A Likely Story

I've been a manager at the Ministry of the Environment for four years. Four years less a month ago, I described what it was like to move from staff to management:

It’s like waking up one morning and finding that the house you’re living in is actually two stories high, not one as you’d always thought. And standing on the second storey gives you a full view of the first. And the first floor, from this new perspective, doesn’t look anything like what it looked like before when you thought there was just one storey. I’m still adjusting to the new view. 

Four years in, I am accustomed to just about everything in the new view. In fact there's really only one thing I'm not used to. And that would be how the people who work for me see me. I am very aware, painfully at times, of the fact - both according to simple laws of physics plus inscrutable bits of Buddhist philosophy - that no two of my staff see me as quite the same person and none of them see me as I do.  

Someone once gave me the advice that I could smooth out the various versions of me by telling my staff my story. This must have been very good advice because I reacted very badly to it at the time.

But, as does all good advice, it stayed with me. And I hope that it was that advice that led me to the odd circumstance this past week when, as we gathered for a staff meeting, I launched my team into a group project of guessing the time I was born.

The story about how I came to know when I was born goes something like this: 

Has this ever happened to you?  You start something as a bit of a lark, a fancy, a mild diversion, but because some of the details are a bit harder than you originally thought, the mild distraction becomes a daunting challenge, a serious undertaking, a controlling obsession….

Well, I’m somewhere between stages one (mild diversion) and two (daunting challenge) on something I thought would be a bit of a lark, and that is having a Vedic astrology reading by Bagavan Das. 

Bagavan Das is an American, about fifteen years older than me, who made his way to India at the age of 17 and after many adventures... is now a Kirtan (think gospel music for Hindus and Buddhists) performer. He’s come to play a time or two at the studio where I practice yoga and he’s going to be there again next weekend.

The other thing BD does is Vedic astrological readings, for a borderline ridiculous fee of $200. 

While I thought it would be fun to have a reading done, a not insignificant amount of hard-earned money is involved, so I asked a friend of mine at the yoga studio who has had a reading by BD if, frankly, it was worth the money. 

She said, “yes, absolutely.” 

“All you need,” she also said, “is the date, place and time that you were born.” 

“Time that I was born? I don’t know the time I was born!" I said. 

I was pretty stumped by that. All my subscribers know that the two leading experts on THAT information have long since gone on to their reward.

But, I have credentials as a researcher, so I waded onto the Internet to find out what I could. 

It didn’t take me too long to find the British Columbia (where I was born) Ministry of Health Vital Statistics Agency.  They have extensive “voicemail” services that told me everything I needed to know except whether or not they had records showing the time of my birth. 

For that, I would have to talk to a human being.  

After a try or two, I connected with one who perkily assured me that absolutely the “genealogical records” that I could order for an oh-so-reasonable $55 would include that information.  So I connected with another number and another – less perky – human who took my credit card number and all the information SHE needed before she answered my question about the time of my birth with a desultory “well, since 1944, the form’s required the record of time of birth.” 

Reasonably assured that I wasn’t just throwing my money down a rat hole, I asked “how long will it take?”

“Twenty working days.” 

In non-bureaucrat speech, that’s a full month, which was cutting it pretty close for ol’ BD’s next visit to Toronto. But, what the heck, I thought, once I’ve got the information about the time of my birth, if I don’t catch him this time, I can catch him next time. 

Less than fifteen working days and a full $55 later, I received the “genealogical record” in the mail, a certified official copy of a form filled out by my father the day after I was born. It was kind of wonderful to see a heretofore never seen example of dad’s handwriting.  It was funny to note that he identified his racial origin as “Scotch.”  It was faintly maddening to note that there was no record of the time, exactly, when I was born.  

Nuts.   

The follow up to my unsuccessful expenditure of $55 was that I wrote to the manager of the two people I spoke with on the phone and, in less than a week, she forwarded the document I needed.  I now know that I was born at 5:30 in the afternoon. 

Bagavan Das has not been to Toronto since, so I'll never know the story he would have told about me.

And as for my staff, those who gamely went along with the bizarre request expressed playfully strong opinions that I must have been a morning or a middle-of-the night baby but more than half guessed late afternoon. So I got that part of my story covered.

Next up, my favourite colour.

Allan Gardens Update

This is the Allan Gardens in January, 2012.  Work crews have installed a wall of boards to separate the park from a giant hole that will be there for the next three years.

The Allan Gardens on September 1, 2012, the boards now decorated with the work of aboriginal artists.

Enjoy your end-of-summer long weekend and have a great week!

Karen