All posts by Rebecca Esther

About Rebecca Esther

Disabled traveller and writer based in Toronto, ON. I love parrots, road trips and blogging at sunrise.

Don’t Say You’re Fine If You’re Not: Mental Health Week 2020

“How are you?”

How often do you answer honestly?

And when you do answer honestly, how often does the other person stop and have a full conversation about (your) feelings?

“How are you?”

“Not great!”

“Awesome! I’m great too!”

That’s literally happened to me before. They don’t pay attention to my answer, grin, say they’re great and hurry off down the hallway.

Maybe our collective mental health would be a touch better if we spent a few more minutes actually listening to one another.

I’m not a huge proponent of mental health events run by big businesses to “raise awareness”– they get people talking about the words “mental health” for two seconds and then forget about people in crisis, kids who need help, intersectional issues, and the most vulnerable among us, all the while lining the pockets of enormous corporations, without actually helping people with mental illnesses (*ahem* Bell Let’s Talk).

But CMHA Mental Health Week, let’s talk. 

2020 is the 69th year the Canadian Mental Health Association is observing Mental Health Week, this year from May 4-10. (CMHA itself has been around for 100 years). They champion workplace and campus mental health and have resources for, yes, raising awareness about various mental health issues. 

This Covid-19 page is especially relevant.

As someone with multiple mental illnesses and who’s passionate about mental health, I don’t just want awareness raised. I want resources, I want support (emotional and financial). I want access. 

But actual awareness is a good place to start.

Will you join me on May 4th?

More Excellent Things To Do While Social Distancing

Since we’re all still social distancing and will be for a while, I wanted to make another, even longer resource list, with some fun ideas, some helpful links, and some resources that can help you through this scary time. I know I’m finding similar lists really soothing to click through, so I hope that my own version finds you well.

-Read one of these 100+ great travel books for the armchair traveller.

-Learn about the history of toilet paper.

-Check out The Calm Place.

Visit the zoo, virtually.

-Create a vision board. Where do you dream of going as soon as you’re able to? What will you do there?

-Order takeout or delivery from a local business.

Learn how to disinfect your phone (if you haven’t already).

-Colour! Here are some fabulous famous women, and some cute colouring postcards.

Relax with these meditations from Calm.

Visit more vacation destinations from your couch.

-Call or FaceTime your loved ones.

-Make friendship bracelets.

Declutter your brain.

-Make DIY masks for yourself, loved ones, or to donate.

-Take up journaling. Here are 20 prompts to get you started.

-Read the opening lines of 10 classic novels, rewritten for social distancing. I think Jane Eyre is my favourite!

Use Netflix Party to watch a movie or show with a friend in real time.

-Create a care package for a friend.

-Learn to draw a Doodlecat.

-Do some gentle stretches.

-Try “distractibaking”. Yum!

-On the topic of yum: Make something delicious with the beans in your pantry.

-Watch a movie made in another country. Bonus points if it’s in a foreign language. A few of my favourites are Amélie (France), Spirited Away (Japan), and Let the Right One In (Sweden).

-Dive into your TBR list. I know mine is sky high…

-Start a gratitude journal

Livestream the Aurora Borealis in your living room!

Make working from home more joyful.

How to build a well-stocked pantry, from an expert.

Free printable Sanrio paper crafts, colouring pages, and more. I love the Hello Kitty ones!

-Explore museums across the USA and get free themed colouring pages inspired by them from Color Our Collections.

Sea Otter Cam!

Ever wanted to go to Hogwarts? Now you pretty much can!

-You can make these crispy baked quesadillas using whatever you have in your kitchen! And they look incredible. Totally doing this this weekend.

Get the best at-home manicure. (The co-founder of OPI would know).

A massive list of virtual tours to go on!

-Watch Instagram’s favourite tulips bloom.

Remember it’s okay not to be productive right now.

Sending you lots of love and spoons, friends,

Becca

Get cozy with a warm blanket and a nice drink

12 Fun Things To Do While Social Distancing

Covid-19 is very serious, especially for us chronically ill, immunocompromised, immunosuppressed, and disabled people. 

So travel is off the table due to social distancing, but here are some other things to do without even leaving your home:

-Try your hand at cooking a favourite regional dish, or one you haven’t tried before

-Create a bucket list. I’m writing up my 101 in 1001 right now and will share soon.

-Take a nap, save up some spoons. Life will probably be this way for a while, but you’ll be ready when it isn’t.

”Visit” a museum.

-Watch a movie that’s streaming early, like Frozen 2 or the new Star Wars. (I saw both and loved them. Adam Driver is dreamy. There, I said it).

-Take up a new craft, like sewing masks for fellow spoonies and doctors, or latch hooking like Chrissy Teigen, who’s making a unicorn carpet for her hamster’s house.

-Video chat with your loved ones.

-Watch John Oliver’s videos about Coronavirus so you’re more informed, but also laugh a lot.

-Order takeout from your local Chinese restaurant. Support local businesses!

-Take a free class from Brit + Co (use the code SELFCARE at checkout) or Uncustomary or Coursera.

-Be an armchair traveller. No need to go anywhere when there’s Google Earth. And beautiful travel blogs online. Get cozy and start searching!

-Watch movies using Hoopla or Kanopy. Just sign up using your library card and stream for free.

How are you spending your social distancing time?

12 fun things to do while social distancing for covid-19

Colourful plastic straws

Yeah, We’re Still Talking About Straws.

I wrote most of this post in mid-June but kept putting off sharing it because I kept hoping (out of both desperation and optimism) that the straw debate would end. But it hasn’t. So two months later… here we are.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on 10 June that the government of Canada will be banning the use of single-use plastics– including plastic straws– as early as 2021.

The Hon. Catherine McKenna, Minister of Environment and Climate Change said: “[O]ur government intends to ban harmful single-use plastic products where science warrants it[…]” (emphasis mine). 

Here’s the thing: Science has proven multiple times that people with disabilities require single-use plastic straws to drink, that any other kind of straw will not suffice (see infographics), and can even cause fatal injury, and that a “single use straw upon request” system isn’t good enough. (Countless disabled people have reported being denied plastic straws because they “didn’t look like they needed one” or “weren’t disabled enough”). 

Chart explaining why plastic straws are almost always the only viable option for many disabled people
Helpful chart about straws by “Hell On Wheels aka @rollwthepunches on Twitter.
This is why we can’t “just use a metal straw”. (Other than the fact that someone with much stronger joints than mine was just impaled by one).

s.e. smith wrote last year, “straw bans are just part and parcel of the environmental movement’s long legacy of devaluing disabled lives — despite the fact that we are environmentalists too and often have more directly at stake”. 

Yet the fight continues.

We’ve seen how plastic straw bans didn’t work in numerous cities in the US and the UK. Why is Canada pushing for this now, too?

Instead of a country-wide ban that will hit disabled people the hardest, why not offer incentives for people who can and do use alternatives to single-use plastics? It works at Whole Foods with reusable bags (and plastic bags are not, y’know, saving people’s lives because water is necessary for survival).

And more importantly, let’s focus on the corporations who are profiting off of polluting our oceans and air and force them to take responsibility for their actions: Tax these companies, put a quotas in place, and get them to plant trees and donate money to local environmentalist organizations to offset the damage they cause.

Pollution and climate change hurt everyone, but corporations have an infinitely larger impact than individuals: It’s time for these wealthy companies to be held responsible, and for governments and society and large to stop ganging up on disabled people and telling us to just stop using plastic straws, as if it’s that simple.

Pink, purple, and blue flowers with green leaves.

6 Things I Learned in March and April 2019

It’s finally feeling like spring here– in my body and out in the world.

So taking inspiration from Modern Mrs. Darcy, here’s a list of things I learned in the last two months.  

1. I have to kick FOMO to the curb. Yeah, JOMO has been part of the social vernacular for a while, but I’ve only truly started to work on becoming a fan of the Joy of Missing Out recently. I don’t have the spoons to do everything I need to do, let alone want to do, so why not pick a few things and celebrate those?

2. Knoxville has a welcoming LGBTQ+ community. That’s not to say it’s thriving like Toronto or NYC, but it’s doing just fine, thank you very much, — especially in certain parts of town; I wish I’d had more time to explore.

Be sure to check out Wild Love Bakehouse. The cafe miel is delicious, and the pastries are flakey, but the gay friendly atmosphere is what I love best about the place. My boyfriend and I went for breakfast and ended up staying for hours because we made new friends.

3. Old Bay tastes amazing on cheddar popcorn. And a lot of other things. According to this meme on their official Instagram, I’m very Maryland, especially for a Canadian. How about you?

4. We forget more of what we read, than we think we do [The Atlantic]. Keep of a book of books, or “Bob” to help you remember. Says Pamela Paul, “Bob offers immediate access to where I’ve been, psychologically and geographically, at any given moment in my life… Each entry conjures a memory that may have otherwise gotten lost or blurred with time.”

5. Always put verbs in to do lists to make your list more motivating and less overwhelming. I learned this from a podcast Sarah Von Bargen was on, and I wish I could remember which one it was. She also says to measure progress on your to do list, not just how fast tasks are completed.

6. If I’m having a rough self esteem day, it helps to listen to music that pumps me up and lifts my spirits. Drop-dead Knockout by Sinclair is my absolute favourite lately. They’re a queer artist from upstate New York who opened for Kacey Musgraves on select dates of her Oh What a World tour, and I had the pleasure of meeting Sinclair in Knoxville. One of the highlights of my trip, for sure!


Listen to Drop-Dead Knockout by Sinclair here.

 

 
 
 
 
 
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What have you learned this spring?