Laura Zera

A Little Inter-Artist Love Song: Show Some Respect

Andrew (left) with my other stellar nephew, Matt

In a world full of free-flowing information and opinions, there is one piece of advice that has stuck hard in my brain, presenting itself for use during the most perfect times. This nugget of wisdom didn’t come from Oprah or Maya Angelou or Brené Brown; it is something I learned in 2013 from my then-20-year-old nephew Andrew. Sadly, it took a year for it to finally sink in to my old noggin that his perspective was sage advice for me, too, but at least I got there. Hopefully this blog post will be so convincing that it will shorten your adoption process by 11 months and 29 days, if you aren’t already preaching the same.

Our conversation was about music. My nephew is in a rock band called Little India, and I went to see them play in a competition where they had made it to the top three. Even though I thought they were the mostest awesomest act of the night, they came in third (sometimes even Hooting Aunty—almost like a “hootenanny,” but different–can’t swing the vote). The next day, we were debriefing, and I made a comment about one of the other bands, something to the effect of how they would have been better suited to an audience of tween girls. My nephew’s response was diplomatic and sincere. And it blew me away. He said, “They’re just doing their thing. It’s not my thing, but you know, they’re good at it, and it’s their thing.”

As a writer, I come across a fair amount of other writers’ work. I read a lot, and I have a wonderfully active community of writer friends. Yet what I realized (a year) after that conversation with my nephew was that I still sat in judgment, even condemnation, of other writers’ work. I didn’t like this genre or that genre or if someone was too commercial or too inaccessible—the list went on and on. I was COMPLETELY forgetting that yes, while I am a consumer of the written word and am entitled to an opinion, what is more important is that as a fellow artist, the more empathetic response is to offer my writing peers respect for doing their thing and putting it out there. Just like my nephew extended to his music peers. Just like sculptors and dancers and painters and filmmakers can do for their peers. Because that shit is hard! Creating something from scratch that is extremely personal to you, and then sharing it with everyone else in the world – HARD!

Little India at Squamish Valley Music Festival

It serves you to take the high road, especially if you are an artist. I just attended a day of the Squamish Valley Music Festival, there to see my nephew’s band play (see? Karma is Reason One. Look where they are now). While watching a different band, one of the members made a sarcastic comment about “the advantages” of playing on the same day as another artist, one for whom he clearly had no respect. His remark wasn’t funny, it didn’t make me respect his “real music” music more, and it made him look like an asshat. So Reason Two: you won’t look like an asshat. And, by the way, up until that point, I had been thinking of buying some of that band’s music on iTunes. Now? Not so much. Reason Three: you’ll sell more music/books/paintings/movies.

The fourth reason is so important that it gets its own paragraph. I only came to understand this one through some distillation with my life coach. When you sit in judgment, you dilute your own strength and power. We are all in this world – artist or not – trying to do our best. To understand our purpose and fulfill our potential. No one can say what that is for another human being. That determination is so much bigger and far beyond us that to even apply judgment to what someone else is doing is like insisting that out of all the billions of stars in the sky, and from millions of miles away, you know which star is the brightest. Im-freaking-possible. Reason Four: Just as you are entitled to find your purpose and fulfill your potential, so is everyone else. And in some cosmic way, theirs may be intricately intertwined with yours. You never know.

But holy crap, letting go of judgment is so hard, you say. I concur. And I still judge. Daily. Other people’s clothes, hair, food choices, parking jobs (didn’t they have to pass a driving test, for God’s sake?). Mostly, I judge myself, with my husband running a close second (sorry, hon. Love you). So yes, it is hard. And it is worth working on, for everything. Thankfully, this blog post is only about mutual artist respect, so we’re going to compartmentalize for now and dole out “get out of jail free” cards for the rest. Go crazy and get it out of your system. Get it all out. Here’s a good place to start.

One final note: when I shifted my thinking around other writers’ work, I also changed my stance on posting book reviews. I know many writers who have already weighed in on this practice, so I’ll just state mine quickly. If I don’t like a book, I won’t rate it or review it. If I can’t give it at least three stars on Amazon or Goodreads—which, by the way, is a *great* rating, in my opinion, even though I know some writers feel apoplectic if they get anything less than a four—then I just bite my tongue. The author is doing their thing, like I do mine. Let the pure consumers be the critics; they’re coming at it from a different place. They have invested money, and while of considerable importance, it is slightly less vital to survival than (an artist’s) blood.

What do you think? Is this a wussy approach, constrictive of free speech? Or do you agree? And do you have a piece of advice that has become core to your daily functioning that you can share?

p.s. If you are curious about Little India, my nephew’s band, check them out on Soundcloud. They play alt-pop and rock and my plan is for them to become hysterically successful. They’re doing a good job of that on their own so far, too.

(Photo of Little India courtesy of Dallyn Hunt, drummer)

The Third Act Is My Second Chance

By Laura Zera 36 Comments

In screenwriting, the three-act structure can be broken down as exposition, rising action and resolution. In my relationship with my mother, the third act of “resolution” began in 2009, and followed the lengthy and excruciating first and second acts of “raised by crazy mom” and “estranged from crazy mom.”

The thing about our third act is that for many years, I had no idea if it would ever come. My mother could have passed away before I saw her again (and that dreadful scenario was ever-present in my imagination). We needed a transition between the second and third acts, which, mercifully, was facilitated by a social worker. Once the third act started, I didn’t know how long it would last, and still don’t, but now count every year as a bonus. And given the volatility of our first act, the nature of this final one is, well, quite bizarre.

When my mother was crazy with undiagnosed psychosis, it was difficult to be anywhere near her. She was often in a rage, and when she wasn’t, my sister and I would be waiting on tenterhooks for the next rage to start. My sister left home at age 17 and I was out by 15 (and lived with my sister, a benefit of being the younger sibling). As I turned into a late-years teenager and then young adult, my mother behaved toward me the same way she had always interacted with the “outside world,” her rage replaced by a carefully controlled mask. It was fragile and fake, and, in the moments when cracks appeared and her behavior faltered, completely unnerving.

I tried to keep up a relationship – who doesn’t want a mother? – but the anxiety that came from dancing with the devil (or “dancing with the crazy person who is acting sane”) impacted my own mental health so much that eventually I had to sever all ties. I hid from her. She didn’t know my phone number. She didn’t know my address. She didn’t know that I got married. From my end, I knew where she was at all times, but was painfully aware that there was nothing within the law that I could do to help her.

After all of that, Act Three opened with my mother’s diagnosis of dementia. It was already quite advanced when an aunt took Mum to the hospital. She stayed there for three months before going to a nursing home, and that is where my sister and I met her again for the first time in 17 years.

Most people don’t count dementia as a blessing, but my sister and I do. My mother is no longer paranoid, suspicious of everything that moves. She has no anger left. Her delusions are gone. So is her memory and her verbal recall, but she doesn’t miss them anyway. In a magic twist of fate, she is the happiest, most cheerful and easygoing resident in her nursing home ward. And because of this, I have my mother back in my life. She doesn’t know who I am, but boy, do we ever enjoy each other’s company.

Mum turned 80 last Friday. To celebrate, I joined my sister, her ex-husband and their two sons, and we all took Mum for lunch and a walk in the park. We visited the petting zoo, where Mum was greatly amused by the children and I was greatly amused by the goats. We ate strawberries at a picnic table, and hamburgers and French fries at a restaurant. Mum chattered and sang and laughed. My brother-in-law, who hadn’t been near her for decades, was a bit freaked out. He said, “It’s almost like she’s faking it. You know, the last time I saw her, she tried to kick me in the balls.”

“Nope,” I said. “This is real. This is her.”

Our third act has been playing without intermission for six years now. Mum is physically healthy, and her dementia has leveled off quite remarkably, with no major changes in her symptoms for the last few years. I visit her whenever I can (she is in B.C., I am in Seattle) and just keep adding scene after scene to the screenplay that is our lives, filling those long-empty pages and feeling blessed that we never seem any closer to having to write an ending.

Siem Reap, Cambodia: Monkeys, Superheroes and Dr. Fish

By Laura Zera 12 Comments

Siem Reap is an odd duck. Its tourism sector has grown quickly, and so in some ways, like its dense section of shops, bars and restaurants–including a “Pub Street”–it is a bit like Las Vegas, Southeast Asia-style. It isn’t until you get out of Siem Reap that you start to get a real feel for the culture. Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed our visit, and the nearby Angkor temple complex is spectacular, but the two do make very strange neighbors.

We spent five nights there in late Nov- early Dec 2014. I was glad to have the extra time because I was wrecked by a sinus infection so it allowed us to slow our “templing” pace (yes, it’s used as a verb there). I think our timing was perfect: temperatures start to climb in December, peaking in May, and I could not even imagine being out at the temples–which are far from all amenities, even toilets–during the most intense of Cambodia’s weather cycle. It was punishing enough as it was!

Here are a handful of snapshots from Siem Reap, the Angkor temples and the stilt-supported fishing villages that lie along the Tonlé Sap, a combined lake and river system that is the largest freshwater body in Southeast Asia.

Dr. Fish Massage - Siem Reap — Free beverage included!

It's nice to be special — It’s nice to be special

Hope you enjoyed these, and I’d love to hear what you think in the comments below! xo

Weird Pug Things: The Definitive Guide

By Laura Zera 20 Comments

Google “pug” and you will read that they are charming, even-tempered, fun-loving clowns. But there are some things about pugs that no one ever thinks to talk about. But me? I think about these things. And I’m going to tell you.

I’ve used my three pugs — Ozwald (1997-2007), Yolanda (2005-2015) and Phoebe (who we just brought home on May 3, 2015) — to create a handy benchmark chart of some of the kinds of things you can expect when you own a pug.

Trait	Ozwald	Yolanda	Phoebe
Farting	Like a boss	Almost never	Selective and deadly
Obsessive licking of the air	No	Is 30-40 minutes at a time obsessive?	No
Obsessive licking of the furniture and floor	No	Is 30-40 minutes at a time obsessive?	No
Obsessive licking of you	No	“Quit licking my boobs” was a common refrain in my house	No
Anal glands that leave potato-painting-like imprints on your clothes and stink like three-week-old unrefrigerated fish in the height of summer	Yes	Yes	Yes
Plays “crazy pug” (tail tucks under body, pug rounds itself until it looks like a bloated tick, runs around in zig-zag patterns then falls to ground in a heap after 20 seconds)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Snores	Like a freight train	Like two freight trains	Like a diesel bus
Displays food aggression around other animals	Insta-Cujo	Like Billy Idol, but mean	After two pugs, the cat has finally learned to stay away from the pug’s food dish, so we haven’t seen Phoebe flip her lid yet
Comes when called	Yes	Never	Never gets far away enough from me to need to be called
Runs the other way when called	No	Always	No
Bark sounds like The Hamburglar	Yes	Yes	Yes
Sleeps while sitting up	Yes	Yes, until she fell over	Yes
Would make nail trims a fight to the death	Yes. Was refused service at two grooming establishments.	No, but she liked it better than getting a thermometer up her butt	No, but shakes like a pudgy little leaf
Good on road trips	Even liked to sleep in a tent	I’d almost forget I had a dog in the car	As long as the air-con is cranked
Proficient at “pug love” (sits like mushy lump on lap)	Yes, except see “Anal glands” above	No (see above under “Obsessive licking”)	Yes, and makes happy pug sounds
Ears full of wax	Like the La Brea Tar Pits. Stock up on Q-Tips.
Brave and courageous	Afraid of rejection (but aren’t we all?)	Afraid of round metal pizza pan	Afraid of airplanes overhead, sneezes, parked cars, the vacuum cleaner, the microwave door and black-and-white tile flooring
Loyal and faithful	Always there for me. Sensed when I was depressed and stayed ridiculously close during those periods.	Even when she ran in the other direction, I always knew she’d come back. Because I had the food. And I knew how to rub her belly the way she really liked.	She’s been with me for a week, and she’s already Velcro
Forever changed my life for the better	YES	YES	YES

Are you a pug owner? I’d love it if you shared something strange and/or lovable about your pug!

Mental Health: Depression Linked to Inflammation, Gut Bacteria

By Laura Zera 21 Comments

What is going on in our bellies may matter more than we knew to our brains. Two interesting depression-related studies were reported earlier this year: the first links depression to inflammation, the second researches depression in the context of the “gut-brain axis.”

A summary of the inflammation research is found in The Guardian, under the title “Is Depression a Kind of Allergic Reaction?” To me, the title is misleading. People can have allergies to all kinds of foods. Inflammation, however—and possibly the associated depression—is caused by crap food. You want to live on starchy carbs and processed foods? Then you are going to puff out like a condom-turned-balloon in the hands of a ten-year-old. Fill your face with things that are fresh, raw and unprocessed and you will fare much better, as I first wrote about in this post on brain food.

The Guardian article also suggests, rather hopefully, that a shift in the perception of depression from being a mental illness to a physical one could relieve the ongoing stigma that is attached to the illness. Author Caroline Williams writes, “This time, though, the target is not any kind of brain or mind-based weakness but a basic feature of everyone’s body that could strike anyone down given the right – or wrong – turn of events. And if that doesn’t inspire a greater sympathy and understanding, then nothing will.” I like the idea of our society arriving at a place where depression no longer carries stigma, but the mind vs. body debate does still seem to be infused with discrimination in that it categorizes a body illness as more acceptable than a brain illness in the first place. How about compassion for all?

First things first, though: let’s focus on keeping our bodies and brains healthy through better diet. And possibly add in oral supplements of omega 3 oil and curcumin, both known to have anti-inflammatory effects. I’ve been working on diet improvement for two years now. Do I see a difference? Unequivocally, YES.

On to the gut-brain axis, which is decidedly less evil and more scientific than the axis between Iran, Iraq and North Korea that George W. Bush introduced in back in ’02. Phew. Good on it, I say.

Scientific American published Charles Schmidt’s article “Mental Health May Depend on Creatures in the Gut” in February, which points out that this idea goes back more than a hundred years. More recently, oodles of studies have been conducted using mice, with some pretty amazing results. For example, mice injected with the gut microbiomes of humans with mood disorders soon start to exhibit the same behaviors. Translated into mice-world stuff, this meant they began exhibiting anxiety over jumping down from one platform to another, which leaves me wondering: if humans with mood disorders were injected with healthy mice microbiomes, would they eventually become Olympic-level divers?

One of my favorite parts of this article is delivered via the research of John Cryan, a neuroscientist at University College Cork in Ireland. He recently published a study in which two varieties of Bifidobacterium produced by his lab were more effective than escitalopram (the antidepressant Lexapro) at treating anxious and depressive behavior in a lab mouse strain known for pathological anxiety. Hurray, make way for the development of psychobiotics, live organisms comprised not only of probiotics but also other bacteria known to produce psychotropic signals such as serotonin and dopamine. The research has a ways to go yet, so in the meantime, a good quality brand of probiotics from your local vitamin shop could go a long way to making you feel better, in both body and brain.

Have you experimented with diet change and/or the use of supplements for the benefit of your mood? I’d love to hear from you!

Galit Breen Turns Fat-Shaming Ordeal Into Catalyst for Good

By Laura Zera 17 Comments

When Galit Breen wrote an article on happy marriages for The Huffington Post last year, the last thing she expected to see was snarky responses about her wedding photo. More specifically, the size of her body in her wedding photo. Galit had been fat-shamed.

The follow-up piece about the incident that Galit wrote for xoJane moved me to tears. She expressed how she had allowed herself to be vulnerable in the HuffPo piece–something that all of us writers, all of us women, all of us–struggle with in our bid to be courageous mothers and partners and agents of change, and for that, she was rewarded with cruelty. Her story struck a nerve, and she quickly found herself speaking about the issue on the Today show and Inside Edition.

Around the same time, one of Galit’s daughters asked if she could start posting on social media. Galit thought about the implications, and that’s when she knew she’d been presented with an opportunity to make something good out of her cyberbullying ordeal. That “something good” is Kindness Wins, a book for adults on teaching kids to be kind online.

Author Galit Breen

My relationship with Galit goes back to 2012, when we both had essays published in the breast-cancer-fundraiser Write for the Fight. Now, just days ahead of her new book’s publication, Galit has graciously stopped by to answer a couple of questions I posed about the topic of cyberbullying.

Me: I love that you’re being proactive in helping parents coach their kids on how to be good Internet citizens. What can we do to teach the adults who don’t get it? The trolls and meanies and sometimes downright cruel people?

Galit: This question is so, so important! As we’re trying to create a culture of kindness, this includes our kids and ourselves. Each section of the book contains a guide for how to talk to our kids about maneuvering online kindly and a section for how to discuss the same topic with our peers. This can feel tricky and daunting! But we ask an awful lot of our kids in standing up to things they see or hear that don’t feel right to them, I’m (gently) suggesting we ask the same of ourselves.

For example, when I was studying to be a teacher I had a mentor who told our class to always approach kids who are having a hard time with the assumption that they just don’t know how to do something, rather than thinking that they’re purposefully being difficult. I think this works here, too. We can approach adults who are being unkind online as if they didn’t know that what they’re doing is wrong. This gives us the freedom to speak up and still be kind with our word choices and, if we choose to do so in a comment thread, then others who are reading are also given the permission to stand up, too. It changes the conversation.

Me: What do you think it will take for “the cyberbullying talk” to become as engrained in our society’s parental handbook as “the menstrual cycle talk” and “the birds and the bees talk?” Or is it already well on its way?

Galit: I love this question so much because it’s so spot on. The more open, and diligent, we are in bringing up the topic of how necessary this conversation is for our kids–and as you pointed out, for ourselves–the more “normal” and everyday it will become. Right now, this responsibility falls on those of us who already use social media regularly because we already see the impact that both online kindness and cruelty can have. Our job is to make sure those we love get the benefit of what we’ve learned. The more we share with each other, the better. When a seasoned mom tells a new mom how she got her baby to sleep, eat, or learn how to write her name, she’s helping. This is the exact same thing. The more we talk about it the more normal, and expected, it will become.

The second half of this is joining our kids on social media. I discuss in Kindness Wins what a big advocate I am of being online with our kids and watching out not just for them, but for our friend’s kids as well. This terrain is too big to go at alone. But when we agree to look out for all of our kids, we all benefit and we further normalize the important conversations around cyberbullying and online kindness.

I’ll draw for a giveaway copy of Kindness Wins on Apr.3

Keep this important discussion going: Add a comment below and you’ll be entered to win a digital copy of Galit’s new book (and I hope you’ll leave a review on Amazon once you’ve read it!). As a bonus for my readers who enter but don’t win, Galit’s publisher is offering a free Lemons to Lemonade Party and Book Discussion Guide if they purchase Kindness Wins! The book is available here, and I’ll contact you after the giveaway ends with the details on how to redeem your bonus.

Update: The winner of the book is Marie Ann Bailey. Congrats, Marie Ann!

About the book: Approximately four out of ten kids (42 percent) have experienced cyberbullying. Kindness Wins covers ten habits to directly teach kids as they’re learning how to be kind online. Each section is written in Breen’s trademark parent-to-parent-over-coffee style and concludes with resources for further reading, discussion starters, and bulleted takeaways. She concludes the book with two contracts―one to share with peers and one to share with kids. Just like we needed to teach our children how to walk, swim, and throw a ball, we need to teach them how to maneuver kindly online. This book will help you do just that.

About Galit: Galit Breen was a classroom and reading teacher for ten years. She has a master’s degree in education and a bachelor’s degree in human development. In 2009, she launched a career as a freelance writer and since then, her work has been featured in various online magazines including Brain, Child, The Huffington Post, TIME, and xoJane. Breen lives in Minnesota with her husband, three children, and a ridiculously spoiled miniature golden doodle. You can learn more about Galit by visiting her blog These Little Waves, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter.

Six Tips for Better Public Speaking

By Laura Zera 30 Comments

Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to give a keynote presentation at Simon Fraser University’s Backpack to Briefcase (B2B) conference. I was riffing on career planning and development from the inside out: building self-awareness, using mindfulness to tap into your heart-center and quiet the monkey mind, figuring out what feels good and then identifying what things about a job–any job!—would foster those feelings.

It was good fun, and my own little heart-center was further filled up by the feedback I received from some of the participants afterward. And, of course, there were also things I learned from the event, which I want to share here to hopefully help you next time you find yourself at the microphone.

Tip #1

Ask the organizers if they have done a full demo. By this, I mean checking that everything is in reach and/or properly placed when there’s a live person at the podium. I was the first person to speak that day. I took video of my presentation, and through this discovered that the podium was a tad too close to the projector. Any time I stood more than six inches back from the microphone, I had projector light on my head, and a blob of my head in the corner of the screen. And if any of you refer to the sheer size of my head in the comments below, I will… I will… I will back you up on that observation.

Tip #2

Make big notes. PowerPoint is great for making slides, but it offers no options for how you can print those slides with your notes on the bottom. Hence, your notes might be too small. I found I spent too much time looking down, trying to find my place in my notes (and I didn’t even have that many!). Next time, I’ll create my speaking notes in an entirely separate document, and do like Benjamin Netanyahu with the big freaking font (photo here).

Tip #3

Consider the room configuration. When the room is wide, and people are panned out in front of you from one edge to the other, they have a better chance of seeing your facial expressions and picking up on your energy. If the room is long and narrow, you need to be extra animated because the people at the back can be pretty far away. Emote for them. Don’t worry about overdoing it for the people in the front. They’ll survive.

Tip #4

Keep your energy up through the slide transitions. It’s great to have all kinds of fun and energy during the main speaking points on the slide, but do you have a segue planned to carry you into the next slide? I noticed that I sometimes “petered out” at the end of a slide, letting my energy lag, and therefore, letting the energy in the room lag. My solution: don’t over-think it, just go!

Tip #5

Limit your repeat words and comfy-slipper-fallback phrases. Overuse creates a verbal pattern that starts to sound boring to the listener. I kept saying “so be aware of that.” The more I said it, the more it stuck out. Plus, its repetition took away from the impact of the words before it.

Tip #6

No matter the topic, work in some really personal stuff. I was talking about career development, and so used a lot of examples from my own career. That didn’t stop me from working in a brief story about my mum and two slides with my pug Yolanda on them. Interestingly, those are the times when I felt the MOST connective energy in the room. Personal stories foster an empathy and openness that will make your audience more receptive to the other things you have to say.

Do you have any tips or funny anecdotes to add from your own experience?

Hello to Hanoi and Halong Bay

By Laura Zera 12 Comments

Hoàn Kiếm Lake, Hanoi's Old Quarter — Hoàn Kiếm Lake, Hanoi’s Old Quarter

When we visited Vietnam in November, we never expected we’d make it all the way up north (we really weren’t relishing the idea of too many flights, no matter how short). But from Ho Chi Minh to Hue to Hoi An, everyone we met who’d been around for a while said, “my favorite place on this trip was Halong Bay.” So we went. And as much as I like to be the purple sheep, this time, I can’t disagree.

It cost $37.53 each to fly from Da Nang to Hanoi on Jetstar. Once in Hanoi, we stayed in the Old Quarter for a night on either side of our three days in and around Halong Bay.

Just for a bit of fun, the population of Hanoi is 7 million. Guess how many motorcycles and scooters are in the city?

With the way things roll, visiting Halong and Cat Ba Island is one of the times when it makes sense — and is probably cheaper in the long run — to book a tour. We did ours with Vega Travel.

For $160 each, we had hotel pick-up and drop-off in Hanoi, a night on a lovely boat, a night in the beautiful Hung Long Hotel (I’m not even joking) on Cat Ba Island, fantastic six- or seven- or eight-course meals aboard the boat, park entrance fees covered, kayaks provided, and hikes, swims, cycle trips and paddles with the extraordinarily patient and gracious Chuk, our guide. Our group was 16 on the first day, and only 6 on the second, so very manageable, and no fists flew to get the last prawn off the serving plate.

Here are a few shots from this memorable part of our Vietnam travels.

They don't much like to paint all four sides — They don’t much like to paint all four sides

Halong Bay 1d — See the little man at the bottom?

Halong Bay 1c — A quiet bay, accessible only by kayak

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