Category Archives: Life

When I worked in a small library where I was the only staff person, I often lamented my sad desk lunches. With the exception of the patients that would use the library, I spent my days alone, and so often my lunchtime was also spent alone. I did have colleagues from another (attached) hospital library and we would occasionally go out for lunch, but my midday meal was largely eaten in solitary.

I ate – for the most part – where I worked although I would usually stow the keyboard somewhere away from potential crumbs, and I would minimize any work-related browser tabs or documents I had open. A true vacation from work, right?

And it wasn’t as if I didn’t have options. There was a staff lounge and an outdoor patio area with picnic tables, as well as any number of benches on the hospital grounds I could have escaped to, but I rarely did. The lounge was a bit of a cesspool of negativity, and I really didn’t want that in my life. When I would occasionally use one of the communal microwaves there, I tried very hard not to get involved with conversations complaining about management, other staff, etc. I had worked for a lot of years in a workplace with that kind of lunchroom and so when I encountered that I would quickly retreat to my desk, grateful that I no longer had to endure that.

The outdoor options? Well as promising as they were, if you know me at all you’ll know I really don’t like being outside. Especially when the weather is very warm and especially at the noon hour when the sun is strongest. If I couldn’t guarantee a spot in the shade, I wasn’t interested. So back to my desk I would go.

And yet, I complained. Friends would post photos of work lunches, potlucks, camaraderie over the noon hour and I would be envious. I would scowl at my boring sandwich and veggie sticks like it was their fault they weren’t a four-course Italian meal lovingly prepared by work friends and brought in for all to share, or a glass of red wine at a colleague’s birthday lunch at a downtown bistro.

It was a lonely existence.

When I started my new job (it’s been two and a half years, but it’s still my new job) I noticed that hardly anyone ate lunch at their desk. There is a staff lounge here with all the things you need to eat a proper lunch, including a real kitchen table and chairs. People bring their lunches from home or they buy them from the cafeteria, and many of us eat together. It feels like a real and welcoming community, and it’s so, so great.

So each day I grab my lunch bag and head to the staff lunch room and chat with whoever happens to be in there at the time, or not. There’s no pressure to participate in conversations, there’s also not any exclusion from conversations, you can join in or not, you can just do what you want. So refreshing, and such a step up from my sad desk lunches of yore.

Last week we were informed that the lunchroom will be getting a real overhaul. New or newly-covered furniture, a new fridge (honestly!) and a few other razzle-dazzle kinds of changes will be happening, which is amazing, but it means that the room will be out of commission for most of the week while these things happen. We were told to plan our lunches accordingly since we would be without access to things like a fridge, the microwave, etc. So making my lunch this morning I built myself a sandwich and added a few other things to the bag, and then at 1pm, after my desk shift, I stowed my keyboard and closed my work-related browser tabs and docs, and proceeded to eat my lunch. And I found that I kind of missed it. After all those years of moaning about being alone and having a solitary lunch day after day, I was actually kind of excited to sit and eat without any other distractions.

I found I slowed my pace because I really had nothing else to do. I could have read my book, but I was almost halfway through my sandwich before I even thought about it. I scrolled through my phone a bit but even stopped that after a few minutes. I really just ate. And I realized it had been a very long time since I had just eaten without doing anything else.

There’s a lot to be said for eating and only eating, and there has been a lot written on the subject of mindful eating, of eating without distraction. Mindless eating is – or can be – eating on the go, eating while doing a bunch of other things simultaneously when you’re not even thinking about the food you are ingesting. Mindful eating encourages us to focus on the act of eating – without doing anything else – and this is kind of a lost art when there is a lot of pressure on us to always be doing something.

Meditation apps include courses and sessions on eating mindfully and a quick Google search turns up dozens of sites all about why and how to practice mindful eating. (I know this because I did a search after I ate my lunch.) And while it would be amazing to spend a full hour in contemplation of our food, even just a few minutes of only eating can have a positive impact on slowing down our day.

Once the lunchroom renovation is complete, no doubt I will return to the lunchtime social time, but I think every so often I’m going to make an effort to slow it down and find a quiet place to be alone with my lunch. Today was a good reminder that a desk lunch doesn’t have to be a sad lunch after all.

This morning I got to work at my usual extra-early time and did what I normally do when I arrive early. Once my colleagues and I had finished the opening routine, I went back to my office to get started on the typical morning tasks: checking email, making a cup of tea, etc. Our library, as I mentioned, opens at 8am, but we don’t actually start offering reference services until 9am. the 8-9 shift on the desk is usually a quiet one, letting us all ease into the day. This morning I was scheduled on the desk from 9-11am, but at around 8:30 my first shift colleague who had a lot on her plate to start the day came and asked me if I would help a student. The look on her face told me it was a kind of special/urgent situation, so out I went.

When I sat down at the desk a student was waiting for me, laptop open, and a vague deer in the headlights look on her face. I introduced myself and gave my standard opening of “How can I help?” and we got started.

She took a deep breath and started talking. She explained that she had an assignment, but that she felt completely overwhelmed about where to start, where to look, how to formulate her PS question, what words she should be using, and on and on. I let her speak, let her dump all the information she needed to get out onto me, and let her voice her frustration as to how she didn’t exactly understand and how scared she felt because it seemed like everyone else knew how to do everything and she didn’t. I listened, and once she had said everything she needed to say, I asked her a couple of clarifying questions, questions designed to help her slow down her thought process and questions that would allow her to explain the topic to me in her own terms, using her own vocabulary so that I could understand.

It’s a fascinating thing to watch someone who minutes earlier had been so flustered and confused patiently tell me about her research topic, and to see passion and excitement replace panic. Once I had a handle on what she needed to find I asked her the question I ask a lot of students in this situation: “What words or phrases do you think you should use to search the database?” And she, like a lot of students, looked horrified.

“It doesn’t matter what I think! It has to be evidence-based!”

“True,” I told her. “But you can’t find anything until you enter something in the database, so tell me, who is your population? What is the situation? Just think in regular language, normal, everyday words and you’ll be surprised what the database will turn up.”

This whole exchange likely won’t make much sense unless you too search databases with college or university students, but the wonderful thing about the entire conversation was that it became a Wizard of Oz moment. You know, when Glinda says to Dorothy, “You’ve always had the power, my dear. You just had to learn it for yourself.” THAT is what it’s like to see students go from “Oh shit, database searching” to “Ooooooh SHIT, database searching!”And it’s a glorious thing to witness.

These are some of my favourite kinds of interactions. I love that moment when students realize that they do have the power, that they can figure it out, that all they needed was a little guidance and someone to get excited for them once they were on the right track. Today’s student left with the tools and resources to take her further in the searching process and the promise that someone would always be at the desk in case she needed a little more assistance down the road.

But most of all I think she left the desk with a sense of accomplishment, a sense of pride that she did know what she was doing after all and no, maybe she didn’t know the exact MeSH terms she should be searching, (who does, really??) but that’s ok. The relief on her face made my day. I helped her, but she also helped herself. Slow it down, trust yourself. Your thoughts and opinions are always valid, and they are such an important part of the process.

Database searching, like life, can be very confusing. And, like life, it’s a lot of trial and error. But, also like life, you do have the power. You just have to learn it for yourself. And it helps to have friendly people along the way to get excited with you and high-five you when you figure it out.

On Monday night I went to bed like every other night, although that night I was anticipating my birthday, which was the next day. Tuesday. Yesterday. It might seem weird to you that a woman about to turn 51 years old was excited for her birthday, but as one of my 2018 goals, I promised myself I would not be mad about my birthday anymore. I was mad when I turned 50, 49, 48…the years stretch back in a series of annoyances. I’m getting old, damn it. But this year I decided to face it head on because, as they say, the alternative is worse.

I suppose I could lie about my age, but I’m a Capricorn, and we don’t like to lie. Mostly because we always worry we’ll get caught – and a lot of times we do get caught – because we’re just not good at it. So it’s either embrace the potential of a birthday in a positive way – another year on this planet! Presents! Cake! etc. – or be an old lady curmudgeon for the rest of my days. I decided to choose the happy persona.

So. Back to Monday night. Went to bed, the usual. Then at around 1:30am I woke up with a screaming, burning pain in my left arm and shoulder. There was numbness in some parts like it had fallen asleep, that pins and needles feeling. But mostly it was agonizing pain. And left arm pain is never a good sign.

I made my way downstairs for a heating pad and some Tylenol. and sat in a chair wide awake and wondering “Is this a heart attack? Should I wake John? What are the other symptoms? Why can’t I remember? Wait, heart attacks in women present differently. What else should I be looking for? Should I grab my phone and consult MedlinePlus?” And then “Of COURSE I would be the person to die on their birthday, why not.”

I need to mention that I was really calm throughout, which pleased me. I am, actually, a good person to have around in a crisis. Should you require one, I can be available. I am very, very practical, and I rarely panic. And I think that intellectually I absolutely 100% knew that I wasn’t having a heart attack, that it was likely just a pinched nerve, or even maybe I had been sleeping funny, but I had to go through all the “what ifs” before I could rule it all out.

I suppose if it was a heart attack I could have been DEAD before my brain reasoned its way through all the evidence, but whatever.

In the morning over birthday coffee, I told my husband what my night had been like and he was pretty pissed off that I didn’t wake him up while all that was going on. I shrugged and then I uttered the words that drove me the most batshit about my mother: “I didn’t want to bother you.”

I DIDN’T WANT TO BOTHER YOU.

Even our 17-year old said, “Mum, I think that if you think you’re having a heart attack and maybe dying, THAT KIND OF CONCERNS THE REST OF US JESUS CHRIST.”

My mother, for reference, fell down a flight of stairs and busted up her face, but waited THREE DAYS to go to the hospital and only ended up there because her friend happened to drop by for something unrelated, took one look at her, and forced her into the car to go to the ER. When she called me later, after they’d fixed what they could, I asked her why she didn’t call me. That’s when she told me “Oh it was a few days ago, I didn’t want to bother you.” And that’s when I lost my shit on her.

But, as it turns out, I have that same tendency.

Fortunately, it was a false alarm, I remain alive and able to celebrate my 51st year unscathed, the arm pain was likely from having a 65lb husky drag me around the city 7 days a week. Good to know, I guess.

Happy Birthday to me. Still alive, still annoying af.