me that he found my undergraduate degree, in its folder, and that I could come by the next day to pick it up.

The past wanted me to have my educational attainment acknowledged...it just took 6 years to accept letting go of that piece of paper. Every time I asked for it, from the moment I left, right up to a year ago, this degree was impossible to find. Mysteriously vanished.

Perhaps it was held ransom until the ex was prepared to finally go his way as I go mine.

I'm taking the high road, unburdened by stuff from the past. I won't cling to mistakes, failures, pain or the unknown through stuff. I choose to travel light.

I wish the ex and his new spouse, many happy years of gathering new shelves, closets, basements, attics and garages full of detritus marking their past.

May it never come biting at their heels.

A Birthday is a Birthday is a Birthday

Growing up, each birthday was a milestone. Each birthday was a source of excitement bringing with it a set of new physical and cognitive skills that moved you farther away from being a child and closer to being an adult in your own right. Closer to the ability to act autonomously, to make your own decisions, steer your own rudder and direct your own steps.

Year 1 was momentus for moving from being an infant to a toddler, for gaining control of muscle groups that let you hold yourself up, control where you look, what you do with your hands and feet and eating solid foods.

Year 2 is even more significant - within two years you have gone from helpless, wordless and controlless to a moving, uttering, running and terrorizing little human machine. With any luck you're parroting every swear word your parents utter. Each year is more significant than the one previous. Each year counts for something and we took stock of those things that counted.

As a child, each birthday was cataloged through photographs of a cherubim-like face covered in cake icing and a near clothingless body running around the yard with balloons and laughing uncontrollably. Action shots and stills of a person in the making, being celebrated for their potential and their survival to date.

When we reach legal age, we technically become adults. We can purchase alcohol and speak for ourselves, sign contracts and move on without parental intervention. We still celebrate ourselves and our milestones, but the chronological numbers begin to pass by with little or no meaning, slowly increasing but lacking in ordinal significance.

At some point, when I wasn't paying attention, the numbers stopped meaning something. At some point my chronological age stopped being meaningful or significant to me. My subjective age is made up of my life experiences and the age I "FEEL" inside. But my subjective age and my chronological age don't match. In fact, they are at least a decade apart...

I think that in this age of longevity and healthy aging, the meaning of chronological age has shifted. "Retirement Age" is meaningless as a common reference because so many people work well past age 65. "Middle Age" is no longer life in your 40's and 50's because life expectancy is a moving target. If 40's are the new 30's, then 30's are the new 20's and so on...perhaps that's why we expect teenagers to behave like children for much longer?

All I know is, I appreciate being celebrated. I appreciate people cataloguing my birthdays, eating cake and sushi with people I love and who love me, I appreciate good wine and good company, laughter and cake icing in places it shouldn't be. I appreciate every 365 day journey around the sun that I have experienced so far and will have in the future.

I don't care about the meaningless number...I do care about how I feel inside.

I feel ALIVE.

I'm going to take my balloons for a walk in the sun as we set out on day 2 of this cycle around the sun.





Photo by DaddyPete

Back to the Drawing Board

As expected, the hate mail arrived.

Follwed by a hate meeting.

90 pages of edits, redoing analyses that were done in January and scrubbed, taking out graphs that were put in there at request, doing 6 new tables to replace tables that I spent hours doing, and redoing an interaction graph because it doesn't look "good".

Now its a panic to edit everything, write the discussion / conclusion section afterwards (because I can't do it now that the results section is effed up), get everything cleared and to the committee for THEIR edits and changes so I can defend some time in September.

Grad students...we're not bad people, we just make bad life decisions.