Dear Women: Have We Learned Nothing? A post for International Women’s Day 2022

Listen to Kim McNeil's conversation with host Catherine Orer as they paint a new picture of art and mental health.

When you open your eyes to it, racism and intolerance are everywhere, even at the pharmacy.

Far from selfishness, the choice to stay childless represents a privilege denied to many.

A story about St. Patrick’s Day.

On International Women’s Day 2021, womanhood still isn’t easy.

Diminishing our pain and pretending we’re ok doesn’t help anyone, especially ourselves. As we welcome 2021, let’s say goodbye to toxic positivity.

It was 2003. We were at the Bell Centre waiting in line to see the Montreal Canadiens play the Atlanta Thrashers. More importantly, we were at the Bell Centre waiting in line to meet the evening's VIP, Jean Beliveau.

For those of you who don't know what a metro is, allow me to enlighten you. The Montréal métro is equivalent to the New York subway. A combination of solid geometric design, brutalist architecture, and sensory overload, it takes Montréalers to where they need to go.

I'm lucky enough to have had two mothers, the one who gave birth to me and the one who raised me. There are women who aren't capable of being mothers. It's an issue of timing.

I admitted last week to having experienced an existential COVID crisis. Why am I here? What’s the point of me being here? What’s the point of anyone being here unless of course, you’re a physician, nurse, healthcare worker, grocery store worker, sanitary worker, or any other essential service worker. Bill Murray has an opinion. Not about me specifically, although I’m sure he’d have lots to say, but about our current situation.

The first tangible response I had to the pandemic was, “I am unimportant”. Frontline healthcare workers and essential workers, they matter. Everyone in the middle needs to stay out of the way. I am part of the middle. Cue the existential dread. If you had the choice of being stranded on a desert island with a doctor or a visual artist/writer/yogi/ whatever the hell I am, who would you chose?

This is the second time in so many months that I’ve written about a Japanese term. Admittedly I know little about Japanese culture. I do love Whistler sushi, however. Spice agedashi tofu aside, in this time of COVID-19 I couldn’t help but think about the concept of hikikomori, or “pulling inward”.

“What would Dr. Hinshaw do?” t-shirts have hit the Internet. Dr. Hinshaw is Alberta’s CMOH for those of you not familiar with her. This reminded me of my own brilliant t-shirt idea I had over a decade ago. There’s a lesson attached to the idea and the lesson is still relevant today in this time of COVID-19.

The COVID-19 outbreak is unsettling. Few of us have experienced anything like it in our lifetime. When it comes to people’s behaviour as of late, I’ve found myself see-sawing between anger and curiosity.

I came to a significant realization last week.  One thing that I had been doing my whole life was not being myself around certain types of people. 

I once stood on a perfectly good mountain and watched another person jump off it. Base jumper. Otherwise known as Crazy Person. I had only seen such things in YouTube videos. Now there I was watching someone do it in real life.

My favourite Latin saying translates to "through hardship to the stars". My brother, who knows a thing or two about history, told me these pieces of space trivia related to the saying: The Royal Air Force (RAF) uses a derivative of the maxim as their motto.  Per ardua ad astra, or "through adversity to the stars", speaks perfectly to the sacrifice and glory of war.