December Update

It’s been a year, and I feel that the air is clearing. If that sounds vague, let’s just say that 2023 has been a challenge. Not like 2022, which was quite calamitous by comparison, but certainly from the perspective of world politics and (closer to home) the health of my business, it’s been a tough one. The economy is hard and a lot of people (myself included) are being a lot more financially conscious than ever.

After some super-constructive feedback I’ve been intently focused on revising Book Three, which has been tough. You’ve probably heard the term “kill your darlings” before, in regards to the sorts of sacrifices an author inevitably has to make during revisions; well, this last revision has led to a small cemetery of darlings. And necessarily so, since I attempted to cram a lot into the second half of this novel, and the result was the lack of a sense of a singular theme/conflict as opposed to a barrage of them. That said, I think it’s in a good place now, and I’ve put the manuscript in a proverbial drawer in order for it to sit for a while, so that I can come back to it with a fresh pair of eyes. It’s still a solid story, and I’m very happy with the process of deciding what it was I wanted to, well, say — sounds straight forward, but it’s harder than it seems, especially when you have a lot of things you want to reflect on. Hoping to turn this over to my agent in the spring of 2024. It’s also nice to not be staring at the same project, so that I can (god forbid) consider other writing projects (short stories, essays) I’ve either neglected or temporarily abandoned.

Musically, I’ve been blessed to have come upon a wide array of artists who are new to me: Sweeping Promises, Water From Your Eyes and Froth most recently stand out.

Tomorrow, for the first time in two years, I’m taking part in the Holiday 10k (formerly the Tannenbaum 10k), and the weather is going to be perfect (a little wet, but above zero), so I’m going to quietly focus on a personal best time. Don’t tell anyone.

photo of my racing bib, showing my name and racer number
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Running

From my mid-20s until my mid-30s I played recreational soccer with friends. it’s a game I played as a kid, but because my family moved a lot, there wasn’t a lot of experience with it until a friend from college suggested we put together a pickup team, with stragglers from school, work, and wherever. It’s a sport that I adore playing, and could easily play every day of my life. It is not, however, a sport that is everlasting for everyone.

First came those of us with pre-existing injuries. One regular, Jason, who was a new father, admitted that he wanted to spend what was left of his deteriorating ankle (hello, soccer) playing with his son, and not with a bunch of strangers on dodgy community fields. Can’t blame him. The second wave, perhaps the most widely experienced, came when we entered our 30s; people settled down, got married, streamlined their careers, started families, bought houses. That nearly did it. I was still organizing pickup soccer past my mid-30s with a ragtag membership of acquaintances and friends-of-friends. Injuries happened. I sprained my ankle something fierce, which meant there was no one to organize the games while I was in rehab; another of us, Erik, received a concussion due to an accidental running-into with another player.

By the age of 40 everything had changed. The only soccer to be had was through privately run recreational sports organizations, which can be fun in terms of meeting new people, but dear god let me tell you this: no one wants to play a soccer match at 10pm on a Sunday night.

I turned to running, as I missed the workout. I bought an introductory pair of running shoes and started by going around a few blocks of where I lived. I remember sitting on the front steps of my house, sweating and heaving, and having our neighbour, Mrs. Fu, look at me and comment “If you did that more often you probably wouldn’t be so tired.” Thanks. I measured my distance first in city blocks. And, gradually, I measured it in kilometres. I remember feeling that 2 kilometres was ridiculously long; as well, the challenge of what goes on in your head when you’re running: the anxious thoughts about whether I could finish what I started.

Everything changed once I was able to get to 5k.

But first, let me make something clear: I’m not into gadgets, I don’t wear headphones, I don’t bother with biofeedback gizmos on my wrist. I look at my analog watch when I start, and then look at it when I’m done. I measure the distances of my runs by using Google Maps on my laptop. When I tell some people this they look at me as if I was talking about living in a shed without an outhouse. For me, there is an experiential quality about running: I get to see, hear, smell, feel the world around me — good and bad. The last thing I need is to be listening to a podcast about unsolved murders.

It took me at least 2 years to get to 5k, and I should say that I wasn’t on any sort of schedule to do so. I just listened to my body, and pushed when I thought I was ready, not unlike how someone decides to add another 10lbs to their squat bar at the gym. The increments can take months, and the nice thing about starting out running is that you’re not really competing with anyone (yet), so there’s no pressure to “achieve” much. Once I hit 5k, I was able to get to 10k within a few months. And once I hit 10k it was like standing on a fucking mountaintop.

This is a good juncture to mention that not everyone, younger or older, can do this. Running can tax your body in ways that are not always healthy. And not everyone’s bodies are able to be pushed hard. Some people’s bodies are not able to be pushed, period. I mention this because I would hate for someone to read this and feel that, because they aren’t able to run, that this makes their experience of life any less. I’m just using my legs because I got ’em, and they work, for now. Running is also easier for white people than it is for racialized people; and it’s easier for men than it is for women. And by easier I mean you are less likely to be physically or sexually targeted. In other words, I’m writing this from a place of privilege.

I started joining races in 2015. The psychological complexity of being in a corral of other runners is fraught. I find the complexity of running in any sort of competitive context to be fascinating: watching your pace, staying within respectful distance of others, passing and being passed by others, not getting freaked out when you think you’ve hit the 3k mark only to pass a sign saying 2k; oh yeah, and not breathing like you’re being chased by a dog. I’ve done 10k, 8k, 5k, and a half marathon (which I did, kinda stupidly, only ten days after a cyclist collided into me and fractured a few ribs).

Running, for me, is a through line to body awareness. I don’t feel like a brain floating in a jar when I’m running. I can audit my body when I’m running, interrogating what it is that’s feeling tired if I’m worriedI can’t finish. I get to experience the outdoor world, and be part of it in an intense way that can sometimes feel profound. I can be alone with my thoughts. It can also be a way to set precedents for working with self-doubt (hello, half marathon). To be frank there’s also some gross aspects to the body awareness part; for example, learning to predict your bowel movements after eating a meal so that you aren’t finding yourself experiencing GI pain in the middle of your race. And I won’t get into all the bloody mess that happens with blisters on your feet.

When I bought my first pair of “I’m taking this seriously” running shoes at a local shop, I mentioned to the owner how I used to play soccer but had no one to play with anymore, thus my interest in running. He told me he had heard that a lot from other soccer veterans, and in that moment I felt heard and seen (though I realized after it was also saying good-bye to soccer in many ways). It wasn’t a big gesture he made, and while I wouldn’t say I felt part of a club (not that I would want to be in one), nonetheless I felt part of a kinship. I’m 51 years old now, and I’m faster than I was when I was 45; I push myself, and yet I also keep myself from pushing so hard that I endanger my body from being able to meet day-to-day needs. There is a quotidian aspect to body awareness that comes with running that I deeply appreciate: knowing when to push, knowing when to give other people space, knowing when to back off, and knowing when to give everything you’ve got in your engine in the dying moments when you see the finish line.

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Community

I’d almost given up on pick up soccer.

In Toronto, if you’re looking to play soccer on a semi-regular basis you’d have better luck finding an Ayahuasca ceremony than a game that starts before 9pm an hour away from you. I suppose credit is due to the fact that soccer is popular (this wasn’t always the case, and there was a humiliating period of time in the late 90s where more people were playing “Ultimate” frisbee than soccer). However, finding people to play with casually — the sort of pick up game I played when I first moved to the city — has gone by the wayside in lieu of organizations such as Toronto Sport and Social Club and apps such as OpenSports.

I ran a co-ed pick up game for several years. This was after several previous migratory years of word-of-mouth and occasionally stable runs with a group of friends and acquaintances at locations across the city (note: if you want to discover a city, this is a very good way). Back then there was no leader per se, however, as good as that sounds I feel that either this part, or someone electing themself as the certifiably wrong leader, led to the instability. The pick up game I ran was fairly stable: Sundays in Stanley Park. Sometimes we were hungover, sometimes we treated it with the reverence of Mass. I met some very interesting people over those years, from a variety of backgrounds, and I’m pretty sure that, beyond fresh air and exercise, it was these relationships that contributed to helping me find myself. A secure base, as we say in the therapy biz.

These things don’t last long. They just don’t. Whether it’s a writers’ group (which I co-ran for 9yrs) or pick up soccer, sometimes things just don’t work in the long-run. Democracy kinda sucks when it’s on the level of things like this: people don’t show without giving notice, or want to change the start time to suit their own needs. In a fictional country, as well as mandatory military service, there should also be the option of organizing a regular pick up sports game (as well as the option of working in a retail environment during the Christmas season, particularly in the Holt Renfrew concourse).

For the last 10 years, for better or worse, I’ve been involved with associations like TSSC in order to get my soccer fix — organizing things sucks, and why not pay for the privilege of walking onto a semi-pro pitch if you can, and not the community fields pockmarked with holes and strewn with tree branches and dog shit, using gym bags as goal posts. But I kinda lost my religion around these organized games over time. They were inconveniently scheduled (I can go into great detail about what it’s like to play soccer at 11pm on a Sunday) and if you weren’t able to put together a hand-selected team to register then you were individually thrown into a randomized team, which was basically admitting you weren’t going to win many games due to lack of familiarity with each other (that is, if you got along). I hated forgetting — because life — about each sign-up deadline only to discover that it was booked solid, then putting myself on a sub list.

One day, a bartender who is also a reader of mine, commented on my Ajax scarf (this was versus Juventus in the Champions League quarter finals, first round). We spoke a bit about playing pick up, and he mentioned that there was a bunch of people that met @ 3pm on Sundays at ________ Park. I didn’t know what to expect, and yet I secretly hoped it could work out. What with my partner on an extended trip across the Atlantic, I found myself available, and along came the first Sunday, and it was warm and sunny…so I went, secretly hoping magic would happen.

I had to stick my neck out. It looked like a bunch of older men at first, and I wondered if I’d intruded into a more private event, but as people showed up I could see this was a regular thing that had been going on for years, that travelled on word-of-mouth only. The range of ages went from 20-something to 50-something. Unlike a lot of pick up I played when I moved to Toronto there was no prima donna behaviour, although there were comically long periods where the older Latinx organizers argued over the size of the field-of-play and other distractions. On the sideline was a group of “fans,” friends of the older players, who brought beer and cheered any runs at goal. My Spanish has grown, let’s put it that way.

It was disorganized and basic, and I loved it. I instantly appreciated the casual nature of the group, their insistence that I bring people with me next time, the beer that one of the players handed me afterward. Everyone was there to have a good time, and there was to be a BBQ afterward (which I was unable to stay for). I can’t put it much more plainly, but this is the Toronto I adore. These are my people.

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Pain, pt. 3

So, according to the chiropractor I was referred to, I have an irritated disc [“subacute grade III mechanical low back (irritation of the L5/S1 disc, affecting the L5 nerve root on the left”)]. It’s nice having an answer. It’s also nice to hear that, contrary to what my impatience tells me, I’m doing very well (though I’d leave out the “…for your age” part, ahem). Basically, she said to keep doing what I’m doing and give it time.

The pulled Achilles is slowly healing. Ironically, though it didn’t stop me from running that 8K race, it does prevent me from doing my baguazhang forms due to the crouching stance required.

In the meantime, the weather is warming up, my winter coat is spending most of its time unused.

Again: give it time.

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Pain, pt. 2

The short version: it turns out that what I have isn’t piriformis syndrome.

The long version is that if it were piriformis syndrome it would be gone by now. The pain has been alleviated greatly, but there is an odd pattern to the soreness, and overall it’s overstaying its welcome. I’m inclined to believe my TCM clinician when he suggests it’s a herniated lumbar disc. This would explain the prolonged condition, as well as how the pain is activated by any unhealthy sitting that messes with my spine’s alignment.

So, I need to be patient. This is new territory for me.

The good news is that I was able to take part in the Spring Run-Off 8K in High Park — something I’d signed up for a couple of months ago. I was prepared to sit it out (albeit miserably), however I felt good enough to take part, so long as I kept my target limited to crossing the finish line vs achieving any particular run time. In the end I crushed my expectations and pulled off a solid performance for someone who hasn’t run in weeks (and didn’t injure anything in the process).

The bad news is that, the day before the race, I was stepping off a sidewalk to cross the street at a light when I pulled/tore something in the heel of my right foot. This would be the Achilles tendon. Luckily, as running goes, I’m not a heel-striker, so it didn’t bother me on race day (now that would have been a cruel reason to cancel). That said, I have yet another part of me to rehab.

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Pain

I have this weird, recurring thing. It starts with a dull soreness in my left glute, kinda like someone kicked it the day before and it feels bruised. Then, in a day or so, an odd stiffness and soreness stretching from the glute all the way down the back of my left leg, going down to my ankle. Within a day or so it reaches the zenith of its pathology: pain.

Two weeks ago yesterday I tried getting out of bed. I swung my legs over to the side of the mattress, and between that everyday action and my feet touching the floor I became a crumbled mess, bent over in agony. I was in so much pain I was crying. I was unable to stand. I was unable to sit. I was unable to do anything without experiencing the sort of intense, unrelenting pain that makes you realize in seconds why anyone would unhesitatingly reach for opiates.

What I have goes by two names: pseudo sciatica, or piriformis syndrome. The sciatic nerve travels from the spine and down the leg where it provides sensation to the skin of the foot and the lower leg. Unlike classic sciatica which involves irritation of the nerve from the spine via a disc, what I got is caused by the irritation via the piriformis muscle — something you’ve likely never hear of, but it’s a band of muscle in the core of your glutes. If the piriformis is aggravated it can bother the sciatic nerve in a similar way to classic sciatica. [Update: please see the follow-up post]

I’ve described the pain to people as like having your hamstring replaced with razor wire. It’s actually worse, because of how the pain “glows” all through the leg. At its worst, the pain cuts through your thoughts, your feelings. It takes priority over everything. It doesn’t care if you are happy or if you had plans to go somewhere that day. I’m always humbled by how quickly physical pain cuts through everything, taking priority, and how it terrorizes me with its power. I end up impatient with others, downright angry 24/7. I catastrophize: this is never going to end, I’m going to be like this forever.

I can afford physiotherapy, which makes me lucky. I don’t have health benefits because I’m self-employed, so anything not covered by provincial health care comes out of my wallet. I immediately checked myself into a physio clinic and I remember being furious: this again. This being physio. Physiotherapy (and related physical therapies) is something I have a good deal of experience with and I never hesitate to recommend it to people; the irony is that when I find myself being forced to return to physio it feels as if I’ve failed at something. Something tells me I’ve been irresponsible, which is silly.

Piriformis syndrome can happen to people who sit a lot. While I’m one of the most physically active people I know (I walk to work every day, I go to the gym, I run, I practice baguazhang) my job as a psychotherapist means I’m sitting for an hour at a time. Piriformis syndrome also prefers distance runners, which makes me a prime candidate.

For the last two weeks I’ve been doing physio exercises three times a day, combined with visits to a clinic, combined with acupuncture and Chinese medicine. Progress was very, very slow. The last time I had this it lasted all of a week or so, and I was able to work it out on my own with stretching and massage. This time it’s been remarkably more painful and long-lasting.

Yesterday, on the two week anniversary of not being able to stand out of bed, it felt like something had subtly changed. My mobility felt more easy, I didn’t have the feeling like I couldn’t extend my lower leg when I was walking on the sidewalk doing errands. I stayed outside, pushing myself a little, forcing myself to stay active. Today, for the first time in many weeks (partly because of the terrible weather we’ve had) I was able to practice ba gua outside on our terrace. I nearly cried.

My relationship with physical exercise is a personal one. It allows me to connect with my body. It is embodied movement, whether it’s running a 10K circuit or doing ape offers fruit. I’ve gone two weeks without any chance of significant exercise, and so the things that gave me internal relief — running, baguazhang, gym — were off-limits, which in turn made me miserable, feeling imprisoned.

I suppose I’m sharing this because it’s important to take a moment to reflect on the relationship between body and mental health. How it directly affects my spirit. The pain is slowly receding, I have my mobility, and I know that soon I’m going to be able to run outside and feel better. But my experience pales beside anyone with chronic pain, and I am humbled when I consider anyone who has to go through life under such conditions, be they due to injury or living conditions. Not to mention the fact that, when this has passed, I will have spent hundreds of dollars on physical therapies that many cannot access.

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Ask The Zombies in July, or, How Are The Dutch Going To Do at Euro 2012?

In less than two weeks, various qualifying teams from throughout Europe are going to get together in Poland and Ukraine for Euro 2012. It’s like the World Cup, but without most of the World. Still, some of soccer’s (which I will call football going forward) greatest stars will be competing for glory.

Now, about the Dutch. Yes, the country is called (provoking visions of clouds and grey veils) the Netherlands or, more quaintly (insert visions of tulips and blonde farm wives in wooden shoes), Holland. But, whether you are a fan or an opponent, they are often referred to as “the Dutch”.

 

 

 

 

 

The Dutch met Spain in the World Cup finals in 2010. It should have been the seminal moment of my football-loving/Dutch-cheering life, but (see here for more) I was turned-off by their strategy, which – with the exception of some honest-to-God deserved victories against mortal foes such as Brazil – seemed kind of cynical.

There’s winning and then there’s winning. The Dutch, since the early 70s, have always emphasized beautiful football: flowing, sexy, unpredictable, and effective. Unfortunately, since World Cup 98, that effectiveness came into question as a combination of generational talent turnover (Ruud van Nistelrooy was not exactly Dennis Bergkamp) and some daft coaching decisions (chief in my mind, Louis van Gaal’s decision to squander a two-goal lead against Portugal in the WC 2002 qualifiers) created an existential crisis. Beautiful football wasn’t getting results.

Continue reading “Ask The Zombies in July, or, How Are The Dutch Going To Do at Euro 2012?”

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All That Glitters Isn’t Oranje

It should come as no surprise that my postings have been less frequent, in proportion to the success or lack thereof of the Dutch at the World Cup, which has just (mercifully) ended.

First: I’m happy we made it to the Final.

Second: I’m happy we lost (even though I wanted us to win at the time).

Allow me to explain: I will always support Oranje, but that doesn’t mean I have to suspend my critical faculties while doing so. It also doesn’t mean I am living in a nostalgic cloudbank in which Holland must either play soccer like the Kirov ballerinas dance or else they are “cynical” – a word bandied about by once-every-four-years-I-pay-attention-to-soccer pundits.

In case I haven’t beaten this point enough, my Oranje is the team of 1998. It always will be. They were beautiful to watch (take a look at my Ryeberg essay if you haven’t already) and most aficionados consider that squad the greatest team of the competition, regardless that they lost to Brazil in the semi-finals. The thing is, if you accept that, then you must also accept they were the very same team who flamed-out against Italy in Euro 2000 in the quarters, in perhaps one of the most humiliating games I’ve seen us play: same squad, folks. How’s that for beauty?

The toughest question in the world if you are a Dutch international soccer player: What can you do when the public, the pundits, the former stars from the Golden Age all want to see you play ballet if playing ballet doesn’t win anything? Don’t get me wrong: I like the Oranje ballet – I am one of those people who can walk away from a loss, still chuffed that we played “as we should”. I do side with author David Winner’s thoughts about Dutch soccer philosophy, as laid out in his (brilliant) book, Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Soccer. But inevitably you want to win something, and the only silverware the Dutch have is the Euro title in 1988.

This brings us to the present. Sadly. Sadly, because for the most part Oranje did not live up to the philosophy we had come to World Cup 2010 expecting. Under the direction of Bert van Marwijk, they took a detour: individual beauty, sure, when necessary, but collectively less a ballet than an assembly line with a very narrow directive: win, above all else. And they did. They were rusty at first and their games, outside of pockets of that ol’ Clockwork Oranje we hoped to see, were not pretty, but they won, and continued to win. Lord, I wanted them to win, too – I was a willing enabler.

When the final against Spain came, I was a nervous wreck. I can only imagine how it must have been in Holland, for those making their way to the Museum Square in Amsterdam where the games were shown for the public. They had come so far, had been through so much, for so many years: 1974, 1978, the glimmer of 1998, the disappointment of missing 2002. So much baggage that you wanted them to win just to shake off the voodoo of the past.

But as I got prepared that morning I visualized what it would be like if we won, if for the first time ever we won the Cup. Instead of tears of joy, I have to tell you, I saw that it would have felt as if we had cheated. As if in winning, we had not done so as ourselves but as a cunning machine, as if someone had invented a “Dutch Soccer Team” to take our place. I cannot describe how difficult it was to deal with that: to stare at a historic vindication within reach of your fingertips, knowing simultaneously there was something inherently inauthentic about it. In fact, had we won, I fear the “victory” would have irrevocably punctured the heart of Dutch soccer, as opposed to the bittersweet reality I live with now: we lost, Dutch soccer is merely dented. Coach van Marwijk’s corporatist approach has been repudiated, that is for sure. What I don’t know is who or what, philosophically speaking, has been vindicated, since we are bridesmaids once again.

Perhaps it is our souls? I can’t speak for yours, but mine is in a better if not exactly comfortable place right now.

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Our Home and Masochistic Land

Historically, Canada has never even been close to placing first in the medal-count of the Winter Olympics. We are, after all, an exceptionally large country with an inversely proportionate population: I’d be stretching the truth if I said we had 35 million people here.

So, when I read last week that the Canadian Olympic Committee had boasted that (no this time) we were going to take first place in Vancouver a small part of me projectile-vomited across the room. It was upsetting because this ridiculous aim (summed up by the mantra Own The Podium) is something only bureaucrats can cook-up.

News to the COC: it’s not like our athletes haven’t tried their damnedest in the past. It’s not like they didn’t “get” the whole gold thing until now. They’ve never wanted to do anything but put in their best, but the problem – population aside – is typically Canadian: a miserable lack of funding, organization, and foresight. Only in Canada could we create an organization like the COC, with their shallow-sounding boardroom boasts which read more like something from a corporate motivational lecture (“What Colour Is Our Olympic Athlete’s Parachute? GOLD!”).

It adds insult to injury because there simply is no chance in hell that we are going to top the medal count, this Olympics or any to come. I’m saying it aloud: there is no…well, you get the idea. Heck, I’d be happy if we top Russia. The facts don’t lie: despite our northernness, our wintry and sporting dispositions, we simply don’t have the population to consistently support a proportionately competitive Olympic powerhouse, especially when up against the U.S. which has 10 more people to every one of ours! In retrospect, we should all be getting mad-drunk with delight! We’re currently fifth in the freaking world, in spite of our pathetic sports infrastructure, despite our catch-us-while-you-can stagnant population growth, in spite of corporatist “iceholes” (if I may quoth Colbert) in the COC putting a bragging chip on our shoulder that we didn’t need in the first place.

There should be a banner flying at the top of Whistler, just underneath the Canadian flag, with the phrase: “We’re Actually Doing Pretty Damn Good”.

Seriously.

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