July Gratitude List

Time is precious these days, so I'll avoid a tangential post on all the great things going on in my life (of that there are many). But here are a few of the top contenders:

1. Our little dude is back on set this month with a packed filming schedule for the next four months. Unlike most of us adults, he actually looks forward to work—and I love that he truly enjoys what he’s doing. Lately, he’s been talking about becoming a scientist one day, and whatever path he ends up choosing, I just hope he always has this kind of passion for it.

   In the meantime, being a child actor has been such a special and enriching experience for him. I’m also so grateful for my husband’s flexible career, which allows him to take our son to set while I sit this summer out to soak up time with our baby girl.

2. Speaking of my little lady... she'll be 8 months old in a few days. She’s an expert army-crawler these days, and will probably be full-on crawling any moment now. I absolutely love this stage.

3. I'm turning 38 next week, and I think the older I get, the closer aligned I become with embracing my full authentic self in every situation.

4. Pelvic floor physio... it's been incredibly validating. I have significant abdominal separation and an umbilical hernia. I haven't felt right in my core since I had my daughter and it hasn't healed on its own. Now the tough part: I have to do the work to repair it. But I'm finally ready to give it my all. If I don't significantly improve it within the year by doing deep core work, I'll be getting a tummy tuck, which I never thought was in my reality. But I'm grateful I have options, because so many women don't.

5. We've got a family trip to the Cariboo coming up—sandwiched in between my son's busy filming schedule. Barkerville here we come!

An Evening of Doomin' and Gloomin' with the Incomparable Mick Flannery

If I could only see one contemporary artist perform live for the rest of my days, it would probably be Mr. Mick Flannery. Shout out to MySpace for introducing a melancholic 20-year-old me to his music all those years ago. Since then, I’ve seen him live in Ireland and several times here in Vancouver, including at last year’s Folk Fest when I was heavily pregnant. I don't want to overstate it, but this man's music has helped me through all my adult life stages—young and single, in a relationship, and married and pregnant with my first and second babies. Things are more hectic than ever these days, so it was a real treat when my partner and I got to see him perform again at the Blueshore Financial Centre in North Vancouver recently.

It was an incredibly intimate show. You could hear a pin drop as the audience remained entranced by the man and his music throughout the entire performance. Our seats were fourth-row centre, and unlike many shows I've been to lately, we actually had a clear view of the stage. Thank the Lord they were designated seats too. Yes,yes, I know—I'm old. For this performance, Mick was without his band, but I love his solo shows just as much. He's a masterful storyteller who needs nothing more than his gravelly, world-weary voice, a piano, and a guitar. It's perfection. His show opener was "Boston", which I'm guessing is his favourite track to perform live, seeing as how he has opened the show with it the past three times I've seen him. It also happens to be one of the rare 'happy' love songs in his song catalogue. Out of all his tracks, it's probably in my top five. He then led into "Baby Talk", originally performed as a duet with SON, and then to "Take it on the Chin", which is one of the older songs in his set, and my husband's favourite. Next up was “Safety Rope,” a formative love song for me, with the admission that he didn’t really know what the fuck he was talking about when he wrote it at 22—and maybe that’s exactly why I love it. It’s one of those quintessentially earnest relationship songs, written before time and experience have had a chance to reshape your understanding of what love even is.

Between songs, he treated the audience to anecdotes saturated in that trademark wit of his—wry and self-deprecating, always nestled somewhere between endearing awkwardness and painful self-awareness. These little moments always make the show for me.

A serious, emotionally guarded person (he reads Cormac McCarthy—what do you expect?), he has a way of pointing out the absurdity woven through life’s bleakness. It touches something in me I can’t quite explain. And yet, without fail, a sweet, boyish chuckle sometimes slips out before he launches into the next song. It’s just one way to manage the sorrow amid the rot, I guess. Mick gets that. He always has. Though he’s matured as an artist over the sixteen years I’ve been a purveyor of his music, that sensitivity has never left him. It still lives beneath the aloof exterior.

An exquisite songwriter and storyteller, Mick remains unwavering in his musical offerings—each song rich with dialogue, excruciating truths, and meanings carved with scalpel-like precision. He cut to the bone with songs like "I'll Be Out Here", "The Small Fire", "Machine", "Star to Star", and "Get What You Give". In a moment of levity, he also played "Fuck Off World" which he consistently rejects as being a serious song—much to my disappointment, because I always seem to play it when I'm in an exceptionally pissed off state. It probably should've come with the disclaimer: not meant to be taken literally, Melissa. Oh well, let it stand as my guilty pleasure song.

Given that Mick is humble and not one to get high off his own supply, he predictably throws in gems at every show that he didn’t write himself—usually something by one of his cherished mentors, John Prine—and they’re never random. This time, he chose “Hello in There,” a devastating song that speaks to the loneliness and isolation experienced by elderly people, and the desperate need to feign connection amid the absence of loved ones. But the standout covers of the night were the hilariously sardonic “Checkers Playing Gutter Bitch,” written by Jeffrey Martin, and the gut-wrenching “Kilkelly,” based on old family letters excavated in an attic. As for the crowd-pleasing "Checkers"—on the surface it’s meant to be humorous, but I’m guessing Mick plays it because it speaks to the very human need we have to be reductive and take the easy route—as he sings, “the best ideas, they fit on hats and bumper stickers.” Quite an apt observation, considering our current political climate. I’ve heard a few Jeffrey Martin songs before, but I’m definitely going to dig deeper into his work after this show.

While most of the show was what I expected (in a good way—Mick never lets a girl down), I was surprised at the end when he closed with an aching brand-new song—“Something Beautiful,” which resonated deeply with my tendency toward melancholy. It was probably the one moment in the show where I had a smidgen of regret that I didn’t have my phone out to record the performance, especially since it’s going to be a while before his next album. But as my temptation leans toward recording everything—and I’m trying to be more present with my experiences rather than aestheticize them—it was still just as lovely to enjoy the show relatively phone-free.

After all, as Mick’s music has often taught me over the years, there’s nothing like being in the moment and dissecting the beauty and the pain later—always with surgical precision.

Can't wait to catch you again, Mick!

The Things That Radicalized You.

Selfish society will kill itself in its own race for supremacy. I will end up being a victim of this unjustly—and more than likely one of the first to die. -- Dave Mitchell, Letter from a chain-wrought chapel (Matsqui, BC, 2004).

And then he did. Just like a prophecy.

So there on the floor of ICU, while my brother's body gave way to descending breaths, something crucial left me. An innocence, maybe. And what remained? Something I couldn't pretend not to see. It was then that I was cracked wide open—fully attuned to the horrors of the world.

But maybe it didn't exactly start with that because ever since I was small I could spot social maladies that others couldn't—or didn't want to. I clocked every disparity and injustice. Every subtle sign of suffering. Every child that hadn't been fed and watered according to instructions. Every seed that didn't fall on fertile soil. Every us versus them, and have and have not, and I was told my heart was too pulpy because hey, you can't save every dying bird, anyway. I don't know why you try.

And how dare you stand up to any man because it's a boy's world baby, and you might as well get used to it. But if you're pretty enough you might just make it.

And maybe it's because my dad woke up my mom by lighting firecrackers in her ears and I told myself I'll only ever love the soft ones or maybe it's because I understand how easy it is to overlook the sorrow of others when you're distracted by your own or maybe it's because I saw how quickly you become blind when you are busy staring at the sun..

But maybe things could be different if we just had the courage to try something different, to be the dissenting voices amid the cacophony of sameness. It's easier to disenfranchise from yourself or to numb out completely that it is to see what's really happening. That we are the monsters—those who hoard, who build empires on the backs of the oppressed. Perhaps if I can tear the greed from my chest, thread by thread, and howl incantations of dissent into the forgotten corners just to hear them echo back, maybe the spell can be broken in others too.

Something tells me I have to try.