If wishes were horses then beggars would ride

This adage has been rumbling around in my brain this week. I think I first heard it from my mother, but I can't be certain. I know it is one I have repeated to others time and again.

This has been a difficult week (and it is only Wednesday!). Another person I respected has disappointed me and this current situation has left me with a tight chest, shallow breathing, racing heart, and manic behaviour.

I find myself talking too fast, filling in the silences, running to the next thing - I know this behaviour well. I chatter away turning into a 'polly anna', when really what I want to do is a) go to bed and pull the covers over my head, or b) rail loudly against the injustices of the world.

I have been trying to connect with why the news of this week has rattled me so. Why I am endlessly reading posts about it on twitter, on facebook, on the internet.

I am just so mad. And sad. And disappointed.

And, at the heart of it, it brings up, for me, all the shitty things humans do to each other, and then justify in one way or another.

Someone I love very much was a victim of rape. It was someone she knew. Someone she had dated in the past. When she confronted him he told her to get over it. He told her 'it was just sex'. If it was 'just sex', why has it changed her life? Forever.

I don't pretend to understand all the different ways people choose to engage in sexual experiences with others. I really don't understand BDSM and I am not here to judge those that do, but what has made me very sad this week is that it feels, to me, in my limited understanding, that the part of it that involves violence against another person, rape fantasies, or 'hate f#$%ing' is beyond my understanding.

I really can not put into words what is upsetting about all of this, but I know to listen to my body, to my racing heart, to my 'still small voice', and to allow myself the permission to wish that it was not so.

To wish that people did not have to experience pain to experience pleasure, that women did not have to be raped by ex, or current partners, that people I respect did not have to fall so hard.

I am naive. I know that. But I do truly wonder if one can ever give consent for the things I have heard about in the news this week. Isn't there always a power imbalance of one kind or another? Teacher/student. Older/younger. More in love/less in love. Inexperience/Experience. Lonely/Predator.

I know that in the past I have done things, or gone along with things, because I didn't want to disappoint, I didn't want to be 'that girl', I didn't want someone to not like me.

I know that in the past I have not spoken up for all the same reasons, and also because I was ashamed.

"Here is an idea", someone I love posted recently on facebook, "Let's all be nice to each other."

That is a wish of mine too.

I know that 'if wishes were horses beggars would ride'.

I know that I will be walking for sometime yet.

Those wee small hours

December 18

I have taken to waking up around 3am and those are the prime hours for fretting. Last night was particularly bad because I was not feeling well, I had had a stomach ache all day and it seemed worse at 3am. Everything always seems worse at 3am. I was feeling scared, and, well, mortal. Since the moment I heard that I needed surgery my mortality has been front and center.

I finally fell asleep around 7 after a warm text exchange with my daughter and woke up around 10am. Normally I would keep these fears to myself and just move on with the day, but this morning I admitted my fragility, my fears, my worries to my dear husband. There were tears, and soft words, and after an hour or so we both got on with our day. I did dishes, sorted papers and reveled in the gorgeous sun shining into the kitchen. I changed the water in the hummingbird feeder, watched the juncos and black squirrel on the back porch railing and got caught up on paperwork and 'stuff', that had been weighing on me.

I made plans for later in the day, and, despite the four hours of fear in the middle of the night, today feels hopeful. I am enjoying this lead up to Christmas. No scurrying madly in the malls, no fretting about presents, no feelings of overwhelm, or exhaustion - at least not about Christmas. Perhaps it is because I am recovering from surgery and I am exhausted, but for more etheric and physical reasons than materialistic.

I saw the Paradise play yesterday - the first of a trilogy of medieval plays that Rudolf Steiner indicated. Tomorrow I will see the Shepherds Play performed by a group of delightful mentally challenged adults, and on Epiphany I will perform in the Kings Play (I am the angel!).
This is the first year I will have seen all three plays during the Christmas season. A silver lining to the surgery which postponed our intended camping trip down south. I have learned there is always a silver lining. Sometimes it is hard to see.

My best friend's birthday is today. My nephew arrives home from Montreal today. My son called yesterday and my daughter and I have a phone date for later today. I am surrounded by people I love and people who love me.

I will have to remind myself of this tomorrow at 3am.

Superstitions

I am afraid to make plans. I have had to cancel many over the last months due to migraines. I am afraid to leave my jewelery on my dresser; I wear it all, all the time. I have been robbed twice and lost precious, irreplaceable things. I am afraid to not park my little car in the drive way behind my truck and camper. I need to keep it safe. My truck and camper were stolen outside the front of my house a few years back. The experience with ICBC was horrible to say the least. I am afraid to leave the front door unlocked when I go to bed, and the smoke detector unplugged. People break into homes, and fires destroy lives and property.

This is how I live my life. Afraid. Waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop. I have developed habits out of fear, and experience. Habits that are hard to break.

This is not to say I am a pessimist, or a doom-sayer. Anyone who knows me, knows me to be hopeful and generally happy. I have had some very bad things happen to me, and to people I love. I don't anticipate them. They happen. Bad things happen to good people all the time. I know that. I know that. Then we work it through, deal with it, move on. This is what we do. This is what I do. And still, each incidence lives me a little more fragile, with another habit, another ritual to ward off evil.

Sometimes I just imagine something bad happening to my husband, or children. I immediately send them white light, surround them in postive energy. If I don't, I believe the bad thing will happen. I am superstitious that way.

You have your whole life ahead of you. We tell that to our children when they are struggling. But it is true for all of us. We all have our whole life ahead of us. Whether for a moment or for decades. We all have our whole life ahead of us. I am tired of living mine in fear.

So, today I am not wearing all my jewelery. What's the worse that can happen? This is a private joke with a dear friend. She and I know the worst that can happen. It has happened. And still we move on. With laughter and tears we move on. Because if we just succumb to the fear we will be paralysed.

I am afraid of being paralysed. It is a recurring dream I have that I am trying to talk, and can't. I am trying to be understood and can't. I imagine that it is a dream of having a stroke. It is very real. It is yet another thing I am afraid of.

But, for now, for today, I will head out into the world. I have my Venus de Willendorf around my neck, and my wolf ring on. I believe they will protect me. I am superstitious that way.

Being scared doesn't mean I am not brave

It is everywhere. Fear mongering. Gas Prices. Genetically modified foods. Pirates. Thugs. Car accidents. Plane crashes. Bombs. Police brutality. Loss of CPP. Interest rates. Inflation. It is everywhere.
Television, radio, newsprint, billboards, conversations in the faculty room. Everywhere.
So, I berate myself for not being brave, for fearing for my husband, my children, my sister, my loved ones. Fearing for all my loved ones.
Isn't that what 'they' want. To keep us afraid. To keep us from venturing outside of our comfort zone. To keep us pondering the 27 varieties of olive oil, or dish soap, or, well, anything really. More choice involves more choosing, and then we don't have the time, or energy, to fret about the 'real' issues.
But, here is the real issue. At least for me.

In Grade Seven I have been teaching about the Protestant movement during that period of History called the Reformation. Re form.
Martin Luther believed we are saved by Faith alone, by Grace alone, by Scripture alone. Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, Sola Scriptura. I don't know about the Scriptures, because how do we really find the truth there within all the translations, and omissions.
But Faith and Grace? I can go there.
To live in this world, as a human being trying to be in relationship with other human beings needs a large amount, for me, of Faith and Grace. I can have one, I can be granted the other.
To be in another's 'Good Graces'. This is a interesting concept. But, I know, in my life, the times I have really moved on is when I have played the card of Grace. It isn't about forgiveness necessarily, nor about forgetting. It is about believing that sometimes you just have to play the card. To grant something to someone else, that, I believe, every day God grants to me.
To be in the Grace of God. It doesn't stop the fears I have in my day to day life, but it does ally the fear I have in what will come in my life after death.
I live by Faith. Faith that I will die in the Grace of God.
So, yes, I am still scared, but as someone once said "It isn't brave if you're not scared."

Let the adventure begin

Camped right on the Fraser River in Hope. The river is running fast, and that Shari Ulrich song, Watching the river run, is running through my head. We are camped right beside the site of a native pithouse. I sat there, in the sun, this morning drinking my coffee. The sky is blue, the chipmunks are chirping, Brian is napping, and all is well with the world.

Finally on holidays for the next 6 1/2 weeks. Heading for the rockies to see Yoho, and Banff and Jasper, and the Columbia icefields. We hope to also take in Drumheller. So a couple of weeks relaxing, camping, and site seeing, and then heading across this huge country to see our little girl.

What an adventure. I have my moments of "Oh, my god, what are we doing, but I think there is still some room for pushing the boundaries and not letting my fears stand in my way.