The power of people

I write to you from the beautiful basement suite of one of my Winnipeg billets. What’s a billet, do you say? Mini historical lesson: a billet means a note in French, often interpreted as a letter of invitation, and has come to mean a place to stay. They used to force civilians to house soldiers. Now people voluntarily house Fringe artists who tour the country. Yes! I’m performing I Am the Most Unfeeling Doctor in the World at the Winnipeg Fringe July 14-24th! Dedicated readers may remember the original essay published in the Medical Post. But art isn’t like medicine in that the margins are so thin, and you may have to travel continuously to find new customers. You can’t really afford to pay for housing. One artist calculated that he made $100 per show—if you don’t count rehearsals and the time spent creating and preparing the show. Read: Dr. Melissa Yuan-Innes: Should we bother educating the public? I loved my first billet already, found through a doctor on a Facebook group. She’s an emergency doctor, super organized and generous, and married to a musician herself. “I’m not working that day. I’ll pick you up at the airport,” Angela texted me. “Do you have any allergies?” But less than 48 hours before I arrived, she got COVID. They cleared out of their gorgeous home and decamped to the cottage so that I could have their place to myself. “I didn’t have time to stock the food. There’s only bread, a steak and mushroom pie, and dumplings for you.” Mmmmm. I could not believe the attention to detail at her house. At the bedside, she’d provided a double USB port with a lightning cable attached, ear plugs, slippers, and an eye mask. In the bathroom, she’d left mini-French soap, a Korean face mask, a toothbrush with a cover, two kinds of toothpaste, Tylenol and two menstrual products. “Everything is for you. Sorry, I wanted to mow the lawn for you.” This is someone who has never met me, has never even spoken to me on the phone, but considers EVERYTHING. Even the most thoughtful guy probably wouldn’t remember your period, but Angela did. I, too, had offered to billet a doctor-friend. My introverted husband and children were like, “What? In our house?” My husband helped me change the sheets. That was it. And I warned her that we had two children and two dogs, one of whom is living chaos (among everything else, Bell pees under stress). That friend didn’t come. Compare and contrast this with Angela, who felt embarrassed when I messaged her that her CO detector was beeping and I had to disable the battery by opening the cover with a knife and scissors. Fortunately, their house has a CO detector built in, and I didn’t have to worry about dying in my sleep. Of course, I didn’t. But she couldn’t help COVID, or the fact that her husband got COVID too, and they needed their place back. Fortunately, I managed to find another billet, Elena, within 12 hours. She also lives in a gorgeous home where everything is organized. I mean, I have never seen a fridge where I almost can’t reach the top shelf. Glass-walled workout area in the basement. And she drove me to the bus stop when it started pouring rain. “Luckily, in Winnipeg, it doesn’t rain like this for long.” My husband Matt couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t pay for a hotel room. But you’ve probably heard the famous lyrics from Leonard Cohen’s Anthem, that everything has a crack, which allows light to get in. My billets are better than a hotel room. I get to meet people in real homes, with real lives. Yesterday, after I ate Angela’s dumplings and fruit, I travelled west to Elena’s, saw a deer, and waved at my billet’s baby. She’ll lend me her running shoes if I want to work out. R. Titus introduced me to her brother, Josh Titus, who leant me Lauren, his top of the line skeleton, for my shows. Yes, I’m an artist who could make zero dollars at the Winnipeg Fringe. But I feel nurtured and cared for in a way we all need, especially right now. My take home points: first, doctors are perfectionists constantly pushing the limits of human ability and endurance. This nets personal satisfaction, admiration, and often financial security, but also resentment from others and loneliness for ourselves. Human beings—at least the nice ones—respond to vulnerability. They want to help fix the cracks. Let them. My second point: I belong to powerful Facebook groups. Capitalize on strength in numbers. If you’re not already on Facebook, join it and friend me so I can invite you. You can always unfriend me afterward. Or figure out your own platform of choice and use it. Although social media contains many inherent problems, I was pretty sure the hive would come through (12 hours was kind of slow, probably because it was overnight). Putting it another way, I watched my children’s piano recitals at school. A number of girls got up and performed their pieces perfectly, to tepid applause. But if a child hesitated, stopped, restarted, paused again … you could feel the audience rooting for him or her. Thunderous applause at the end! Thank you, my friends. Thank you from the depths of my last minute, imperfect little heart.

The power of people

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Dr. Melissa Yuan-Innes

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