From elynittria

Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!" and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you. (Please note: If you simply wish to comment on something I've said but don't want to participate in the meme, that is fine. I will only give you five words if you specifically comment with 'Words!')

The words Elynittria gave me were as follows: hockey, theatre (note the Canadian spelling), wine, writing, injuries.


Hockey
Hockey means two things to me: ice hockey and field hockey. I'm more of a fairweather ice hockey fan nowadays - I don't really start to get interested in the NHL until the playoffs (though they practically last as long as a season did in my childhood) -- but it was how I first knew hockey. I can still remember going to my first game as a child -- the Canucks vs. the Maple Leafs. And watching Darryl Sittler set the record for the most points in a single game. Or watching "Hockey Night in Canada" and keeping a list of all the players whose names I knew. And I can remember the Canucks' Stanley Cup series in 1982 and how my field hockey coaches called me "Queen [Mer_duff]" after "King" Richard Brodeur (the Canucks goalie) that year and how special that made me feel. And because it's Canada Day, I remember watching the gold medal men's final of the 2002 Winter Olympics at GM Place (between field hockey games) with about 15,000 other people and being absolutely overwhelmed with pride and joy when Canada won.

Field hockey, on the other hand, is one of my two outlets for sports, one of my most important social circles, and the way in which I most often travel to other countries. I'm a little burned out right now, having spent the last 15 years on one organizing committee or the other, but if I ever gave it up, it would leave a huge hole in my life. It didn't become my primary sport until after university - when I was 14, one of my coaches asked my mother to convince me to give up everything else to concentrate on field hockey, because he thought I could play at an international level. We both just laughed at him -- there was no way I was going to give up soccer or basketball or track. It's possible he was right, but I blew my knee a few months later, which cost me a full year off sports anyway, so it was a moot point.

Theatre
It's how I make my living, at least on the administrative side, but it's also one of the places where I've found passion and a community. I love that the audience is such an important part of the experience, and I love that it brings together the talents of so many people in so many different ways. But mostly I love the process of reading a script, listening to the first reading and seeing the design presentation, and then seeing it realized upon the stage. I write a lot about the intrinsic and extrinsic value of theatre for work, so I'll skip the grant speak. But I do think the theatre is a place of transformation.

And theatre gave me House, because even though I first turned it on because of the promo hype about Sela Ward guest starring, I kept it on because I saw Robert Sean Leonard's name in the credits -- not because of Dead Poet's Society, which I'd loved, but because he'd won a Tony for doing Stoppard.

Wine
When I think of wine, I immediately think of the Wine Festival, which means long hours, lots of stress, but lots of fun. I feel like a bit of a fraud when it comes to wine. I suppose I know a fair amount about it through osmosis and reading, but I have an unformed palate. I know what I like and what I don't like, but I don't always know why. That doesn't, of course, stop me from freely dispensing advice and often dubious information, or being unfairly dismissive of wines I've barely tasted. Though the more I learn, the less pretentious I actually become, since I realize how little I actually knew before. This year the global focus at the Festival is rose, so I'm looking forward to abandoning my ancient prejudices against white zinfandel.

But as ridiculous as I often find myself when I attempt to play the wine snob, I find the anti-wine pose just as absurd. When I was down in Argentina a couple of years ago for a field hockey festival, one of the older men in the group would loudly and provocatively claim that "real men don't drink wine" (which only served to make the rest of us pity his wife). Sadly, he's part of the group that's going to Australia in the fall, so I'm expecting a repeat performance. Maybe I'll add something in his tour bio about his recent certification as a Master of Wine...

Writing
It's something I love to do, and something I've always wanted to do -- though apparently my first ambition was to be a "reader." I think that if I didn't write I'd go insane. For a few years I wasn't doing very much personal writing at all, but I was getting enough satisfaction from work writing to feed my obsession with words. I've been fairly lucky in my professional career -- even when writing hasn't been a specific part of my job description, I've found ways to work it in. Things are changing in my current position -- we now have an in-house Communications Manager who can write, so I won't be writing press releases or brochure and program copy any more. But there are dozens of grants that need to be written each year, and I've been reading a lot of the play submissions that are coming in, so I've been able to fulfill my "reader" ambition :)

What I love about fandom is that it's allowed me to share my writing with others in a way that I'll likely never be able to do professionally. I still write for myself, essentially, but knowing that other people are reading and hopefully enjoying my words makes it so much better.

Injuries
I don't really get injured as often as I probaby make it seem. It's inevitable in field hockey, especially since I play the game as if I were still in my 20s (and in shape). And I consider the bruises a badge of honour, since I usually get them by saving a goal. The most recent was a direct shot I took off my wrist (my blocker slipped up slightly when I dove for the rebound). Hurt like hell, but I could move my fingers without pain, so not much anybody could do, and I played the last five minutes of the game with it clutched to my chest. The next day it looked like I'd been handcuffed brutally, which led to some teasing speculation in the office.

Nowadays, I have as many problems with chronic injuries as acute ones. One of the leading sports medicine specialists in the city told me I had excellent knees for a 70-year-old. That was some time before my 30th birthday -- I hate to think what they're like now. This last year has been pretty good, but I could barely walk after Argentina (a combination of twisting a knee during a game and then exacerbating the injury by adjusting my gait to accommodate a blister while hiking in Iguazu Falls). But I have a friend who's an excellent physiotherapist and she realigned me enough to keep me going awhile longer!


HAPPY CANADA DAY!