Celia Chandler, Honestly Speaking
Once there was an elephant,
Who tried to use the telephant—
No! No! I mean an elephone
Who tried to use the telephone—
(Dear me! I am not certain quite
That even now I’ve got it right.)
Howe’er it was, he got his trunk
Entangled in the telephunk;
The more he tried to get it free,
The louder buzzed the telephee—
(I fear I’d better drop the song
Of elephop and telephong!)
I credit my Grade 1 public speaking victory to the choice of good material: Laura Elizabeth Richards’ Eletelephony.* As I learned to write my own stuff and present it with the energy and enthusiasm that nonsense poems require, I won a few more speaking contests in elementary school. That’s as far as my success went,** until the last decade or so.
As a new lawyer in my 40s, I pushed myself to develop and deliver material at conferences to conquer the public speaking phobia I’d developed as an adult. The workshops were about human rights, privacy, governance, and other issues relevant to the non-profit and co-op clients I served. Although the topics didn’t always come from my own life, I worked hard to convey concepts through stories that participants could make sense of by relating them to their experiences. Apparently it worked. Feedback forms frequently mentioned I didn’t seem like a lawyer (high praise indeed!).
Then, as regular blog readers will know, I was thrust into a front row seat for my husband’s cancer illness and subsequent medically assisted death. Just a couple of weeks after he died, with permission from the conference organizers, I spontaneously turned a speech about cannabis legalization to one about MAiD to satisfy the crowd’s need to understand the law through my story. Then and since, I’ve learned I have what it takes to speak and write about the personal things people don’t typically discuss but have an endless need to hear or read about. Last week’s blog, Grief lives in my basement, was an example. It surpassed my usual readership by a very large margin.
As I’ve moved further in chronological and emotional time from illness, caregiving, death, and grief, my blogging has addressed other issues: reinvention, COVID, petty gripes, and laneway suite building, aka Chandlerville. I’ve been thrilled to get a couple of speaking gigs too, through the Six Minute Memoirs*** on COVID anxiety; at a service club meeting on MAiD; and at a community meeting and the Toronto Home Show on laneway suites. Irrespective of the topic, people often comment that my communication is “honest.”
It is with great excitement and a touch of trepidation that today I launch myself as Celia Chandler, Honestly Speaking. I’m available to speak or write on a broad range of topics including: MAiD, caregiving, illness, grief; housing and mental health; midlife reinvention; and laneway suites. Like many side hustles, I have no plan where this thing will go. I know, however, that I’m keen to share my experiences in the hopes that others can benefit from them. I commit to doing so in a way that is (and I hate this word) “authentic” and hopefully just a little bit entertaining.
If there’s a community event, conference, or other occasion where you think I could contribute, please drop me a line by clicking here. I look forward to hearing from you!
Oh, and what do you think about making recitations of Eletephony the next TikTok sensation? I know of at least one other who catapulted herself into early public speaking success with this choice. I fear we are not alone :-)
* For more on its author, read here: https://poets.org/poet/laura-elizabeth-richards
** In high school though, I fancied myself too cool (I wasn’t, but I was trying) to participate in the Effective Speaking club and then when I got to university, I lost my voice completely, intimidated by classmates who seemed much smarter and more worldly. So while friends, family, and colleagues couldn’t shut me up privately, I stayed surprisingly publicly mute until I went to law school twenty years ago.
*** Check out the video page on my website to see my Six Minute Memoir appearances.
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