Going Social

Flying High in the #YYJ

View through Fairfield to the Olympic Range, WA

G. Cornwall, c. 2011

Going Social

During the past week, I attended Social Media Camp in beautiful Victoria, BC. It was two and a half days of intense learning and interaction with friends and colleagues on the topic of social media.

This was my second year in attendance and a significantly different experience than that of my first year in which I only knew 2 or 3 people at the camp and I was very new to Twitter. As a result, during my first year, I spent a good portion of the conference on my own, with mild anxiety and shades of elementary school isolation as I sat outside, eating my bag lunch alone in a crowd, hoping the cool kids would talk to me. 

Over the past year, I made efforts to increase meaningful conversations with my local (and distant) Twitter community. I set up and went to coffee 'tweet-ups' with folks I hadn't yet met in person, helped with some fundraising efforts and and community events, attended local chamber of commerce and public relations mixers and reached out where and when I could, sharing content from my blog and interacting with others based on their online content. 

This year at Social Media Camp, while I was there as a representative of my workplace, I also had the opportunity to meet many people IRL (in real life) with whom I've had a long Twitter association. Additionally, it was an opportunity to introduce myself to new people with whom I can now continue to interact online. 

Before attending this year, I made a promise to myself to find 3 people at camp on the first day who were standing alone and looking lost, engage in conversation, welcome them and introduce them to others. Two of the folks were new to camp and one turned out to be a session speaker! I was happy to help the new folks have a more engaged experience and share with others. I don't like to think of anyone having lunch alone unless that is what they want!

I met many incredible people with great big hearts and minds this year and I am grateful for the opportunity to share experiences with all of you! The most common threads in sessions and conversations throughout the event resounded with human interaction:

• meaningful conversations
• shifting mindset between the one and the all
• kindness as a starting place for all acts
• attention economics - the consideration of others and room for them in your content
• self-awareness and acceptance
• gratitude

This year's camp has helped me to understand my social media 'maturity' level and to learn from my social media elders. It has taught me to listen and to ask. For the friendships and the lessons, I am eternally grateful to each person I meet along my path, each person who shares potential, choices and ideas, all who hold up mirrors when I lose sight of myself, all who hold up lamps to light the way and those who quietly allow me to make my mistakes and learn, holding out a helping hand when I slip and fall.

Thank you. I hope you will grace me with the gift of helping you in kind. Social Media Camp organizers, volunteers, speakers, participants, award nominees and winners, supporters and sponsors - congratulations on an epic success!

See you in the Twitterverse. 

-Gillian Cornwall, c. May 12, 2013.

"Pono"

G. Cornwall, c. December 2012.

Talk To Me

Coconut Palm - Lana'i, Hawaii

G.Cornwall, c. December 2012

Yep. I'm gonna do it. I'm quoting The Spice Girls song, Wannabe.

"Tell me what you want,

What you really, really want."

At times, I want to tattoo this on my forehead so everyone I encounter can see it, but the print would have to be kind of small to make it fit and people would need to stand really close to read it and that would just be awkward all around but you get the idea, right?

Call me simple, for I hope that is what I am. I am not going to be able to guess what you are thinking, dreaming or wanting with any kind of regular accuracy. If I'm very lucky, I may get it right 10% of the time; however, if you tell me what you want, yes, what you really, really want, what's going to happen then? 

Well, now we are getting to the heart of the matter and, guess what folks, the star of the show, more often than not, is our old nemesis, fear. So, if we don't express our truth kindly and clearly because of fear, what do you get as a result: frustration, confusion, dissatisfaction? One thing I'm fairly certain we don't get, is that which we truly desire

BUT

we also don't get: rejected, turned down, laughed at, anger or misunderstanding, right? 

 ...or do we? Because if we aren't clear, most people will guess, make assumptions about us, take our fear of clear expression as a personal affront to them:

"Well, she obviously doesn't care about us or she would have said something!"

So, our fears become our self-fulfilling prophesies and we lose out on opportunities that we were afraid of losing out on because we are afraid to speak our truth ...and so the cycle goes.

Does speaking your truth always result in the magical fulfillment of your wishes and desires? Well, no, of course not. 

Is there a chance you won't get the result you want by expressing yourself clearly and kindly? Absolutely.

The thing is, if you know you're not going to get what you want, where you want, how you want, when you want and why you want by remaining silent, then why not speak your piece? At the end of the day, you have nothing to lose but fear.

One of my main frames of reference when considering fear is this book: The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. There are parts of the book that don't resonate with me, but the four points have helped me gain greater understanding of my self and those around me. I have erased "old tapes" and created a framework for moving through life with ownership of my actions and reactions. 

Briefly, The Four Agreements state:

• Be impeccable with your word
• Don't take anything personally
• Don't make assumptions
• Always do your best

Keeping these in mind helps me to understands my fears, to sit with them, poke at them and, often, resolve them.

As an aside, I believe that it is fine to not know what you want for a time. It is helpful to articulate that and to tell someone you are currently trying to figure it out. 

I wish each of you peace, joy and clarity on your personal voyages through this glorious life. 

-Gillian Cornwall, April 26 2013.

Hulopo'e - Lana'i, Hawaii

G. Cornwall, c. December 2012

The Speed of Life

The View to the Cathedral
Victoria, BC
G. Cornwall, c. 2011

Part 1 - The Speed of Life 

"That's the speed of life," I say.

Were I to have glanced away

a moment earlier, what then

my friend?

-another sweet landmine

deep in these woods,

another sweet landmine

I don't remember planting

when last I passed.

Insidious as broom

though nowhere near

as yellow nor stable.

Solid as breath,

the faint warmth

upon my neck 

as you held close

to say

goodbye.

Boom.

Big bang.

The breath

of goodbye

upon my neck.

The breath of goodbye 

upon my neck.

Part 2 - The Speed of Afterlife

Was it not enough to feel,

to breathe,

for the heart to beat?

In the middle of miracles

I dared ask for more.

In death,

I cannot feel breath.

The light from eyes

does not reflect.

The beat of a heart 

not heard,

for I am gone.

Is it not life 

without witness;

not miracle

without touch?

Whisper my name

that my life sounds

throughout time.

Drum the beat

of my heart

in your ear.

All will hear:

life, life, life,

echo me near,

echo me near.

-Gillian Cornwall, c. April 26, 2013.

Vancouver, English Bay
Gillian Cornwall, c. 2010

Camp - A Short Story

c. Gillian Cornwall

I published this story, in three parts, in late 2011. For those of you for whom this is a repeat, I apologize.  

I believe all of us understand the wild things when we are children. We just need to be allowed to go out and explore for ourselves sometimes. Perhaps it is part of learning, in a semi-controlled environment, how to face our fears and dreams alone, as part of the bigger picture. I hope you enjoy this tale of mixed fact and fiction. 

Camp

   There is a particular scent to the canvas tent with its pine platform floor, replete with eight 9 year old girls, the counsellor-in-training and our revered leader, Liz. After three years of these overnights, I can quite confidently say that, while the scent is unique to these circumstances, it varies little from camp session to camp session and from year to year and tent to tent. I can not fully describe it but I will try to lead you by the nose and give you some idea because it's beautiful and peculiar and, for me, both inviting and petrifying. If one were to mix brown sugar with sweet summer sweat, dry pine and sun-warmed canvas and blend it with stale peanut butter and jam sandwiches from lunches gone by, you'd have a reasonable facsimile of what I'm trying to get at.  

   I already know I like girls. I lie among them and I barely understand how it is I am an interloper in their midst. I have no idea how it is I am different or why I am the only one who feels like this. I am the only one awake in the tent though thousands of crickets and frogs trill beyond our fabric home. They call me, incessant as the sirens of Greek mythology. One more call, this time from the loon, and I silently slide from my sleeping bag placed purposefully by the zippered net door flap. My stealthy exit goes unnoticed or without comment as it is not uncommon for a young girl to require a night time trip to the outhouse; however, this is not my planned destination. I am equipped in my Keds, sweatpants, and hooded sweatshirt having planned my adventure earlier in the evening. I am restless and intense and night time sojourns both feed my sense of adventure and calm my troubled young soul.


    I make my way down the chip trail and across the bridge as the stream below gurgles its greetings, the water on its ceaseless path to bigger bodies. Ahead, the entrance to the cedar wood looms dark and wide and I shiver a little in this moon and star-filled summer night, briefly considering the consequences if caught mid-adventure by a concerned grown-up. My consideration does not outweigh my desire and I carry on down the path and into my beloved cedar wood. While my heart thumps time to this song of escape, it is more excitement than fear as I have walked the trails of this camp and lingered in these woods since age four. I have crunched through the crisp-top winter snows and lazed at the foot of these trees in the dog days of summer. I am comfortable here and more safe on these grounds at any time of day than I ever have been or ever will be at home. I walk here at peace and rest here in the palm of my maker, my nature.
   
   The scent of living cedar is my mother's milk and the branches sway in a trance with the whisper of the night time breeze. I tread upon the bouncing carpet of cedar fronds and the net of roots beneath my feet. This is a place of magic. This is a place of rope swings and tree forts. It is Peter Pan and Captain Hook and everything wild and good about being a kid. I maintain a ninja silence knowing the boys tribes, including my own brother, sleep in the tree forts overhead. I smile at my courage and, quite frankly, my gall; I will not stop here. I know where I must go. 


   I know where I am drawn. There is peace in this as I walk on. It feels further in the dark than in the light, fewer distractions I suppose, but before long the woods open up to the upper level seating of the council ring and a lone star shoots across the open sky through the thick lick of the milky way. I sit, shoving my fists into the pouch of my hoodie and I sigh heavily into the night. I am a child, an animal with senses sharp and alive, nose to the cool air, eyes darting and adjusting to the light. 

   In this ring, some eternal part of who I am, something I have yet to comprehend, releases and I know I have not come here to be alone as I originally thought. I have come to connect to something, to connect to everything, to belong. My young, taut, clean body breathes in the power of the love of all. I hold this cool night air in my lungs, eyes closed, connected; full. As I release this breath, my self mingled with the universal soul into the one. I open my eyes wide to see the mother wolf staring at me from across the ring. Her two cubs are in tow, wrestling each other and the mother sits, our eyes lock. I gasp. I stay. I feel the hot tears on my cheeks. I understand the journey from longing to belonging. Purity. Comprehension. Love. 

-Gillian Cornwall, c. December 2011.

Camp

Photographer unknown

Me - 2nd from the left

Likely 12 yrs old.

If you're a kid and you want someone to talk to about anything, call the Kids Help Phone at:

1-800-668-6868.

If you have the ability to donate or want to participate in the walk on May 5, here's where you can find out more: http://org.kidshelpphone.ca/en 

Love is Louder than Loss

Me.

Approximately 13 years old

In the Time of the Mill Pond

White-blonde and tanned, a body like a boy, strong and able, peach fuzz arms and legs, I peddled my bike with the metallic blue fleck paint glinting in the summer sun, white grips on chrome replete with multi-coloured streamers framing the white plastic carrier basket that held my brown bag lunch.

I coasted through 1970s suburban Richmond Hill, through the tarmac playground of McKillop Elementary. I thumbed my nose at the Monday to Friday routine, fully ensconced in my Saturday freedom. I cruised down Lucas Street to Mill Street and all the way down to the Mill Pond where I'd lay on the grass in the mottled shade of the weeping willow to eat my peanut butter and jam sandwich and drink my Pop Shoppe Cherry Cola - a Saturday treat. 

After lunch, I parked myself at the edge of the pond to watch the minnows and the sweet mallard ducks plopping into the pond after a waddle across the fresh, damp grass. On this day, a magical creature appeared on a log at the water's edge in the form of a painted turtle with his green and yellow striped skin and his exotic red and black patterned undershell. I immediately named him Eric; I don't remember why - probably a boy crush from camp. I found an empty Player's cigarette pack in which to transport him, figuring he would appreciate the nautical theme and brought him home in the basket of my CCM cruiser.

I had no idea where I would keep him and no idea what his basic needs were. Upon arriving home to our orange brick house with the green garage door, I parked my bike and my dad's green wheelbarrow caught my eye. I took Eric and the barrow around to the backyard to set up his new digs by the tap under the kitchen window. I knew Sara, my Siamese, would make short work of him if he were in the house and my mother would make short work of me if I brought him in. I created a rock island for him and filled the wheelbarrow sufficiently to offer a decent sized pool for my small friend. I went inside and pulled down the appropriate Encyclopedia Britannica to read up on his needs and diet. I was too young to fully comprehend that I had removed him from his natural environment and placed him in an entirely lonely and foreign land. I would come to understand this before too long. I kept him alive and treated him as well as one can treat a reptilian pet, until the big split.

I had to get rid of Eric when my parents finally announced they were getting a divorce. Don't feel bad for me, I was happy I wouldn't hear nor see them fight anymore. The damage to the house, to us, to them, might finally end. 

My first unhappiness in this situation came when I realized my impending choices were:

A.) living with her

or

B.) living with him.

Where was C.)? I wanted my own place! I honestly believed that living on my own would be a better set up than with either of them. They seemed crazy with anger, disappointment and bitterness. I believed I disappointed them. I feared them. Their pain was palpable and somewhere in my thirteen year old being, I knew it wasn't going to be great, either way.

My second unhappiness came when I heard we would be moving into an apartment with my mother and that an apartment was no place for a turtle or "that damn cat". Eric went to live with a neighbour. I believe he lived a long life with a nice family. Looking back, I can't say he was happy but at least I know they took good care of him.

My third and ultimate unhappiness in this untying of my family came after my mother, brother and I had moved to our tenth floor, 3-bedroom apartment on Yonge Street in North York. I was over the moon excited when I found out that we could bring Sara to live with us in the apartment - much to my mother's chagrin. She said we were going to the mall to purchase a new dish set, where we would meet up with our father who had something to tell us. I couldn't wait to see him to tell him that Sara wouldn't have to stay in the offices of the family business anymore; she could come to live with me! 

In the middle of Sears , I saw my dad and ran to tell him the news. He wasted no time in telling me how the secretary had taken Sara home from the office because she "thought the cat was crying". Sara suffered from weepy eyes. Maybe it was a Siamese thing. He told me how she had escaped from the secretary's house and how he had spent the last two days searching for her through the Richmond Hill countryside and how she had not turned up anywhere. I begged him to take me looking for her right then, to keep looking until we found her. She was my best friend and constant companion. She used to go for walks with me and lurk under the covers in my room when my mom came up to see if "that cat" was hiding there. Eric was awesome, for a turtle kind of pet, but Sara, Sara was the good thing in my life, the unconditional love we need from somewhere - particularly as a child. He said he was sorry but, no, she was just gone and that was that.

My heart truly broke for the first time in that moment. That was when I learned what it feels like to lose someone you love and who, you are certain, loves you. I had no power to change it, no power to take action, no power as a child, no one to talk to and nowhere to turn. Unconditional love was gone.

Insult to injury, my mother made me stay in that store, stay and help her pick out dishes. I stood there staring blankly at the Noritake plates she held up before me, fighting back the tears, while she told me to behave, to try to be civilized. I tried. I stood there, completely distraught, coming to pieces, feeling something die inside me while she compared dish patterns. I wanted to run, to go to find Sara myself, but I knew what it would cost me in trouble, knew what she would have done. I felt like a coward, abandoning Sara like that. I knew she would be looking for me and wondering where I had gone, why I had left her alone. I couldn't even tell her I was sorry. I hadn't even said goodbye. 

I left a big piece of my childhood in the mall and came home with plates, bowls, cups and saucers. I closed myself in my room and prayed Sara would be found by people who would love her well, that she knew I had not abandoned her and I promised her I would never forget her. I never have. It was then that I closed myself off from my family in some ways and waited, day upon day, until I was free to go my own way.

-Gillian Cornwall, April 11, 2013.

________________________________________________________________________

I survived the abuse, the fighting, the new schools and the bullying of my childhood because I was lucky enough to access one amazing high school counsellor and a couple of good friends as a child. 

It took some searching to find the supports I needed, both as a young person and as an adult. The cost has been high and more than financial. When I was a kid, it would have been great to have someone to call, anytime, for free, to have someone listen, tell me what I should do, tell me it would be okay.

I am strong from my journey but parts of me were stolen and they cannot be returned. The wounds have healed. The scars remain.  It was a long journey to this place. It took strength and courage each step of the way to learn to love, to let go, to give without need and share the stories of the path I walked.

Help one another. Be kind. Give what you can freely give. Let us love one another well.

If you're a kid and you need to speak to someone right now, call the Kids Help Phone at: 

1-800-668-6868

To donate to the Kids Help Phone, go to: http://org.kidshelpphone.ca/en/donate/

Settle Up / Settle Down

Photo of me taken by my friend, Bruce

Garden of the Gods - Keahiakowelo

Lana'i, Hawaii

I am surprised and, sometimes, distraught when I reflect upon containment, on plunges never taken. How much have we missed in our lives by closing our eyes and our hearts in fear? Would we live a larger life in a shorter time if we were forced or, even just able, to see and be twice as much? People have done this in war time, a result of increased odds of not knowing if they would receive the gift of another day of life and love.

I have a Veronica Shorffstall poem going through my head this week as I have taken certain actions in my life for myself:

Comes the Dawn

"After a while you learn the subtle difference 

Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,

And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning

And company doesn't mean security,

And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts 

And presents aren't promises.

And you begin to accept your defeats

With your head held high and your eyes open,

With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child.

You learn to build your roads

On today because tomorrow's ground

is too uncertain for plans, and futures have 

A way of falling down in midflight.

After a while you learn that even sunshine

Burns if you get too much.

So you plant your own garden and decorate

Your own soul, instead of waiting

For someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you can really endure,

That you really are strong

And you really do have worth

And you learn and learn ...and you learn

With every goodbye you learn."

-Veronica Shorffstall, 1971.

So, I say, save me from the terror of the parting words, "If only..." or "I wish...". It's true. I fear the possibility of these statements with my dying breaths far more than I fear the potential in a life well-lived, yet I could be doing so much more with my time.

I wonder what it really means to 'settle down' - why 'down'? I suppose 'settle up' only means to pay one's bill. Perhaps we must settle up before we can settle down. After all, what goes up...

Nonetheless, I don't see why one needs to settle at all. I am not specifically referring to the physical - nature and time take care of a certain amount of settling in this regard. Some of my reticence with the term comes from my lean to cross-reference settling with stagnation.

I don't want to become a slow and sleepy dullard, bloated and non-responsive after a lifetime in front of a television, watching life rather than participating. I don't want to end up humming commercial jingles and dreaming of products beyond my means and need. 

More. I ask more of myself and the freedom to accept more. 

Awake. I watch, participate, learn and teach. This is how I want to live and love. I want to embrace life fully without fear. 

Where love, joy and kindness have visited, there exists heaven.

-Gillian Cornwall, revised April 6, 2013. 

Veronica Shorfstall poem found here

Buddha - Hawaii

G. Cornwall, 2006

The Wonder

 Taylor Beach, 

Metchosin, BC

Gillian Cornwall, March 30, 2013.

The wonder and greatness of all that is, all that can be imagined and all that is beyond imagination flows through me. I find wonder in all things and beauty in the most simple. I am in awe. Life and love abound. In the giving of love, I am made full. 

Nothing is held within so there is no loss. Life is eternal in the light of freedom. What shall I choose next on my path? Each footfall is a fresh breath and a re-connection to the ever-changing universe. 

I am engaged in that which we call chaos, that which is simply beyond the obviously understood. I am autonomous yet completely connected for what is external is internal, each cell a microcosm of the greatness of everything. 

There is peace here amid the knock and grind of the human engine. I purr with life.  

-Gillian Cornwall,  Revised c. March 31, 2103

Taylor Beach, 
Metchosin, BC
Gillian Cornwall, March 30, 2013.

Olympic Range,

Victoria, BC

Gillian Cornwall, March 30, 2013.