ABCs of Barbara Carter

Twenty-six facts from A to Z.

A is for alcohol. I’ve been on many sides of alcohol. From the child of an alcoholic, to my drinking problem, to later marrying an alcoholic. For fifteen years, I worked in a liquor store, seeing even more sides of alcohol.

B is for my name Barbara, also Barbie. Sometimes I’m called Barbie doll, though I look nothing like one. I loved playing with Barbies as a child. Barbie had no nipples or the ability to poop or pee or distort my thinking of my body. Barbie is the same age as me, sixty-three.

C Creativity is like magic to me. New ideas. Alternative ways of thinking and being. Possibilities. Problem solving. To the ability to entertain myself and others.

D is for drama. My earlier life was filled with too much drama. My favourite movies are drama. I enjoy watching it, just no longer care to live a life of drama.

E is for elephant. I never set out to collect elephants. They just started appearing in my life as gifts. From a small lucky elephant on my writing desk, to the larger ornamental ones, like this in the pictures below.

F is for fun. Something not enough people do. As children, we know how to have fun, but we often lose that ability as adults. I love to have fun. To laugh at ourselves and the sometimes-foolish things we do. Laughing allows us to ease our pain.

G is for is for a gargoyle. A gargoyle has a spout that allows water to flow away from a building. A grotesque is without water. But we still refer to them as gargoyles. I purchased this concrete one as a retirement gift for myself.

H is for hope and healing. It fascinated me to witness my body’s ability to heal a cut. To watch it heal over and disappear, as if it was a magic trick. The ability to find hope to carry on in difficult times. To learn to heal from life’s traumas.

I is for ice cream. I love ice cream! Heavenly Hash is my favourite. I love the ice cream melting away in my mouth, left to crunch the remaining almonds and chocolate chips.

J is for June bugs. Now, you may say, “What?” But I think they get a bad rap. They don’t bite or sting. Some know them as May bugs or June beetles. Part of a group of scarab beetles. Maybe that’s my attraction. I love Egyptian stuff. Maybe they remind me of the dung beetle that represents the eternal cycle of life. If you still don’t like June bugs, how about this? I’ve read about this Nova Scotia man, Jonathan Bobryk, who is trying to educate his friends on how delicious June Bugs are. He says the taste is smoky and complex, and pairs well with the Caesar salad. Calls them the croutons of the sky. Have I said enough about June bugs? And no, I have never eaten them nor intend to.

K is for kindness. May we always try to treat others as we want to be treated. And, please, that includes June bugs, too.

L is for love. It is what makes the world go round.

M is for music and how it has touched me throughout my life. From the old times country and western records my mother played Dottie West, Loretta Lynn, Hank Snow, the Newfoundland music of Harry Hibbs. My younger sister loving the music of The Monkees, and later Cher, then Willie Nelson. My early teen love of Grand Funk Railroad, Kris Kristofferson, Simon and Garfunkel, Alice cooper, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Jethro Tull, and Bob Dylan, to name but a few.

N is for nighttime and how I feared the dark as a child. The night had ghosts and monsters. Bad things happen during the night. Who knew what lurked in the shadows? Okay, maybe I had an overactive imagination. Or overheard too many horror stories. Afraid something was hiding under my bed. I slept with a night light on. Now I cannot sleep unless there is complete darkness.

O is for openness, opinions, onions, all things that can make you cry. We need to be open with each other. More accepting and understanding of others’ opinions. And onions, either you love them or you don’t. I didn’t like them until I was seventeen and ate my first onion rings. Though, truth be told, I only ate the batter. But I now eat onions if all shapes and forms: raw, fried, battered, etc. My one daughter hates onions and doesn’t even keep them in the house.

P is for poetry which I loved to write as a teen. Writing words on paper eases the ache in my heart. Allowed me to feel less alone. Made me feel connected to something greater. Later, I would switch to writing song lyrics and, for a brief time, wanted to become a songwriter.

Q is for quitting sometimes. Sometimes quitting is a good thing. Especially with such things as drinking and smoking. I quit drinking in 1992. Quit smoking January 27, 1985, at age twenty-six years. I had smoked heavily for ten years, had a horrible cough. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But one I’m most grateful for. Many people who didn’t quit have COPD.

R is for reading. Something that connected me to something greater. Took me to places and taught me a lot. My mother wasn’t good at reading. She only read the local newspaper to help her stay up on her gossip. My mother did not know about the power of books, it allowed me no censorship.

S is for sleep, such a big part of our life. Sleep is essential for our physical and mental functioning. It helps our ability to fight disease. Sleep is more important than sex. We can survive without sex, but we can’t survive without sleep.

T is for the truth. Truth Trust. I tell my truth by writing. Truth is stranger than fiction. In my early days of writing, I tried presenting my work as fiction. But in the critique group, many commented that they didn’t find it believable. That a situation couldn’t happen that way. Hence why I stopped writing fiction.

U is for understanding. I wanted my mother to understand me. Not criticize and judge and tell me I was wrong. I wanted to feel like I mattered. She wanted me to be a picture-perfect girl. Someone who agreed with her and did what she wanted.

V is for Victory. Every hard time, every difficult moment I survived, is a victory. Worthy of a celebration. I am who I am today because of all my past victories. I valve the inner victors, the emotional ones more than my external victories. It’s who I am inside those matters most to me.

W is for wishes and writing. I made them every year when I blew out my birthday candles as a child. I kept my wishes secret so that they would come true. Every year I’d wished for the same thing: to be loved. As an adult I can say, wishes come true. I have love in my life, and my wish of becoming a writer has come true.

X is for x-ray. I’ve had many in my life, from my head to my toes. I think it is amazing that we can see inside our bodies. X-rays have been around since 1895. I just learned by reading online that the X in X-ray stands for the unknown. I did not know it was still such a mystery.

Y is for yes. Saying yes to my passion. Yes, for no longer hiding myself. Yes, for not letting my mother convince me there was something wrong with me. Yes, to joy and peace in my life.

Z could be a zebra for me. I love that stripped animal. But I’m choosing xylophone, that colourful little metal instrument I banged on as a child. It is a member of the percussion family of instruments. I just did an online search and maybe I might put getting a small one on my Christmas gift list.

Thanks to Sara Larca for the inspiration for this, and to Linda Ng.