Ugh, why you gotta be so mean?!

This is a stock photo - today was grey and wet

Today was a glorious, albeit cold and wet day. Jason, Melissa and I drove to the Keji Seaside Adjunct and did the 8.7km hike with my Outdoor Adventure meet-up group (making for a 10 hour day after 5 hours of sleep last night). I passed out for 2-3 hours after getting home, but am now wide awake at 2am. I continue to fall in love with the beauty of this province. The gifts Mother Nature gives up to you here are spectacular. Today we saw grey seals out on the water checking us out as we looked  out onto the ocean, and there was just something majestic about the whole thing.  I continue to me grateful that I joined this group and that I finally convinced Jason to start checking out the events - it is SO NICE to be able to get out and see people again!!


Yet, that being said, I have to admit that I'm having trouble with navigation of aspects of my new social space. For example, this morning when we arrived at the parking lot of the provincial park, a great big pitbull raced over to our car and proceeded to jump all over me and to try to hop up into the car seat I had just vacated. I love doggies, so no biggie, but I figured out quickly that she smelled my chocolate-chunk cookies (I know, so much for paleo!) and had to forcefully remove her so I wouldn't contribute to the death of some strangers dog.  Anyway, her owner came charging over, grabbed her by the scruff and dragged her off, berating her, without so much as a "hello" or even an apology if she had scared us.  This encounter shaped my day more than I realized.  It brought to the fore a lot of what I've been feeling since leaving Toronto, first in  London, Ontario, and now in Nova Scotia. I am having real trouble with the distance I get from people here. I have always been a very social creature. I say hello to everyone, I  like to get to know the people around me. In fact, I had fallen in love with the paddling community way before I was actually a paddler, and the girls weren't exaggerating when they'd jokingly call me the mayor of dragon boat - I like to meet and greet the people I share a love of things with. I like community. So going to practices where people show up,  hop in the boat, paddle, then hop right into their cars, often without exchanging more than a cursory hello is hard for me. Being nice to someone's pet when it's being intrusive and what some people would have taken as a little scary (not everyone reacts positively to a pitbull charging at them at full tilt) should elicit at least some degree of friendly you'd think. I go out of my way to be friendly and get uncomfortable hellos or nods in response and end up wondering if it's me.  Going back to sport,  I understand the awkward athlete thing - I've known many elite athletes throughout my lifetime, and get that their social skills are often lacking. However, that shouldn't include basic courtesy or just being nice! The cliquey thing is as hard for me now as it was when I first showed  up at Balmy Beach for war canoe 100 years ago.

I remember saying to my supervisor during my PhD when I was having trouble with a woman I was co-teaching with (who was essentially a condescending cow), that with me, what you see is what you get. She somewhat derisively told me that people who say that are rarely being honest, but you know what? I don't have time for pretense, and I don't really understand why I would go out of my way to be someone I'm not. If I like you, you know it. If I think you're scary or mean, I won't give you the time of day. If I want to be your friend, I will put myself out there. I stop on the street to tell strangers I think they're beautiful. I also tell people when I think they're being ridiculous or annoying. I would rather have you pissed at me for being honest with you than have you wonder what I really think. Does this "honesty" get me in trouble? Of course it does! Sometimes I dislike who I am because of the need  I seem to have to say what I think. I carry around that list of 15 things to let go to be happy, and refer to it at least once a day because I know some of this honesty stuff is over the top and I know how much work there is to be done on my part. But more and more lately I find myself uncertain where people are concerned - are you just being nice to my face? Why do your words ring untrue? Why can I hear you say all these nice equitable things when appropriate, yet when placed in a critical light I can  see that you are paying lip service to truly seeing me as your equal or as more than representing some idea (usually of blackness) that exists in your head? I know I'm an overly-sensitive soul, but I also just plain don't "get" humanity. How do people keep up? There are so many layers of pretense and bravado that I really struggle with what's real and what's imagined, and what people expect from relationships and cursory encounters. I mean frig, life is so short people, does it hurt to stop and share the planet with another human being for a minute?

So be kind people, sometimes it's the littlest things that mean the most.

Sugs out.