by Heather Plett | May 19, 2006 | Uncategorized
Sky dive
Go on a bike trip around Eastern Canada
Publish a book
Take my daughters back-packing in Europe
Eat Thai food in Thailand
Have a career as a freelance writer
Hang-glide
Own a house with a verandah (yes, D&L, I’m jealous)
Learn to paint
Go on another trip with just my husband (re-living Quebec City would be nice)
Write a regular column in a magazine or newspaper
Travel to Brazil
Design my own website
Take another pottery workshop and get proficient on the wheel
Live in another country
Get better at photography
Take a hot-air balloon ride
Teach creativity workshops again
Go on another trip with my sister
Be the keynote speaker at a conference
Watch my children grow
Live close to water
Be a travel writer
Buy more Kenyan tea in Kenya
Get in touch with some old friends
Go on a bike trip in a foreign country
Consume less
Make more friends
Attend the Folk Festival at least 20 more times
Visit the Yukon and Alaska
Watch Marcel become a teacher
Learn to do batik
See giraffes in their natural habitat again
Be an interesting senior citizen
Take this creativity workshop in Provence
Go on another family trip with my extended family
Get my nose pierced
Take up horseback riding again
See the Cirque du Soleil
See the women my daughters become at 40
by Heather Plett | May 18, 2006 | Uncategorized
Introducing… my lovely niece Abigail who will join us for her first pilgrimage to the greatest festival on earth, come July!
by Heather Plett | May 17, 2006 | Uncategorized
I’m sitting here staring at my screen. Paralyzed. Wordless. I’ve opened the document named “annual report” a thousand times, and it still has nothing but a heading. I’ve started the first paragraph a few times, but I keep deleting it. I have nothing to say.
The curse of the professional communicator/writer has returned to haunt me. Once again, like every other job I’ve been in, I get to the second or third year that I have to write the same annual document, and I get bored. Seriously bored. It’s not just me either – almost everyone I know in this line of work has an attention span of about 3 years. We can usually stretch our interest in something to the second and even third year, but beyond that, we go plum stir crazy if we have to keep writing and communicating about the same thing over and over and over again.
I can write about almost anything for awhile. In my professional (ie. “paid”) career, I’ve had to write about veterans, agriculture, health, science, and now hunger. I’ve written press releases about commemorative events, communication plans about testing SARS on “non-human primates” (in other words, “how to tell the public we’re really injecting MONKEYS with the deadly SARS virus and then KILLING them, without getting PETA down our throats”), speeches for politicians dedicating new memorials, and articles about how the price we pay for bananas impacts small scale farmers in Africa. I’ve planned photo ops for two prime ministers, spoken to media from all over the world, organized press conferences on a myriad of topics, and advised senior level bureaucrats on the right thing to say without pissing off the Canadian public.
But… the problem is, I keep getting bored. B-O-R-E-D. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve had a career that would make many people swoon with envy. I’ve travelled all across Canada (several times) and even to Africa and Rome. I’ve met all kinds of dignitaries and other famous people. I’ve seen my name in print hundreds of times. I’ve heard my words spoken from the lectern by high level politicians.
But still, after about two years, the end result is the same. B-O-R-E-D. What is WRONG with me? Sheesh!
On June 3, I’ll have been in this job for 2 years. I thought FOR SURE this job would be different. I mean, I’m doing something meaningful for a change. I don’t have to feel like a government zombie anymore. I get to challenge and inspire people to help solve world hunger. I get to travel to developing countries. I get to do more public speaking than before. I get to make a difference. I get to flex my leadership skills. I get to…. oh man, it’s still not working. I’m still bored.
When you’re a professional communicator, you always end up working alongside people with a lot of passion, but you’re almost always on the outside. I’ve worked with scientists who’ve toiled for years and years, dedicated to the same task – finding a vaccine for AIDS. I’ve worked with social workers, spending their lives trying to make sure aging veterans receive all the benefits they are entitled to. I now work with people in non-profit, who are determined that some day ALL people will have enough food to eat. These people are PASSIONATE. They live and breathe whatever it is they’re passionate about – it gets in their bones. And for awhile, their passion infects me and I get passionate too. For about a year and a half, I was excited about aging veterans. For about a year and a half, I was excited about agriculture. For about a year and a half, I was excited about ending world hunger.
Seriously – what is my PROBLEM? WHY can’t I sustain any passion? Why do I keep flitting from one thing to another like a drunken firefly?
I guess it’s the curse of the writer. We love whatever we land on, and our firefly light shines into the nooks and crannies revealing interesting things hidden below, but then our wings get itchy and we know that if we stay, our light will slowly extinguish and we will die.
This little firefly doesn’t want to die. I want to keep flying. But I may need to find other things to shine my firefly light on, or I’ll get dull. And restless.
No, I’m not quitting my job. When I started here, I told myself that I could give this place AT LEAST 5 years. I still have three years to go. Three more annual reports. Three more church mailouts. Three more cycles of newsletters. Three more… cringe.
After that, hopefully Marcel will be back in the workforce and I can quit and finally be a freelance writer. Then perhaps, if I write about a different topic ever week, I’ll finally be satisfied. At least for three years anyway. 🙂 Sigh.
by Heather Plett | May 16, 2006 | Uncategorized
See that bottom number? The one that says 500.00? Yes, that’s the number of kilometres I’ve ridden my bike in the last month. Not bad, eh?
Actually, I’ve done a few more than that by now, but on the way to Home Depot tonight, the whole family had to stop while I took a picture – I wanted a nice round number 🙂
My goal is to have the same legs I had the year I trained for the Tinman.
by Heather Plett | May 15, 2006 | Uncategorized
It was a full and family-filled weekend. Julie was in a soccer tournament, and because her team ended up in the finals (which they lost 1-0, boohoo), they had 5 games. So a fair bit of time was spent shuffling back and forth to soccer fields (oh, and one trip to the hospital when she hurt her finger pretty badly and it looked like it was broken. We didn’t stay though, since they warned us that the wait would be 5-6 hours. And REALLY, what can they do for a broken finger other than wrap it up, just like I can do at home?)
Here are a few of my mother moments, most happy and a few sad.
– After a little coaxing from their dad, the oldest 2 girls each pitched in $5 and sent me off to a movie on Saturday night. What fun! A movie by myself! I saw Kinky Boots, which is quite enjoyable, in a Full Monty sort of way.
– Since the movie just HAPPENED to be in the same mall as my favourite bookstore, I wandered around the bookstore after the movie, and ended the evening with a yummy chai latte from the coffee shop in the bookstore.
– One little melancholy moment in the bookstore… while looking for a card for my sister (it’s her first mother’s day), I spotted a card that said something about journeys through life and had a picture of an old couple in a car on a journey together. I felt a lump form in my throat because today, my mom leaves on a 2 month trip to Holland with her husband – the man who is not my father. It still hurts sometimes that Mom and Dad didn’t get to grow old together.
– After the movie and the bookstore, I took the long way home and stopped at Matthew’s grave, partly because the melancholy still clung to me. In addition to missing Dad, I had a bit of a cry about the son I don’t get to mother. I remember the Mother’s Day after we lost Matthew. We ate dinner in the backyard, and there was a butterfly that kept landing on people’s heads as we ate. We said that it was the spirit of Matthew coming to remind his mother that things would be okay.
– At Matthew’s grave, I wrote out the card to my sister, ccap. It makes me happy that we now share motherhood.
– On Sunday morning, I was instructed to stay in bed, and before long, my breakfast arrived. Fresh cinnamon buns, fruit salad, a glass of milk, and a cup of tea. Yum, yum! The girls hopped into bed with me and we all ate breakfast together.
– For Mother’s Day – three home-made cards, three flower pens, a carnation, and a centrepiece. And best of all – three smiling faces proudly offering their gifts.
– I phoned my Mom yesterday, to wish her a Happy Mother’s Day and bon voyage (they’re leaving from Alberta). It makes me sad that now there are so many things I don’t say to my Mom. I love her and I miss her. I don’t always remember to be kind to her.
– Marcel cooked his famous chicken parmigan for supper at his parents’ yesterday. Everyone else provided pasta, salads, and desserts and we had a lovely Mother’s Day feast.
Thus ends another Mother’s Day weekend. I am blessed.
