A weekend on Vancouver Island is not complete without a visit to The Butchart Gardens. As stated on their website, The Butchart Gardens is a must-see oasis over 100 years in the making. And what a privilege it was to take in the beauty of this place that stands as a testament to what is possible when one has a grand vision. The story of The Butchart Gardens is also one of the most interesting family business success stories never told…
It all began with one woman’s vision and passion
In 1904, husband and wife, Robert and Jennie Butchart moved from Ontario to Vancouver Island in pursuit of riches through the mining of limestone deposits. With a quarry for their backyard, they built a cement plant at Tod Inlet, and Robert soon built a successful cement business. At the time, the West Coast was exploding with development, and cement was in constant demand from San Francisco to Seattle. The first sacks of cement sailed out of Vancouver Island aboard the “Alexander” in 1905.
Jennie Butchart busied herself around the estate by planting flowers and shrubbery in an area between the house and Butchart cove. As time passed, Jennie’s efforts increased, and her husband often supplied workmen from the factory to assist in the ever-growing project of gardening. By 1908 the limestone ran out, leaving a gigantic pit near the house.
The limestone quarry pit in 1912. Source: https://www.butchartgardens.com/our-story/
In an attempt to hide this hideous excavation, Jennie decided to expand her garden. The concept of a sunken garden formed, and Jennie had massive amounts of topsoil imported by horse cart to form the garden bed. The rubble on the floor of the pit was pushed into tall mounds of rock on which terraced flowers were planted. Mrs. Butchart dangled over the sides of the bare quarry wall in a boson’s chair and carefully tucked ivy into any discernible pocket or crevice in the rock to hide away all the gray.
In 1921, the project was completed. It had become a garden of immense interest to the surrounding community. Tales of Mr. and Mrs. Butchart’s fabulous gardens spread as fast as the gardens themselves. From the beginning, friends, acquaintances, and even complete strangers were welcomed, as they came to marvel at the horticultural masterpiece. At one point Mrs. Butchart found herself serving 18 000 cups of tea per year – or so the story goes…
1929. The garden taking shape. Source: https://www.butchartgardens.com/our-story/
The most interesting family business success story never told…
In 1939, Mr. and Mrs. Butchart gifted the gardens to their grandson Ian Ross on his 21st birthday. Ian Ross transformed them into the world-renowned attraction we know today, adding outdoor concerts and night lighting in the summers, and the Magic of Christmas in the winters.
The gardens were then handed down to their great-grandson Christopher in 1997. Christopher began producing a choreographed firework show every year. Unfortunately, Christopher suddenly died in 2000 and the gardens landed in the hands of his sister Robin-Lee Clarke (63), who is the current owner of the gardens. In 2009 Robin-Lee added the Children’s Pavilion and Menagerie Carousel to the gardens.
The sunken garden today. It’s hard to believe this was an old limestone quarry pit.Rows and rows of flowers in the sunken gardenRobin-Lee’s Menagerie CarouselStaircase to a lookout pointIn 1964, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Gardens, Ian Ross created and installed the Ross Fountain. The water rises 21 m (70 ft.) in the air.A rare sight in the gardens. The Himalayan Blue Poppy. It was imported to the gardens and only blooms for two weeks a year. We were lucky enough to see it in bloom…
The Butchart name has remained prominent in Victoria for over 10 decades and the gardens have been handed down from one generation to the next. The next in line to inherit the gardens, is Barnabas Butchart Clarke (34), the only child of Robin-Lee and David Clarke, and great-great-grandson of the founders. He currently lives in Victoria and produces dance shows.
Today, The Butchart Gardens is a National Historic Site of Canada. You can still find remnants of the original cement plant and over a million bedding plants in over 900 varieties awaiting you as you wander The Butchart Gardens. It is worth it to take a boat trip in Brentwood Bay around the gardens. Your guide will tell you about the history of the gardens as well as some amazing stories about the Pacific Ocean.
Walking through these gardens got me thinking about life in general. Often, we find ourselves in situations that are less desirable or sometimes even downright frustrating. And we can choose to sit and cry amid the chaos. We could even get angry at the dust and decay underneath our feet. Or we can decide that we want to build a garden instead and create a more desirable future. We possess the power to either fall into dismay along with the chaos around us or to choose to create something beautiful out of it. And through our focus and effort, we might just inspire others, much like the gardens have inspired people for over 100 years…
References:
Butchart Gardens. (2018). Our Story. Available online from: https://www.butchartgardens.com/our-story/
Birds of a Feather. (n.d.). Butchart Family History – Robert and Jennie. Available online from: https://www.birdsofafeather.ca/butchart-family-history
So, when you move to a new country, one of the first and most important things you will have to do, is find a place to live. So where do you start? And what are the factors you need to keep in mind? What housing options are available in Vancouver?
Most people who work in the city – especially those working for Amazon – prefer to live in the city centre. The benefit of course is that you are close to work and you don’t have to travel that far to get to the office. In fact, depending on how close you live to where you work, you could even walk or ride a bike to work. However, the drawback is that your only housing options are high-rise apartments; which is fine if you are single, but this can pose a problem if you have a family – especially a family with small kids. We didn’t like the idea of living in an apartment with a toddler, because we believe she needs space to run around. Besides, in South Africa we owned a house with a big backyard, so we were hoping to find something that had a garden or backyard of some sort for Emma to play in.
We made the call to house hunt in the suburban areas just outside of the city centre and not to settle in the city centre for two reasons: firstly, the need for space for Emma and the cats and secondly, because we simply could not afford the apartments in the city centre. Renting an apartment in the city centre could cost you anything between $3 500 and $6 500 a month depending on the size and location of the apartment. For those of you in South Africa, multiply by 10 to work out the price in South African rand. $3 500 (or R35 000) per month would get you a one-bedroom apartment in the city centre. Two-bedroom apartments go for about $4 000 to $4 500 (or between R40 000 and R45 000) a month!
As you move further out of the city centre, rental properties become “cheaper” and you also have more options. You don’t have to live in an apartment, you could opt for a condo or a basement suite or a full house. So how did we decide where to live? Who did we contact, or where did we look for available rentals?
How we decided where to live
In our first few weeks here, we took the time to drive around all the areas in Vancouver, including North Vancouver, Richmond, Burnaby, Surrey, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge.
A map of greater Vancouver and surrounding areas to give you some perspective
North Vancouver is stunningly beautiful. You are surrounded by mountains and it has more of quint Cape Town type of vibe. There are smaller shops and lots of fun outdoor activities like hiking trails, suspension bridges and parks. However, it is VERY expensive. It is probably just as expensive as the city centre or a close second. Most of the available rental options that fit our budget were simply not spacious enough or were a bit neglected. There are two other things to keep in mind about living in North Vancouver. Firstly, you can only get to the city centre with a bus. There are no trains that run from North Vancouver. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since the bus is much faster. The average commute is about 26 minutes. Unless of course the bus services are on strike; which sometimes happens – yes, believe it or not, even in Canada, they sometimes strike. We have had one bus strike in the last six months of living here. The other thing about living in North Vancouver, is the fact that the streets are narrow, and the houses don’t have garages, so you are forced to park in the street – very much like in Cape Town – but there is not much space. So, if you own a car – which you should if you live in North Vancouver unfortunately, because it is the best way to get around – you will struggle with parking all the time. So again, this was a no for us. We wanted more house for our money and we wanted a garage.
Deep Cove, North VancouverDeep Cove, North Vancouver
Richmond and Burnaby were also too expensive, and Burnaby has a lot of old houses with old wiring and again no garages to park your car in. Surrey has gorgeous large houses, but locals here told us that it is their “dodgy” area; which we can’t imagine is anything as dodgy as some parts of Johannesburg. However, public transport from both Burnaby and Surrey are also not that great. There are not a lot of trains to the city centre, so you would need a car and we had decided from the start that Johann would use public transport to get to work and that we would only buy one car to use for emergencies, grocery shopping and travel. Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge are the more “rural” areas of Vancouver with larger stretches of land and small farm holdings as well as beautiful suburbs. The houses are huge and affordable compared to the city centre, Burnaby and Surrey. In Maple Ridge, you could rent a three- or four-bedroom home for between $2 600 and $3 500 and then you have access to the full house and a garden. However, it is very far out from the city and the average commute to work would be about two hours there and two hours back. Understandably, Johann did not want to spend 4 hours a day travelling to and from work.
So, we settled for the happy medium. We chose Coquitlam. It is in between Burnaby, Surrey, Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge and has the best bus and train network; providing easy access to the West Coast Express and thus shortening Johann’s commute to work. Additionally, Coquitlam is built in a smart way. There is lake in the middle of the city – LaFarge Lake. The community centre and aquatic complex is right across from the lake. So are two train stations – LaFarge Lake Station and Coquitlam Central Station. All the malls and shops are around this area and the suburbs and houses expand from here. So, whether you want to get to the train station or the community centre or the mall, you just drive to the middle of the city. Housing options are in the middle range in Coquitlam anywhere between $2 500 and $4 500 depending on what you are looking for. There are apartments, but there are also lots of condos – especially in the Westwood Plateau and Burke Mountain areas. These two areas are growing rapidly with new developments and there are new condominium complexes popping up everywhere. And then of course there are basement suites and houses.
Coquitlam City Centre at LaFarge LakeCoquitlam City Library
So, what the heck are basements suites?
In South Africa, most houses are flat on the ground – called a “rancher” house in Canada. You get the occasional double story house with stairs, but most houses are on one level. This takes up a lot of space on the ground and is thus impractical in Vancouver. Therefore, in Vancouver most, if not all, of the houses are built in levels to provide the same number of rooms but take up less physical space on the ground. So, the average house in Vancouver, consists of three storeys. Because most of Vancouver is quite hilly, they can build houses where you have access to the middle level or the lower level from the ground.
So, the lower level is usually your garage and basement, the middle level is your living area; which includes a living room, dining room and kitchen and the upper level is usually where the bedrooms and bathrooms are. A basement suite therefore is where a house has a large lower level and they put up dry wall in the basement to separate it into different rooms and thus turn it into an apartment. Many people then live in the middle and upper part of the house and rent the lower part of their house out to renters. If you are new to Vancouver and strapped for cash, a basement suite is a good option. It is like an apartment but on the ground. It is the cheapest housing in Vancouver and usually the utilities are also split 70% and 30% between the home owner and the basement occupant, so you only pay for 30% of the water and electricity.
I suppose for South Africans, this sounds weird. We were freaked out by the idea of living in someone else’s basement, because remember you technically share the house and the garden with the owner. Usually you have a separate entrance, so you do have some privacy. But depending on the way the house was built, it could mean that you don’t have a lot of windows in your apartment and thus very little light coming into your house. That to me, was just too depressing. I like natural light and couldn’t imagine living in a basement on top of the already miserable, rainy weather we have in Vancouver for up to 8 months of the year.
Where do you find available rentals?
The best place to look for rentals is on Craigslist Vancouver. Craigslist is incredibly popular in Vancouver. People sell almost anything on Craigslist and most landlords list their properties on Craigslist. It is much cheaper than working through an agent; although most landlords even use agents on Craigslist. Why are estate agents a problem? Unlike in South Africa where estate agents are quite flexible and very eager for a sale and would thus accommodate your schedule, estate agents in Vancouver are swamped with requests for property and thus they dictate the schedule. They can and will refuse to see you at a time that is inconvenient for them. Some of them for example refuse to work on weekends, or only do showings and viewings of available properties in the middle of the day. They couldn’t care less about your work schedule or your urgency in finding a place to live, because they have so many potential tenants that they will just make the property available to the next person who is willing to jump through their hoops. It is incredibly frustrating, because you can literally spend days phoning and leaving messages and typing e-mails without receiving a reply.
This is where we were lucky, because we had the assistance of a company called Dwellworks. They help you settle in when you arrive in Vancouver. One of their representatives is available for three days to assist you with the matters you identify as most critical to you. So, you could for example ask that they help you obtain your social security number (or social insurance number at it is called in Canada), that they help you open a bank account, that they help you find a place to live, that they help you find an appropriate school for your children etc. But you only have three days, so you must choose wisely. If they assist with finding you a place to live, they phone all the estate agents on your behalf and negotiate the rental agreement on your behalf. All you have to do, is identify the places you are interested in.
Despite the assistance of Dwellworks, it still took us four months to find a place to rent and we considered about 106 properties in total. Most places were either too expensive, or did not allow pets, or were too far away from the nearest bus or train station, making Johann’s commute to work difficult. We ended up selecting a condo or what we would call a townhouse in South Africa. It is in a “complex” and although it looks like South African complexes with all the units in the complex built in the same style, it does not have the same level of security you would be used to in South Africa. There is no gate at the front entrance of the complex, no security guards patrolling the perimeter of the property or having you sign in when you enter the complex, no gates, no electric fencing and barely even any walls to talk about.
Each unit is 3 stories, with the garage at the lower level, the living area – i.e. living room, dining room and kitchen – on the middle level and the bedrooms and bathrooms on the top level. Each unit also has a very small patch of garden that can be accessed from a glass sliding door in the kitchen. The only thing separating you from your neighbours though, are a few small trees and shrubs and a tiny wooden gate that marks off the perimeter of your garden patch. But everyone has access to everyone else’s garden, so it is not entirely strange to find a random person transiting through your garden to his garden – especially with garden utensils or potted plants or wood beams or even furniture. It is something to get used to, especially for South Africans who are not only always on high alert for suspicious-looking strangers who might want to do you harm, but also incredibly private people who tend to prefer their gardens to be private spaces not shared with others…
What are some of the things to keep in mind when renting in Vancouver?
As mentioned in a previous blog post, most landlords do not allow pets, so it is sometimes difficult to find pet-friendly accommodation and if you do find a landlord who is willing to accept pets, he/she will charge you a pet damage deposit on top of the security deposit you would be required to pay when signing a lease agreement. So, you might end up paying two months’ rent in advance for your new home.
Leases are usually for 12 months. In rare situations you might find a lease for 6 months, but most landlords rent for at least 12 months. Others for 24 months. It is very difficult to get out of a lease agreement. If you cancel your lease before it is up, you might have to continue to pay for the remaining months even though you move to another place. Most landlords see it as breach of contract and insist that you serve out the full term of the lease, because they might not be able to find a new tenant immediately after you move out. What some people do to get out of a lease, is they find the landlord a new tenant to take over their lease, and then give notice to the landlord that they want to terminate the lease agreement.
When you sign the lease agreement and collect the keys to your new place, the landlord will expect you to provide him/her with 12 post-dated cheques for the full term of your lease. Yes, they still use cheques. And no, they do not accept electronic funds transfers or debit orders for payment of rent. Don’t worry though, they cannot cash the cheque until the date written on the cheque, so you must just ensure that you have money in your account at the end of each month to cover the cheque amount.
And then finally, one little piece of good news, most if not all rental properties are rented out with all major appliances. So, the refrigerator, washing machine, tumble drier, dishwasher and microwave are usually included in your rent. This saves you a tonne of money on buying new appliances; especially if you’ve just arrived in Vancouver after selling all your appliances in South Africa – which you must do, by the way, because your South African appliances won’t work in Canada. They use a different voltage system.
One unfortunate reason for our long struggle to find a suitable place to rent, was due to racial discrimination of all things. In certain areas of Vancouver, especially Surrey, Burnaby and parts of Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam, many of the landlords are Chinese immigrants. They have bought up most of the property in Vancouver and some of them only rent to Chinese renters and refuse to rent their properties out to other racial groups.
Although we struggled for four months to find a place to live, it was a blessing in disguise, because our shipment of furniture from South Africa was delayed several times. The original estimates we received for the shipment of our furniture was 12 weeks, but it ended up taking 16 weeks for our furniture to arrive in Vancouver. Thanks to Amazon, we had temporary accommodation to stay in and managed to get by without really needing much of our furniture. However, for people going it alone, it can cause a huge problem, since you might move into a new place but still have to wait for your furniture and end up sleeping on the floor and living off take-aways or staying in a hotel until your stuff arrives which can be very costly. So, it’s something to keep in mind.
We still don’t regret shipping our furniture though, because furniture in Vancouver is very expensive. You could easily end up spending double the value of your furniture back in South Africa just to refurbish your home. A tip though is to get rid of all your junk and at least half of your furniture before you leave South Africa. Houses in Vancouver are much smaller than in South Africa. We gave away and sold half of our stuff before we left South Africa and still ended up with too much stuff that we now have to donate or sell, because we don’t have space for it.
Looking back on this experience, although it was frustrating living in temporary accommodation for so many months, it turned out well for us. We ended up renting a condo in a beautiful complex that is child-friendly and surrounded by beautiful parks and walking trails. We have a view of the mountain and apparently, we will get to see bears in summer as they are quite popular in the Burke Mountain area.
My two furry children, Darwin (left) and Snowy (right) with my not-so-furry child in the background. Happy care-free days in warm, sunny South Africa with them just lazing about.
For most of us, our pets are part of the family. In my case, I hand-raised my one cat. He was a feral kitten only 5 weeks old, and abandoned by his mother when I got him. He was completely wild. It was with great joy and pride that I managed to tame him enough to at least get him to behave in a civil manner towards the humans in his most immediate environment. Our second cat – imagines himself a dog – but is a lovable addition to our family, and to a great extent, they are my children. I know some would frown at this, but I also know that there are a lot of pet lovers out there that share my sentiment, and who get how easily an animal can claim a space in your heart and in your life and how difficult it is to just discard these special members of your family.
So, when my husband tried to convince me to move to Canada, one of my conditions was that I get to take my cats with me. They are my children after all, and I couldn’t bear to leave them behind. Of course I did the due dilligence and inquired from those already living in Canada whether they thought my cats would adjust to the new environment, especially considering how cold it gets in Canada. I was met with reassurance that they would be fine and would adjust quickly. In addition, Canada’s pet immigration policy is not as strict as other countries. As long as your pets are older than a year, their vaccination records are up to date and they pass their health exam in South Africa, they don’t have to go into quarantine. You get to take them home as soon as they arrive in Canada.
I took all of this as a sign that I was doing the right thing taking my cats with me to Canada. However, although the immigration process went smoothly for them and they arrived safely, they have struggled to adjust. Here is why…
There are three things to keep in mind when you are considering whether to take your pets with you when you immigrate.
Firstly, it is expensive. Really expensive. The cost of shipping a pet to another country is about double what your own plane ticket would cost you. They have to be vaccinated and subjected to medical exams and all of this cost money. Specialised crates need to be made for them to ship them and they are booked onto their own flights. The reason why your animals do not fly with you, is because the companies that ensure your pets’ safe transfer try to find the shortest possible route for them to travel with a stop over in between to give them a chance to rest and eat etc. Remember, that despite how taxing the long flight is for you, it is so much more overwhelming and traumatising for them. They are confined to a crate and are not allowed to eat on-route in case they get sick. They have no clue what is happening to them and you are not arround to comfort them. So it is quite a shock to the system. Also, animals cannot legally be sedated during long trips, because it constitutes animal cruelty. So they are simply provided calming treatments but are kept awake for the entire trip.
Secondely, when you arrive in your new country, you will have to find accommodation as a matter of urgency, and bringing pets along complicates matters, since most landlords do not allow pets. This eliminates many suitable housing options, because you have to find something that is pet-friendly. In Vancouver, landlords that allow pets charge an additional pet cover on top of your initial securing deposit, so you end up paying a double deposit on the accommodation. Most of the time the pet depost is for pet-incurred damages – i.e. pet hair, scratches or bite marks on furniture etc. – and is non-refundable. Even if your pet is usually well-behaved, they will most probably misbehave for the simple reason that they will arrive at your accommodation after a long and traumatising trip confined to a crate for many hours and then have to get used to an unfamiliar new environment. This is usually very distressful for most animals and they tend to act out, because they feel overwhelmed and confused. Our cats tore into the dining room chairs in our temporary accommodation and despite buying them not one, but three scratching posts, and various cat toys, they did not stop scratching the furniture. We ended up hiding the dining room chairs in the main bedroom walk-in closet at night while we slept and only taking them out when we really needed them. Desperate times called for desperate measures. We did not want to incur any penalties for damage to furniture in our temporary accommodation.
Lastly, if you decide to move to Canada, and you have a pet that spends more time outdoors than indoors, DO NOT believe people if they tell you that your animal will adjust to the climate in Canada. My cats are not your typical house cat. They used to spend most of their time playing outdoors or lying somewhere in the garden. They are fully house-trained in the sense that we did not even keep a litterbox for them in the house in South Africa. They had an open window for easy access to the house, but would “take care of business” outside in the garden.
Then we end up in Canada in the middle of winter and my poor cats are confined to the house for the first time in their short lives. Firstly, because we were staying in temporary accommodation when we arrived here, we did not want to let them out in case they wandered off and got lost. We decided to hold off untill we moved into a more permanent place. Unfortunately, what we did not bargain on was that our new house would be child-proof and what this means is that even the windows are childproof. They don’t open far enough for a cat to get through and all the windows are covered in guaze. Furthermore, staying in a townhouse means that we are not flat on the ground so they have quite a distance to jump if they were to get out.
I remained hopeful though, thinking we could use the window in the kitchen that goes out into the garden and at least give them some access to the garden. But there are two problems here. In winter, the snow presents an obstacle. They are not used to moving in snow and were completely freaked out by the snow. A side-note here, is that for dogs, it is even worse, because when it snows they cover the roads and sidewalks with salt to prevent people from slipping. However, the salt cuts into the dogs’ paws which means you have to get special socks for them to wear in the winter months if you want to take them outside. The second problem is that in summer, letting the cats out of the house might result in them becoming dinner. I asked locals here why we never see cats around and they explained that cat owners keep their cats indoors because the bears, coyotes and raccoons eat them. As luck would have it, we ended up renting in the Burke Mountain area, which is the prime spot for bears and coyotes in Vancouver. So my cats are still stuck in the house.
In retrospect, I find myself crying some days thinking that perhaps I did them an injustice by bringing them here. They have no clue what is happening and they don’t understand why they can’t go outside. Luckily our new house has a lot stairs and interesting places to climb and explore, so that keeps them busy and they seem to be settling in better than in the temporary accommodation.
Despite all of the frustration and trauma, these darling animals have still brought us comfort. They have served as welcome companions for my daugther who absolutely love having these furry friends to play with. She has learnt pretty quickly how to entice them to chase after a rope or a ball or any other fun object and they are spoilt with cuddles on a daily basis. As for me, having a furry friend on my lap on the days when the homesickness is strong, brings tremendous comfort. I have always felt calm in the presence of a purring cat and they have not dissappointed. Despite my husband’s complaints, both Emma and I enjoy their company and are grateful for the little bit of respite they bring. I can only hope that they are grateful to us for keeping them around instead of abadoning them to the care of someone else.
Most people are dog lovers. Most people do not like cats all that much. My cats have different personalities and are just as lovable as any dog. They just have sharper claws and more attitude. But I love them either way and I sleep easier knowing that being stuck inside, is still better than being left to their own resources, or worse perhaps facing a unceremonious end to their short little lives.
Darwin trying to find a comfortable spot in our temporary accommodationSnowy exploring the stairs in our new house
“Many people suffer from the fear of finding oneself alone, and so they don’t find themselves at all.” – Rollo May
To a lesser or greater extent, this is probably true of all of us – even introverts; or perhaps even more of introverts. Extroverts have other people to drown out the noise in their inner space. Introverts find activities. We think, we mull, we research, we brood, and we stay busy too avoid having to look inward.
The psychology of solitude studies how human beings are social creatures and how we struggle to deal with long periods of social isolation. If we are alone for too long, our mental faculties degrade, leading to deep despair, and even insanity. This explains why solitary confinement is such an effective punishment and/or torture method. As social animals, we cannot bear to be cut off from social interaction for too long. All of us recognise inside ourselves the need to find the balance between doing our own thing, and building relationships with others that can sustain us. Even if we only recognise it subconsciously. We all struggle to find this balance, because although we want and need relationships, they are also often the source of our greatest stress and suffering.
Hard-wired for connection
So why do we do it? Why do we keep pursuing relationships even though sometimes they make us miserable? It’s simple. We are hard-wired for connection. When a women gives birth, her brain secretes a hormone called oxytocin that allows her to establish an emotional bond with her baby. When the baby receives skin-on-skin contact from its mother, the same hormone is released in the baby’s brain and the baby’s brain starts forming neural networks about bonding, connection and love. When we hug or kiss a loved one, or establish a deep connection with a friend while chatting over coffee, our oxytocin levels increase. For this reason, oxytocin is often called “the love hormone.” In fact, the hormone also plays a huge role in pair bonding. Oxytocin is the hormone that underlies trust and can even be an antidote to depressive feelings. And we are all addicted to it. We can’t help it, because once we have experienced the effects of oxytocin, we want more. This explains how people become addicted to sex for example. If they perhaps did not experience the effects of oxytocin in other ways, because they were not held enough as children or did not bond with anyone, they still need the boost from the hormone, but don’t know how to obtain it in another way.
So being cut off from the source of our connection and bonding, can be hugely debilitating and can lead to severe depression and deep sadness. However, there is a huge difference between loneliness and being alone, because being alone is often a choice. Lena Dunham said on her Women Of The Hour podcast, “I personally love being alone … what I don’t like, is being lonely. For me, loneliness, that cottony separation from the world, hollow-stomached, soul disease is most acute when I’m surrounded by people who don’t or can’t see me“. And she is right, we can feel lonely, even when we are surrounded by people, because the wrong people – people who don’t know you or who don’t particularly care about your personal wellbeing – can actually make you feel isolated and alone. It is only when we spend time with those that genuinely know and love us, that we actually feel connection, and experience the burst of the oxytocin hormone, because we then feel we belong and we are not alone.
Discovering the upside of loneliness
However, we have all experienced being alone and we all know that sometimes, being alone, can be beneficial; that is, if we can face our own demons. Spending time alone can force us to do some introspection, to discover the benefits of meditation or help us be more productive.
When you immigrate to another country, you actually volunteer to be alone and it can be hard sometimes, because being alone for too long, can lead to despair and loneliness. So how do you reap the benefits of being alone without falling into the pit of despair that is loneliness? That is what I have been trying to figure out since we moved to Canada. And I haven’t mastered it yet. I still find myself falling into deep pits of despair and loneliness and crying for hours on end about loved one’s back home. And even though we chat and maintain regular “contact” thanks to technology, it is not the type of contact I crave. Hugs and kisses are impossible, so my oxytocin receptors are not firing. Looking into someone’s eyes, holding their hand, talking face to face, sharing a meal or a cup of cofee… none of these things are possible and you have to make due with cyber coffee chats when the massive time difference allows for a sliver of time to catch up with what’s going on in their lives.
So, typical of my Ennea 6, Wing 5 nature, I research and I try to find answers and I try to make sens of it. And I read article upon article about loneliness and the benefits of loneliness and/or of being alone and none of it resonates. Until I find two articles: Kimberly Gillan’s “The Surprising Upside Of Loneliness In A New City” where she recounts how it felt to move to another city, where she and her husband did not know anyone, and how they desperately tried to slot into the new environment they found themselves in by visiting locals bars, hoping to make some friends. She says: “I now wish I’d been more mindful of the positives of quiet time and spent less time lamenting my lack of friends in that lonely year. There’s a lot to be said for a blank calendar that can be filled with anything you damn well like. You learn to back yourself in a way I don’t think would be possible if you stay in your comfort zone. So if you’re new to a city, can I suggest you utilise your loneliness to learn a new skill, soak up your surroundings or go out on a limb? You’ll quite possibly have the best experiences of your life.”
Ok Kimberly, quiet time, you say. I used to spend a lot of quiet time by myself. I am used to working from home and have no problem staying busy and being productive when I am alone. However, with a toddler in the house, it is now almost impossible to find quiet alone time. So I upend my schedule. I wake up at 04:00 or 05:00 and try to think, write and work when baby is sleeping and I end up working until the early hours of the morning after baby has gone to bed. This definitely increases my productivity, but it isolates me even more, because now I spend less time talking to my husband – the ONLY person I have here that I can connect with – and I am also a zombie during the day when I have to give my little girl my undivided attention. So what to do?
As for the blank calendar, that means nothing when you are still in limbo, trying to find a permanent place to live, trying to establish some sort of routine and still figuring out what your life is going to look like now that you cannot visit family and friends as often as you used to. I must admit the idea is not exciting to me at all. I loved spending time with loved ones simply because they were a welcome break from my busy life. I spend a lot of my time in my head and I work long hours, so taking time out to visit with friends and family was like taking a vacation.
And then there is Karan Bajaj with his beautifully written inspirational piece entitled “The Incredible Upside of Loneliness” where he discusses the rules of the ancient Yogis and proposes that loneliness could be a journey of self-discovery. He explains that you can choose loneliness by moving somewhere where you don’t know anyone and then not holding on to anything and not buying a house. Almost adopt a nomadic lifestyle then. To my adventurous 7 wing this of course sounds promising. It could be a little experiment in self-reinvention. But then he gets to the juicy bit… how you can use loneliness to change the world… and of course as a Ennea 6 with a strong desire to impact the world, I am hooked.
Bajaj suggets that loneliness can help you tap into your creativity. He says: “You tap into a reservoir of completeness when you create, touching the universal and forget your limited self. Use your loneliness as a catalyst to creation–a book, an organization, a idea, a new business process– whatever your medium and feel silent and complete once again“. And of course I had discovered this to be true even before I stumbled upon Bajaj and his writings, because I suddenly had this urge to write. I find my writers block that had developed after my arduous PhD journey had suddenly lifted and I felt I not only wanted, but needed to write. So finally, I can see my way to writing a book after years of wanting and intending to write one, but never actually sitting down and typing the first page.
Bajaj also recommends meditating in times of loneliness. In my yoga practice, I had discovered the wonder of meditation. But I have battled to get back to that quiet space for more than a year now… It is as if it is simply inaccessible right now with worries and concerns wreaking havoc in my internal space. Bajaj insists though: “Don’t fight your loneliness. Instead, use it as a catalyst to internalize that everything is a passing mind state. The sadness of loneliness, the warm glow you feel in companionship, pleasure, pain, nothing lasts. Everything is in flux. Don’t make my mistake. Fast-forward your journey by learning how to meditate or consider this incredible, accessible experience“.
So, I have decided to immerse myself in my loneliness and embrace it as a time for contemplation and self-discovery, because Bajaj also says that at some point your journey into self-discovery, meditation and contemplation will end and you will rejoin your loved ones, but with wisdom and insights to share and with the gift of your learnings from your journeys.
Shortly after Christmas the countdown begins towards the end of the year. People become nostalgic and reminisce about the year that has gone by. Whether you have fond memories or bad memories, this time of year always brings with it a measure of despondency and perhaps even frustration about failed resolutions and goals and plans that fell apart or ideas that did not exactly work out as planned. We all have our regrets of things we didn’t do or things we wish we had done differently.
With the new year, comes new hope. As New Year’s Eve approaches, a certain excitement builds. We start imagining the new things this new year could bring and we are excited about the possibility for positive change. Suddenly we are nostalgic about New Year’s past and what it means for new beginnings and we start making plans. We resolve to do it better – to start saving, to get fit, to lose that weight, to quit that job that makes us miserable and to find that dream job, to meet the perfect partner etc.
We all know the reasons why New Year’s resolutions fail. You’re on a high, you are a bit nostalgic, you’ve had too much to drink, you feel spurred on by the build up to the countdown towards this NEW year… but the next day you wake up, and nothing has changed and you face the reality of having to actually DO something for your life to change. The day after the New Year’s celebration becomes just another day on the calendar.
Leaving your home for new beginnings elsewhere during this time of year does something to your level of nostalgia and excitement about the New Year. Technically, you have already enacted your resolutions, since you have left your home country and moved to a different country on the other side of the world. The other problem of course, is you watch the rest of the world and everyone you know, enter the New Year and leave you behind in the past – literally, since a 10-hour time difference means everyone back home celebrates the New Year and gets into bed all while you haven’t even started your countdown. A bit anti-climatic. What is the point of counting down when you are the only ones left to do it? Everyone else has already crossed over to the other side. They are living in 2018 and you are still stuck in 2017.
Then you think about the irony of that, because in so many ways you are still stuck in the past. You keep thinking about what everyone else is doing back home and about how you might have celebrated had you still been back home in your own country. You think about past New Year’s celebrations and the people you shared it with. You remember your house, and the familiar stores you would visit, familiar routes you would drive, familiar places you would holiday at and suddenly you don’t feel like new beginnings. You wish you could travel back in the past and spend a few moments in one of your memories of celebrations past.
You wish you could be there for one more family braai, one more song on the radio, one more movie in your favourite cinema, one more coffee with a friend, one more hug from a loved one… You realise how important it is to build memories that carry you through the hard times in your life. We all like to hope that the coming year will be better than the one just past. But perhaps the coming year was filled with so many last times, so many special moments that might never come again. So stop living in the past. Stop living in the future. Just live for now. Take in THIS moment and savour it. Remember what it sounded, tasted and felt like, because in the end, our lives are made up of these small moments that made us pause, that made us laugh, that insisted we be present and alive and in awe of this thing we call life.
