Couch Surfing & the Seduction of Compassion
Released April 5th, 2011
One of the ideals of the Compassion_IAM Tour was to stay in the homes of Canadians throughout the tour. This would provide the opportunity to add to the rich histories of Canadians who have opened their homes to "strangers", either travelling through or stranded, as was the case of communities in Newfoundland and other locations in Canada during 9-11. It would also be an opportunity to sit around the proverbial kitchen table and share view points from across this country on what is "Compassion". After sending out requests via Kijiji, without success, someone suggested CouchSurfing.org.
Here is the 411 from www.couchsurfing.org. "CouchSurfing is an international non-profit network that connects travelers with locals in over 230 countries and territories around the world. Since 2004, members have been using our system to come together for cultural exchange, friendship, and learning experiences." The statistics speak for themselves in terms of the success of this initiative: there are over 1.2 million "couches" in 79,795 cities, representing 339 unique languages around the world. Over 5 million positive experiences have been reported, and over 3 million friendships created - 204,577 'surfers' reporting close friendships that have resulted from the CouchSurfing experience.
The process is simple and adventurous. You become a member and post a profile. You are invited to volunteer a "couch", but it is not necessary in order to ask others if you could surf their "couch". According to C S Basics, no commercial activity is to occur between the host and guest. In other words, the host cannot charge for offering her or his "couch", but it is not unusual for the surfer to offer some act of gratitude such as a gift or make a meal for the host. There is not much more about "rules" on the web site. The guidance to both "couch" and "surfer" is to review the profile carefully, as well as the offer or request. One of the guiding principles of CouchSurfing is:
"...to unify people through honest and empathetic communication. The goal of communication is unity through mutual understanding. To reach that goal we must speak with honesty, expressing our needs and emotions. To an equal degree, we must also listen with empathy and the desire to understand. When differences arise and emotions run high, we understand that divisive language is often easier but is destructive. We patiently choose language that unifies."
The experience of CouchSurfing across Canada resonated so harmoniously with the objectives of the Compassion_IAM Tour and the documentary I would be filming with Dan Goldberg's assistance, Dan and I decided that this is how we would places to rest our weary heads and gear between marathon driving stretches and speaking/interview 'gigs'.
So I started the adventure part by posting a profile and then, sitting with Dan (on his Mac) at his parent's kitchen table, we started scanning the thousands of "couches" being offered across Western Canada, as well as in the Yukon and Northwest Territories. The process of locating available couches seemed simple enough due to the sheer number of available couches in the communities we had targeted to visit. For instance, in Winnipeg there are 623 couches, Calgary offered 1165, and Vancouver over 2700. The prospects were equally hopeful in the Territories: Yellowknife and Inuvik both offered 10 "couches", Whitehorse had over 100 prospective places to stay.
However, the process was not as "simple" and the number of prospective couches shrinking once we started going through the profiles and learning more of what was available at each prospective "couch". I was most relieved to read that we would not need to be literally surfing the host's couch. Most offered a spare bedroom - some with an adjoining bathroom. I distinctly heard my back say "thank you". The challenge was that there were two of us - plus camera gear - and that we were on a specific time table. We also didn't start the surfing process until approximately ten days before leaving. With the advantage of hind sight, we should have got started a month or so before leaving so because it was evident from many of the profiles we reviewed that the hosts don't check their CouchSurfing "in-box" on a regular basis. Our number of prospective hosts were substantially reduced as we read hosts response rates or the last time they were on-line was a few months ago. There was also the necessary time to research alternative couches if our request was declined (always kindly and with a good explanation). The other challenge was self-imposed as Dan and I reviewed profiles seeking "personalities" that would resonate with our own or hosts with jobs or studies that would be an interesting subject for the documentary. In some cities, I would send out a separate request that appealed to Dan and one for me.
In all, ten couchsurfing requests were sent out, from Winnipeg to Victoria - and into Yellowknife, Inuvik and Whitehorse. Both Dan and I were almost giddy in anticipation of staying with all these cool and interesting compassionistos/as that we would meet along our trip. And because our prospective hosts had such great ratings and doing interesting things with their lives, confidence was high that we had our accommodations, as well as interesting and thought provoking kitchen table chats, for the entire tour sewn up with one evening's work.
After about a week, reality was established. Only three invitations were accepted, one of which was conditional that we left his apartment before he left for work at 7:00 am in the morning and would have to stay out of the apartment until he returned from work at around 6:00 pm. That would not work for either Dan or me as we needed time in catch up on blogs and download content filmed that day onto a laptop hard drive. The other invitation was tentative. She was out of town on business until the day before we needed her couch; we could contact her when she got back. The only solid invite was from Harwood in Regina.
When we arrived it was after 10 pm and it had been a long and stressful day. We had driven hard from Winnipeg, after morning meetings with University of Winnipeg President and former MP, Lloyd Axworthy and creative inspiration behind "In the Spirit of Humanity", Manju Lodhi (please read April 4th blog). From our meeting with the Manitoba Interfaith-council we had received a last minute invitation from the Regina Inter-faith committee to speak at their meeting that night at 6:30 pm. In the rush to get our luggage packed into Bookley, my stocking feet slid out from underneath me as I tried to navigate a heavy suitcase down a spiral and carpeted staircase. Down, hard, I went - severely re-injuring an old ligament tear in my right foot that resulted in my no longer being able to run (or race walk, which I used to do in half and full marathons). I also crashed hard on a previously fractured tailbone, which cause the pesky redundant appendage to painfully dislocate. The ballast of the suitcase, brought increased momentum to my continued slide down and around the stairs and my efforts to slow the fall with my other foot and free arm resulted in nasty sprains to my left knee and right shoulder.
When I finally came to a stop, yelping in ridiculous pain, the tears started flowing with the gravity of the situation. Winnipeg was our first stop. There was another 8,000 kms + to drive, not to mention another 10,000 kms of flying - how could I sit with my tailbone in such distress. All the interviews, the walking and standing - how could I do it? Was the tour over before we even began? In the past, when my ankle was injured like this, I was in a walking cast for two months and then walking around gingerly with a tensor bandage to ensure I didn't over-turn my right ankle which, since the first injury (before the last injury) now turns out on its side when in resting position.
My tailbone - that was something even more significant. The first time injured in a fall while roller blading and rushing to rescue my son who had gone ahead and, bored waiting for his slow-poke mum decided to climb a tree with his step-sisters and proceeded to yell for 'help'. Gone from consciousness went my self-regard as maternal instincts took over and with one surge of energy to reach my son, out from under me went my wheeled feet and down on the pavement went my tail. My son was okay - he didn't fall and managed to get down from the tree to run home and get someone to drive me to the hospital. I was there - unable to walk without a walker -for a week. The orthopaedic surgeon told me I would never walk again unless there was surgery to fuse the damaged parts of several vertebrae that were already showing signs of osteoarthritis; and even with surgery, I could not expect to walk again without the assistance of a cane. I was 37 years old.
Thankfully I declined the surgery in the interest of getting an alternative opinion. There was a chiropractor in the small community where I lived that time who had spent several years learning alternative treatment techniques in Czechoslovakia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. Through a moderate number of chiropractic adjustments, and much soft tissue work - along with teaching me methods of stretching and resting muscles - I was walking with a cane in just over a week. Then, my boss whose father was a licensed orthopaedic surgeon in both Ontario and New York would make it unnecessary for me to have surgical spinal fusion through a, then, experimental process of sclerosant injections into twelve locations in my back - from tailbone to base of skull. Over time, with painful injections every three months, I was able to lose the cane and then, through swimming, recover not only my full strength and flexibility, but also return to pain-free walking, then jogging, then cycling. Approximately 18 months after the accident I participated in my first mini-triathalon. In the process, I met Robert who would become my coach. As Robert was studying to become an osteopath, I would be his volunteer "patient" as he applied techniques to balance muscles and wean me off of chiropractic visits and painful injections - eventually being able to live a fully healthy and restored physical life.
The tailbone, however, continued to nag me whenever I sat too long. If the reader remembers or knows of one of the 1977 graphic novel, by Brian Aldiss, "Brothers of the Head", it is the story of conjoined twins, with a third head dormant head that comes alive in a sinister way, such has been the relationship with my tailbone. It has an uncanny way of making its objections known to me when I was in the midst of preparing for a major court appearance, a barometer for stress in my life - the way some people talk about an arthritic knee being a barometer for inclement weather coming. The tailbone, my "sister" of the head, also seems to have prescience into my inner thinking - making her presence known when I am in a situation or relationship that "doesn't sit right" with me. My tailbone seemed to know before I did when my first marriage was over, as well as when it was time to retire from the full-time practice of law to embark on Canadians For Compassion.
As proof to my hypothesis, my tailbone had been reassuringly quiet and content since launching Canadians For Compassion in mid-2010, unheard of over the previous eight years of practising law. The exception had been the two weeks prior to the trip when the stress of bringing together all the disparate elements necessary to undertake this significant journey fell squarely on my shoulders; the weight of which travelled down my spine and rested - four square - on my other head. Robert, now my osteopath over the past decade, who has continued to work on this part of my anatomy from time to painful time when it declares sovereignty over the body, mentioned a technique to adjust my tailbone so that it could handle the many hours of sitting confinement. He had had the adjustment himself five years ago and no treatment needed since. Eagerly, I placed myself on Robert's cancellation list (as he books appointments month in advance) and listened with much hope as Robert instructed his assistant to get me into see him before I left. As fate would have it, no appointment could be found, so me and my tailbone headed out on the 11,000+ journey negotiating a kind of psychic truce - I could make this journey on the promise of such inducements to cooperation as sitting on a large bead cushion (like those used by truckers and taxi drivers), shifting positions every 30 minutes, driving no longer than 4 hours at a stretch, and good walks in between.
And all was extraordinarily well. Despite the tailbone being quite agitated prior to the trip, it settled down completely for the first few days of long driving from London to Winnipeg. I was amazed and relieved, without explanation except for, possibly, adrenaline or some other brain chemical associated with excitement and discovery on a journey and meeting wonderful people that was over-riding or replacing chemical signals from the tailbone. Then the crashing fall down the stairs as my tailbone went 'bang', 'bang', 'bang' down those hard, albeit carpeted stairs. As it was happening I remembered how, as a kid, we would slide down the stairs on our rumps with glee - more like a 'bounce', 'bounce', joyful 'bounce' - then do it over and over again without consequence. Perhaps then, there was more robust and muscular maximus to my young gluteus to protect the tailbone from making contact with each stair on the descent. No such tone or 'bounce' now.
Nancy, the wonderful and most generous of hosts, ran to the direction of my wails. I outright rejected her expert healing hands - several degrees of Reiki training transmitting frequencies of love into my throbbing right foot and ankle. In retrospect I don't think I was rejecting Nancy's wonderful offer, but the hope of going forward - the immediate sense that the dream of the tour was over in an instant because my beloved body had just been overwhelmed with injury to too many areas that, in the past, have required weeks and years to heal. As my hand thrusted out holding an imaginary shield to block the caring advances of Nancy's hands, I was embarrassed and apologized - saying repeatedly, that I am hurt but that I'll be okay. In my heart, I did not know how I was even going to get in the car to drive from Nancy's home - and it was my turn to drive. Nancy offered ice for my ankle which, perhaps stupidly, I declined because of not seeing how to deal with a bag of melting ice while driving. Silly, how we think when we go into shock, eh? I laced my foot tightly into my hiking boot, which with the orthotic I felt would be the most effective way to stabilize the wonky ankle and foot. As we left, I worked hard to walk normally out the door so Nancy would not worry after me. In truth, I was trying not to worry myself by demonstrating that I could, still, put weight on the foot and - sort of - walk. At this point, the tailbone was a secondary concern.
This effort at acting as though the injury was mild continued as I gratefully declined Dan's offer to drive. Even though putting pressure on the gas pedal was excruciatingly painful, I seemed to need to keep going forward as if everything is okay. Perhaps learned from my father who dissuaded all of his children to cry out when injured or nurse the injury itself, the drive to leave at that time can only be reasoned like this: if I outwardly resigned to the injuries, I was afraid that my inner self would also resign and it would be over. We would be turning around and heading back to London, Ontario.
As we drove the 500+ kilometres to Regina, I went through a long storehouse of real and anecdotal remedies learned from rehabilitating from the 20+ history of injury and repair just summarized. All that came to mind required days, if not weeks of rest - perhaps a walking boot. I wished I hadn't donated mine two years before but, then again, how would I get it now. I thought about going to an emergency department but with the meeting with the multi-faith group, I decided to continue and, if still necessary, I would go get the ankle x-rayed after the meeting. I prayed to the creator to bring healing frequencies to those parts of my body requiring such healing so the journey may continue. I prayed for a miracle.
When we arrived in Regina, it was closer to 7:00 pm. Dan had driven the final three hours of the trip which had given me a chance to rest the foot - but there was no way to remove the book as the swelling had increased significantly. I had no idea how much pain I would be in until it was time to leave the car and make the short walk into the Muslim school where the meeting was being held. I could barely put any weight on the foot and hobbled painfully to the meeting. The meeting was entirely successful. The activities of these members of both the Regina and Saskatoon Inter-faith groups were impressive. A separate blog could be written just on the many innovations being employed to teach tolerance and diversity in schools, hospitals and in the community. The Canadians For Compassion website will dedicate a page solely for promoting all the programs and events being organized by this organization. The members' primary concern after the meeting wrapped around 9:30 pm was about getting me to an urgent care centre. As before, I respectfully declined their recommendation and assured them if it wasn't feeling better in the morning, I would get myself to the ER.
While all this was going on, in the back of my mind I was thinking - OMG, we are surfing on someone's couch tonight. When I recalled the profile, there was a spare bedroom in the basement and an extra air mattress. I had been texting Harwood throughout the evening with ever later estimated times of arrival. Was it getting too late to drop into someone's house - now injured. Suddenly the excitement of the CouchSurfing adventure was being tempered with trepidatious 'what ifs': What if there are a lot of stairs to the basement? What if the bathroom is on another floor? What if there is no bedding for Dan (as he had decided not to bring a sleeping bag, despite our discussion of sleeping bags for the purpose of couch surfing)? There was also the aspect of hunger. In the rush to get to Regina we had not eaten so there was also the question of getting a meal late at night. I was thinking that we should find a hotel somewhere - a place with an elevator, bathroom in the room and room service. Then again, this was our only CounchSurfing experience for the tour, unless we could get back on the website and send out more requests. I would text Harwood in a way that would leave the window open for him to say, "sorry, Jannet , it is getting late - perhaps another time." Every time, his response was a jovial - I'll be up, see you when you get here. It would be 10:30 pm or later before we found Harwood's house and knocked on the door.
We waited a while for the door to be answered after knocking. Did we have the address correct? Had Harwood gone to bed after all? These internal questions were shortly answered when Harwood opened the door, sporting a mammoth cast on his left foot. Harwood explained that he was recovering from surgery to remove/shave down (yuck) a painful bunion. He explained that his willingness to stay up for us was partly due to a series of pain medications that had to be taken every three hours. His next round was due in about an hour so the timing of our arrival was just fine as he was concerned.
Our introductions were preceded by my serious limp which set Harwood in care-giver action, instructing me to sit at his table immediately. "I already have a chair set up with a cushion, so put your foot up there - I'll get you ice. What you need is ice." Within minutes, the foot was freed from the boot and placed on the biggest cushion I have ever seen. Harwood, able to walk on his cast, brought me an ice bag and, then, joined me by sitting at the end of the table and putting his recovering foot up beside my, now, recovering foot. Harwood asked if we were hungry and immediately offered Dan something from the freezer in the basement that could be heated up in the microwave. I only needed a banana.
As we sat around Harwood's stunning hardwood table, able to rest at last, I had a chance to look around. The hardwood floors, woodwork around the rooms - all of it done by Harwood, including the addition to the front of the house which was still being completed. He was a cyclist and loved to travel. A wonderful storyteller, upon learning about Bookley he told us how he and a friend drove an '80-something Volvo station wagon throughout the United States and into Alaska - over 12,000 miles, at a steady 140 kms per hour (because the Volvo loved that speed), Harwood and his friend taking three hour turns at driving, then sleeping. He had worked in the North - logging or mining - something outdoors. Harwood needed to be outdoors and he needed the freedom to do and go where his spirit led him. The stories just flowed from Harwood and I, very tired, was relieved to listen and be wonderfully entertained.
But then it was my turn as Harwood asked Dan and myself to talk about why we were in Regina and what we were up to. Harwood was very interested in Dan's filming background and the type of equipment donated by Fanshawe College. Not surprising, Harwood was in the midst of a creative project himself. A photographer (as well), he discussed the benefits of a small laptop for storing his photos as opposed to external hard drives and other devices.
When our discussion regarding compassion came around, he became even more animated. He said he had been thinking about "compassion" in anticipation of our visit and wanted me to consider the "seduction of compassion". He went on to suggest that the word "compassion" can be, and is, used by those who are not compassionate in either nature or intent, but use the word "compassion" to lure people to follow them or support their ideas. He used examples of some religious figures, non-profit organizations and politicians. With the election campaign underway, it was impossible not to discuss the "seduction of compassion" in the context of an election. Harwood wanted to know what I was doing to address this. I told him, honestly, that this was a concern of mine - especially as I was encouraging municipal governments to become "Compassionate" cities. What can be done to ensure the Mayor or her/his city council don't raise the banner "Compassionate City" to get elected (or re-elected) only to do nothing to encourage "compassion" based programs and services in the community or, worse still, shut off funding to existing and valuable programs and services. There were examples of this at the federal level with the Conservative government, I even heard an election commercial from that government talking about being a "compassionate" neighbour. There were examples of this in existence.
I don't think I provided Harwood with a satisfactory answer, but the discussion was welcome and thought provoking. He was right - if you (meaning me) are(am) going to create this vehicle, a network to promote compassion, it is important to recognize and be vigilant of those persons and organizations who may use such a vehicle for an alternative purpose. Further, by such association with those persons and organizations, it could render the vehicle, Canadians For Compassion, suspect as to its intent and purpose and the initiative collapses in a heap of controversy. This was a question debated in many of the foundations with whom I worked in the '90s. For instance, if we are a hospital foundation, how can we accept donations from tobacco companies when the evidence is conclusive that addiction to tobacco is a major cause of deaths and serious health conditions? It has been reported that donors have ceased giving to organization because they accepted a large donation from a corporation that the donors felt was using the charity in order to give their organization some positive marketing spin.
It also reminded me of a discussion I had with Professor Sara Seck at the University of Western Ontario's Faculty of Law prior to departing on the tour. Her research is focussed primarily on Corporate Social Responsibility and we discussed how we would define a "Compassionate Company". She cited WalMart as an example, which is seen as a leader in Corporate Social Responsibility for using its buying power to coheres its suppliers to reduce the amount of packaging in its products and use recycled materials. At the same time, WalMart is also held as the antithesis of corporate social responsibility based on the many documentaries of how WalMart treats its employees and the damaging effects to small business and small communities' economies when a WalMart decides to set up shop. How would Canadians For Compassion invited companies to become a network partner and declare themselves a "Compassionate Company"? How would we identify them? What if a company comes forward as a network partner who is regarded as not "compassionate" - either because of its record with the environment, outsourcing, or treatment of employees, as examples?
Our discussion could have gone on for hours, but all of us needed sleep. In the course of the evening, Harwood would check in with me - how's is the ice bag? He'd be up before I could answer, making his way to the freezer to bring me a fresh bag. Later in the evening, the ice bags came out for my tailbone which was entertaining as I tried to figure out how to keep the leg elevated while raising my butt off the chair to relieve the pressure created by elevating my leg and permitting the ice bag. I would learn that both Dan and I would be in the basement - and there were stairs, steep stairs - and the bathroom was on the top floor. However, there were two twin beds - one an inflatable kind that rises to the height of a standard twin bed. Thankful to Dan - he graciously made our beds when it was time to say goodnight.
But we did not say goodnight until Harwood offered my one other thing to consider, "Compassion in Hockey"! Dan and I looked at each other because just the other day, Dan had shared with me his thoughts that we might secure an interview with Dan McLean about introducing "compassion" into the sport of Hockey to reduce the number and severity of head injuries, in particular. I told Harwood we were working on it and on this response, he seemed pleased.
I slept heavily that night and when I had to go to the washroom in the middle of the night, it was slow progress going up two flights of stairs, then back down again. Early in the morning, I did the trek again but this time to have a long soak in the tub with Epsom salts. Despite a house full of people, because Harwood also rented out two of his rooms, I was able to spend a long and uninterrupted time neck deep in hot water.
Whether it was the ice, or the Epsom salt bath, the prayers, or a combination of the three - something miraculous happened while CouchSurfing at Harwoods. When it was time to put my right foot into my hiking boot, the swelling was almost completely gone. I could put weight on the foot enough to walk with a limp, and although my tailbone was complaining, I was able to sit for the entire day of driving to Medicine Hat. After Medicine Hat, I was walking "normally" - although only in the hiking boot. As soon as the boot was off, I was limping badly and it hurt to place wait on the foot without the orthotic under it.
Tailbone took a little more attention and encouragement but she, too, tucked herself into a position that by the following day was tolerable as we continued to drive from Medicine Hat to Lethbridge, then from Lethbridge to Kelowna. By the time we reached Vancouver on Friday, only four days after the slide down Nancy's stairs in Winnipeg, I was able to walk several blocks with only reasonable aching from the injured foot, which went away with a night's rest. Tailbone, did not complain again for the balance of the tour. I may have spent a little more time in psychic communion with my "sister of the head". There would be a little more time in the yogic "child's pose" in the morning when I rose, a focus to inhale deeply with the intention to send refreshing oxygen down along my spine into Tailbone so that she, to, could take a deep morning breath to greet the new day.
I would travel another 8,000 kms by road after Winnipeg, and fly another 10,000 kms into the Arctic. I would be climbing over slippery rocks and navigating icy streets - as long as I was wearing those hiking boots, my foot was good. Two weeks later, I would be able to walk several kilometres in those boots. Similarly with Tailbone, during the last four days of the tour, we would be sitting for 10 hours stretches each day because, after returning from the Arctic we had to travel from Edmonton to Brantford in just over three days. Bookley carried us approximately 800 kms from Edmonton to Saskatoon, then 1000 kms for each of the following three days until we arrived, precisely on time for the official launch of Brantford's Grand River Compassion Project.
To me, it was nothing short of a miracle. If we had stayed in a hotel, not only had we not have the experience of CouchSurfing, or the experience of the wonderful and worldly Harwood, I ponder whether the much needed healing could have been accomplished in that short span of time that was our visit with Harwood. Clearly, CouchSurfing with Harwood "sat right" with Tailbone.
For more information regarding CouchSurfing, go to www.couchsurfing.org.