By Wendy Litner

I am a chronic apologist.  As someone who values personal space, both physically and metaphysically, I am always wary of being in peoples’ way or taking up too much of their time.  While certainly not a becoming quality, and one I continually vow to quit, I never really thought of it as anything more than a harmless, quirky habit.  Until now.  Now it has become life threatening.                       

It’s a Saturday night, a few weeks ago.  As my husband and I prepare for a night on the town, and by a night on the town I mean take our dog for a walk, the distinct smell of smoke wafts through the air.

“Do you smell smoke?” my husband asks astutely.

As we follow the fetid scent down the stairs, we see plumes of thick smoke foraging across our basement, swathing the unfinished walls and ceiling.  We stare in horror, backing away as it begins to flood the stairwell.  Smothering our mouths with our shirtsleeves we exchange muffled coughs.  The dog barks at the oncoming smoke and then ceremoniously pees on the floor.  Even the cat momentarily stirs from her slumbers.  We become frantic, trying to identify the cause but it’s impossible to see through the clouding haze.

It occurs to me that I should call the fire department, that my house going up in flames falls precisely within the fire department’s domain, but I don’t call them.  I couldn’t possibly.  They’re busy people with a hard job and I really don’t want to bother them.  Our best friends recently moved in across the street and instead I call them to ask for their advice.  As Joel cautiously enters, it takes him very little time to confirm that, yes, there indeed seems to be large amounts of smoke emanating from our basement and progressing rapidly through our home. 

“Why the hell haven’t you called the fire department?” he asks. 

I feel that the state of our uncompleted basement is equivalent to being in a car accident while wearing unattractive underwear, a situation which my mother always cautioned against, but as the smoke continues to close in I relent, and finally dial 911.

 “What type of emergency is it?” asks the dispatcher.
“Well I wouldn’t really call it an emergency,” I say.  “I mean, we’re all okay, there just seems to be a lot of smoke in our house, but it’s really no big deal.”

“That’s a fire emergency Ma’am.”

I am horrified.  I have before now always been a Miss.  When did I become a Ma’am? My thoughts are quickly interrupted as the dispatcher instructs me to get everyone out of the house immediately and wait outside for help.

“Really,” I say, “we don’t need a lot of resources diverted here. It’s really not necessary.  I am sure just your smallest truck will do.”

“Ma’am I am going to need you and everyone else to get out of the house.”

With our cat and dog under each arm, I begrudgingly leave the house with my husband in toe. 

“I really hope they don’t have the sirens on,” says my husband.

Within seconds, we are dizzy from the wailing blare of six fire trucks which have made a train along our narrow street.  A police car flies up onto our lawn and the officers dramatically jump out. 

The entire neighbourhood is outside watching as the men from my colleagues desk calendar run inside our house, albeit wearing slightly more gear.   

I immediately begin to apologize to everyone for the ruckus.  I apologize to all the neighbours for blocking the street.  I apologize to the woman next door with whom we share a wall for the terrible smell.  I apologize to Joel for interrupting the hockey game.  I apologize to the firemen for the mess in our basement.  I apologize to the policemen for having to attend.  I apologize to my cat for waking her up.  I even make a mental note to apologize to my father for the police car having ruined the flowerbed he helped me plant.

“You know,” my husband says,  “you are allowed to exist.”  He walks away.  My cheeks begin to flame. 

The trucks finally begin to depart one by one and as they do, the crowd slowly dissolves.  The firemen clear us to come home, having identified a rubber band in our washing machine as the source of the fire.  But I don’t want to go home.  I sit on the curb, sandwiched between the dog and cat, feeling no relief at all.  I feel small.  I wonder if I could light a match, hold it to myself and smoke my neurotic antics right out of me.  I would set my spirit ablaze, watch it smoulder into powdery ashes and like the phoenix, I would rise, confident and self-assured-a girl who calls emergency services when she is having an emergency.  I hate my submissiveness.  I hate that I’m meek.  I hate it. 

Hugging my knees I turn my head and look up at my husband.  I meet his gaze, embarrassed.  “I’m sorry,” I say.  “I’m so sorry”

By Wendy Litner

I once had a question on an ethics exam which asked, “if your father and the man who had the cure for cancer were both drowning in the lake and you could only save one, who would it be?”  I chose my father – he paid for my swimming lessons.  This, however, has become a particularly loaded question for me in recent years as my mother died of cancer after hers and my father’s divorce.  Answering now would be like choosing who I want to live with post separation.   

My husband, blessed with a very healthy hubris, doesn’t understand why this question is even an ethical quandary at all.  According to him, he would just save both his father and the cancer curer.  It is no matter that he doesn’t even know how to swim.  Given his self-identified talent for multitasking rescue, I posed to him a modernized, particularly self-interested, version of the question: “If I and his iPhone both fell on to the subway tracks and he could only save one of us from the oncoming train, which would it be?”  My husband chose his iPhone without hesitation.  This, to my mind, means that Steve Jobs is now personally responsible for picking up my husband’s underwear off the floor and putting them in the wash. 

While righteously indignant at first, I couldn’t really bemoan my husband’s loyalty to his toy.  I have been known to prioritize my cat over my husband, and, as my husband is quick to point out, she has far fewer applications.  Weeks before moving in together my husband flatly said that either he or my cat were moving into our new apartment, not both.  I chose the cat without hesitation, but wished him well in his future endeavours.  I realize that choosing my sleepy Burmilla over my partner may seem outrageous to some, but in fairness, you haven’t met my cat.  She’s adorable.    

I was recently reminded of these Sophie’s Choices while reading Ayelet Waldman’s infamous essay “Motherlove,” where she boldly declares to love her husband more than her three children, who, she writes, are “satellites, beloved but tangential.”  Sanctimonious mothers everywhere debated whether Harvard lawyer Waldman, who gave up her brilliant career to raise her children, was a “bad mother.”   Despite the venomous outcry, I don’t think Waldman is a bad mother at all.  I think her premise is so poignantly realistic it catches my breath.  Waldman isn’t really advocating for a hierarchy of affection; what she is really advancing is a measure of balance and proportionality between all that we hold dear.  There is no reason why we need to quantify and distribute our love in marked boxes, or polarize our love into hypothetical extremes.  Tenderness, of any kind, is just not mutually exclusive.  That can sometimes get lost as we find a way to make our jobs, our families and our lives, work.   

My husband’s first answer, while unintentionally caring, is exactly right.  It’s not an ethical quandary at all.  What I have learned from my father’s remarriage, though painful at first, is that you just can’t have too many people who love you.  And as my siblings and step-siblings continue to multiply at a biblical pace I am also reminded that you can never have too many people to love.  While it may be difficult and tiring to devote the time and attention to all those in my life, I am thankful for the challenge.  I adore each new niece and each new nephew, just as I adore the new puppy that my husband and I brought home together.  I hold close each new, special person, who comes into my life along the way, by whatever means, and adds a measure of shared joy and companionship.  And if they, my husband, my cat, my puppy, my father, and the man who had the cure for cancer, were all drowning in the lake or had fallen in front of a barrelling subway, I would just save them all.  Each and every one of them. I wouldn’t even hesitate.  But I may be inclined to throw back my husband’s iPhone, he is just on that thing way too much.

By Wendy Litner

I have developed a healthy coating of paranoia in my professional life, but this dubiousness has yet to permeate my personal one.  I don’t know if it’s just my nature to be trusting or if it’s because of the boring, suburban neighbourhood in which I grew up, but I have a tendency to believe that absolutely everyone is telling the truth.  As a child, I obviously would never have taken candy from a stranger;  but I likely would have taken chocolate.  In fact, had anyone in an unmarked van offered me Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups I may not be here today.  Despite a feverish naivety, faith in people, belief in the good – whatever you may call it – I made it through my childhood and adolescence, un-kidnapped and un-phased.  Not for lack of trying. 

When I got lost on the streets of France as a sixteen year old exchange student, I didn’t hesitate jumping into the back seat of a Maserati with two young Frenchmen who pulled up to the curb where I sat reading the wrong page of a map.  Through broken French I explained to them my predicament, that the university’s emergency number wasn’t working (sacre bleu!) and not a single person in the country, including myself, knew of my whereabouts.  It was dark, way passed my curfew, and while their jeans were a little tighter than I was used to, I really had no reason to believe that Marc and Jean-Luc wouldn’t deliver me straight back to campus.  They did promise to after all.  Even though I politely declined their invitation for a ménage à trois in my dorm room, they still waited to ensure I made it safely through the campus gates, going so far as to even watch me type in the university’s confidential 4-digit punch code.  I was touched by their concern, I mean, I only just met them!

One would think that adulthood would make me savvier, more conscious of the ways of the world, but it seems that experience has taught me nothing.  I still maintain that people really do have the best of intentions.  Even in the face of strong evidence to the contrary, I go a long way to give almost everyone the benefit of the doubt.  If “despite everything,” Anne Frank could believe that “people are really good at heart,” then certainly I can too.

Which is why, having made a wrong turn while walking home from work, I didn’t think twice about strolling through Moss Park at night to solicit directions.  I had no trouble providing my exact address to the oversized man with the tear drop tattoo so he could give me turn-by-turn directions to my front door.  After all, what’s to say he is the murderer from the chronic news reports and even if he is, he has clearly already paid his debt to society.   

Volunteering in a retirement home, I gladly held the door open for a resident who claimed the handle was too difficult for her to operate.   Was I shocked to hear the security alarm sound as she ran out the front door?  Sure, but at the time, her desperation to get outside seemed reasonable, even if it was a little too cold for my comfort.  Who was I to question her?  The nurses were able to catch up with her halfway down the block, but it still seemed appropriate for me to turn in my volunteer badge. 

My unyielding trust isn’t bestowed upon just people.  I routinely leave bowls of food and milk on our porch for Dim-Sum, the neighbourhood cat, trusting the insatiable racoons to respect boundaries, as the meal is clearly not for them.  Despite my best intentions and my perpetually haemorrhaging heart, I felt awful watching my husband clean up the shredded garbage strewn across our front lawn yet again.  Though silent, his condemnatory glances made me feel small.  I resolved to be less idealistically imprudent.  I would try and be more impervious, more unaffected by the world around me. 

Just the other evening though, I was deeply struck by a homeless girl, about my age, sitting on Queen Street, hugging her knees in the cold behind a cardboard sign.  “Everyday I pray,” it scrawled, “that tomorrow will be better.”  What choice did I have but to empty out the full contents of my wallet into her tired coffee cup?  While I don’t believe in the power of prayer, I believe that she does.  I believe her that she prays every day and she shouldn’t have to go hungry while she does it.  Touched by her faith, kneeling down, I offered her a hug. 

I know I should be a little more wary of people, a little more leery of circumstances and a little more on guard.  I know people might take advantage of me.  I know people might capitalize on my naivety, but I just can’t seem to change my ways.  I guess no matter how many times the universe has let me down or those I care about disappoint me, I remain hopeful that people will be better, that tomorrow will be better.

By Wendy Litner

Whether my mother was going to the grocery store or a night on the town, she was always perfectly polished and impossibly fashionable.  From a very young age, she inspired in me a reverent love of fashion.  While other parents were pointing out the colours of animals in picture books, my mom was pointing out the new fall tones in Vogue (can you spell s.t.u.n.n.i.n.g?).  I remember sitting on her bathroom counter as a little girl watching her get ready for a Saturday night, in awe of her confidence and careful makeup artistry.  While I always thought my mother glamorous, I nevertheless ended up on the opposite end of the clothing spectrum from her.  Where my mom was daringly chic, I was conservatively preppy.  She wore form fitting clothes, glittering jewellery and turned heads.  I have a love affair with sweater vests and have never ventured past white pearls.  I don’t think anyone is craning their neck to get a better look at me.

My mother would beg me, plead with me, to trade my Lisa Loeb glasses for contacts, chemically straighten my curly hair and do away with, what she termed, my “Anne Frank cardigans.”  But my refusal to wear matchstick pants, my rebuffing of hair bleach and my loyalty to argyle, though maddening to her, did not distress her as much as my lack of lipstick.  Lipstick to my mother was not just a decorative accessory, an ornament of the fashionable; it was a way of life.  My mother wholeheartedly believed that all of life’s problems could be solved with the purchase of a fresh lipstick.  Any bad day could be calmed with a new shimmery gloss and something like a divorce, well, that called for some thing big, like Mac Viva Glam.  My preference for lip balm wasn’t just offensive to her, but led her to question my coping mechanisms.  When I would call her from university stressed and seeking maternal guidance, to my further frustration, my mother would instruct me to dress myself up, get out of my apartment and put on some “God damn lipstick.”  Always the rebel, I usually opted for sweatpants, cookie-dough ice cream and Keats’ poems.      

Finding myself with a bout of melancholy as of late that no amount of cliché verses or moping around the house in my pyjamas could shake, I suddenly felt compelled to test my mother’s theory.  Feeling that my despondency required some serious intervention, I stood at the makeup counter after work and with much trepidation, finally bought a deep, Betty Draper red, lipstick. 

I was looking forward to my best friend’s engagement party that weekend and what better place to try out my new look?  Getting ready to leave for the party I stood in front of the mirror, as my mother had, in stiff lipstick application position and carefully smoothed the colour across my virgin lips.  I looked uncomfortable.  Unable to stop rubbing my lips and dabbing at the corners, I continued to fuss in the rear-view mirror as my annoyed husband assured me that it looked “fine.”  Fine, of course being every woman’s favourite complement. 

Though feeling outrageously self-conscious, as I walked into the party I convinced myself that I could do it.  I could rock bright red lipstick.  I could.  Elated to see my friend glowing with betrothed bliss, I was quickly distracted from my insecure worrying.  As we posed together for a picture, however, Sarit suddenly looked at me, concerned.  I assured her that her outfit was stunning and her side chignon was perfectly in place.   

“It’s not that,” she said.  While her lips were perfectly pouty, it seemed that my rockin red lipstick was all over my teeth.  And my dress.  And my husband’s collar.  I wiped furiously but each “is it gone?” was met with a “no, you’re making it worse.”  I was ill at ease, nervous to smile and reveal my ruby red teeth.  What was I thinking?!  Did I honestly think that something as trivial as lipstick was going to stifle my worries?  I just can’t be something I’m not.  It’s back to Burt’s Bees for me.   

Despite intense scrubbing, my hands continued to look vaguely stained with red for a further twenty-four hours but each time I noticed the faint garnet streaks I smiled, thinking of my brief cosmetic foray.  I continued to smile as it reminded me of my friend’s sheer palpable excitement for her forthcoming nuptials.  My sheepish smile quickly turned into a giggle, which eventually turned into a full fledged laugh.  Looking at my hands with a smattering of red, I laughed harder than I had in a long time. 

So I guess I owe my mother an apology.  It seems lipstick can lift your spirits after all.  Next time though, I think I will start with a much more subtle nude.

 By Wendy Litner

As a city girl, I typically don’t mind public transit but there are times on the subway when I am overcome by a moment of sheer panic.  There I’ll be looking like your average commuter when suddenly my earbuds dislodge, blaring my IPod music for the entire subway car to hear.  A flush creeps up my neck.  I quickly readjust my disloyal headphones, sheepishly surveying the contemptuous glances of my fellow commuters.  But no matter how fast my reflexes, the damage has been done.  My isolation has been pierced.  My reputation wounded.  I have been publicly outed as an 80’s music fan.

And here’s the thing, I am not just any 80’s music fan.  I am a die-hard, know all the words, kind of 80’s music fan.  Let’s just say I have more Boy George tunes on my IPod than is appropriate or reasonable for anyone who isn’t hearing impaired.  And while I detest power ballads (Air Supply doesn’t count, right?), I still fantasize about a young Daniel-san LaRusso in his rising sun bandana serenading me with the “Glory of Love.”  Incidentally, people often debate the relative merits of Karate Kid I over II and I don’t know why because they are both clearly awesome.  I still maintain that theme song scene to be the most romantic one ever filmed and since the age of nine I have swooned on every viewing.  For reasons I still don’t understand, my husband refuses to wear the iconic headwear for me. 

In my defence, I also have the usual mainstream medley of U2, Coldplay and in my case Oasis. It’s just that while the White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army makes me want to drum on my messenger bag, Culture Club’s Karma Chameleon makes me want to dance.  And I would too if I had a little more room on the subway, because generally speaking, peoples’ opinion of my outer shell is of very little consequence to me.  I am so consumed with worrying about all my eccentricities that I just don’t have time to fret about the rest of me.  While I am my own worst critic, I think the world of just about everyone else.  I seldom raise a critical eyebrow in others’ direction.  Subway voyeurism, however, makes me extremely uneasy because despite  my ‘live and let’ live mantra, I judge the books people read on the subway.  I judge them harshly.  Some might even say I am a subway book snob (by some, I mean my bandana-less husband). 

While I may not have an ear for music, I love language.  Books are my thing.  I devour them, dog-earing pages with my favourite passages and reading them over and over again.  Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t been reading any Hemmingway since beginning to work full-time.  One of my all-time favourites “Millard Fillmore Mon Amour” is about a neurotic loner writing a biography about the thirteenth U.S. President.  By no means high-brow literature.  Despite my affection for quirky books, however, I at least try and read the latest quirky books.  When it comes to reading, I always try and stay current. 

In light of my song library, though, which is the musical equivalent of a really old Danielle Steel novel, my cheap headphones and my tendency to listen to music at an adolescent volume, I am hereby proposing a truce with the entire Toronto subway line:  I won’t judge your reading “Memoirs of a Geisha” 10 years after it came out, if you don’t visibly recoil when you hear me listening to “Video Killed the Radio Star.”

Deal?

By Wendy Litner

The novelty of adulthood still hasn’t worn off on me.  Married life feels like a permanent sleepover party, on weekdays no less, and I still feel rebellious every time I buy sugar cereal.  Sometimes, I will even skip breakfast altogether and I won’t put my hat on when it’s cold outside.  There really is nothing better than being a grown up and making your own bad decisions.

Recently, after spending hours crafting a budget and putting ourselves on a strict financial diet, my husband and I proceeded to book a trip to an all-inclusive resort in the Mayan Riviera.  We planned to go with three other couples and while we knew we shouldn’t spend the money, as we all enter our child bearing years, who knew when we would be able to travel together again?  Most persuasively, besides Visa, there was no one to tell us we couldn’t go.

Growing up, ours was the family that always stayed home during winter break.  Every December, while I watched all my classmates travel to such exotic locations as their grandparents’ condos in Fort Lauderdale, I really couldn’t think of anything more glamorous.  Traveling, to me, represented exceptional opulence available only to royalty and my wealthy private school friends.  My generous parents, on the other hand, sacrificed fancy cars and relaxing vacations to send my brothers and I to private school.  As a twenty-nine year old, I am extremely grateful for their hard-work.  At the time though, I really wanted to go to Disneyland.  And so, as my friends invariably returned to school sun-kissed, I returned green with envy. 

With such hectic, grown-up schedules, I long for time away to take a collective breath with my husband but I just can’t get used to the notion that I am permitted to take a trip if I want to.  I never feel like I have earned it and our Mexican jaunt was no different.  As I packed my suitcase, I started to feel immensely guilty about our frivolous decision.  Having already spent the money on what was supposed to be a relaxing holiday, I started to feel guilty about feeling guilty.  With bikinis I prayed still fit sprawled out around me, I sat on my luggage panicking.  I have just never been any good at treating myself.  I am consumed with worry and can’t seem to shed my parents’ preaching of hard work and holiday conservatism. 

After their painful divorce, however, my parents each developed an urgent need to see the world.  Whether it was the fact that their children were grown and educated, the influence of their new partners or a sense of competitive one-upmanship that comes with separation, I don’t really know.  But somehow, my anxious, just ‘stay-put’ mother, who had previously ventured only as far as my grandmother’s rented apartment at Bathurst and Steeles, made her way to Kanchanaburi, Thailand with her handsome boyfriend.  Giddy with romance and jet lag, my mother told me I really ought to see the Bridge over the River Kwai when I get a chance.  My mother said this as if she just happened to stumble upon it.  As if she were telling me to go and get the Clinique bonus at the Bay.  After a long pause, she interrupted my astonishment.  “You know,” she said, her voice cutting in and out of the Thai static, “it’s really important to travel with your partner.” 

I think about my mother’s revelation, the closest she ever came to expressing any sort of regret.  I think about it as I run in the ocean at my poor husband forcing him to attempt a recreation of the Dirty Dancing lift.  Just as I jump out of the surface my bikini bottoms slip off me with the water, exposing my white tush to the entire beach and what feels like to me, all of Mexico.  Through salty coughs, I hear my friends’ peels of laughter.  I take my husband’s steady hand as I gingerly slide back into my bottoms.  Standing with him, smiling, in the middle of the ocean, I realize that my mother was right.  Traveling with your partner is priceless.

By Wendy Litner

I’m not a “happily every after” kind of girl.  I cringe from stories of over-the-top engagement proposals.  And after four years of marriage, I don’t need grandiose gestures of love from my husband to know that he cares.  Which is why weeks prior to my last birthday I sternly instructed him that no present was necessary.  We were both feeling stretched a little thin and while certainly there were things that I wanted (i.e. the new lime green Dell netbook) there was nothing that I really, truly, needed.  Besides, given our hectic schedules I would rather my husband spent time with me than shop for me.   My husband vehemently objected, insisting that the occasion be marked with some material purchase.  I smothered his protests, however, with practical posturing about finances and other such unromantic considerations.  I insisted that his love was all I needed and I really, truly, meant it. 

So, when my birthday rolled around, you can only imagine my surprised outrage when he handed me nothing but a thoughtfully written card generously extolling my wifely virtues.  What the what?  How dare he take me at my word!

I tried my best to enjoy our hand-in-hand, leisurely stroll through the park but every time he asked if something was bothering me I could do nothing more than give a frosty, “Nothing at all . . .why?”  I continued my passive aggressive antics throughout the day, actively moping by my imperceptive husband while insisting that I was “fine,” albeit agitated by his questions.  I mean, he should obviously know what’s bothering me!  Isn’t it obvious?! 

But as the day progressed to evening, my agitated thoughts gave way to regretful embarrassment.  I comforted myself with the notion that I’m a modern girl and ours is a modern relationship.  I grew up watching my father shower my mother with lavish gifts-roses, perfume, jewelry-and their marriage ended in divorce.  Yes, meaningless, surprise purchases are by no means a necessary cornerstone of a long-lasting relationship.  I was happy my husband and I didn’t need to give each other tangible signs of our affection.  After all, flowers, no matter how beautiful, eventually wilt.  Chocolates, too, get eaten, and Dell netbooks get replaced with newer technology.     

But months later, as I pushed my suitcase through a hotel room door for a four-day work seminar for which I had been extremely anxious, I was shocked to be greeted by the most beautiful flower arrangement I had ever seen, sitting on the hotel bureau.  Birds of Paradise and greenery exploded into this overwhelming expression of love, toting a card which wished me good luck in the days ahead.  Despite my unwavering practical undulations I found myself overcome with so much emotion I could hardly move.  Entranced by each colourful bloom and the caring sentiment it represented, my once pragmatic exterior began to wither.  With shaking hands I delicately fingered the petals feeling ever so lucky and ever so loved.   

With a lump in my throat I reached for the phone to call my darling mate.  Hearing his voice on the other end I could scarcely choke back my tears, “You are so wonderful,” I cried tenderly, “but how much did you spend?!”