One day at a time

The groceries are purchased.  The propane tanks are full.

The winter clothes are in the camper, along with my long johns.

We will start our journey today, hoping for clear roads in both the metaphorical and real sense.

Christmas is coming.  It always comes despite what life throws at us. 

This is why I believe in Christmas, and Santa Claus.  Because even when you can't imagine it will all happen, it does anyways.

The solstice is upon us.  Some say today, some say tomorrow.  Whatever it is, the days will start getting longer again, and that is a good thing. 

I have added a new gadget to my blog which you will find on the right hand side called featured post. 

I wrote The moment of birth three years ago on the solstice of a particularly difficult Christmas season. 

I think it is just as relevant today.

I wish all my readers a peaceful solstice, and if Christmas is your holiday I wish you a Christmas full of blessings. 

One road at a time.

I can do this.

We can do this.

Keeping them safe

When my children were little I did my best to keep them safe and to be there when they needed me.

I put aloe on their sunburns, and made oatmeal baths when they had chicken pox.

I gave them cool baths when their fevers were too high, and ran the steamer all through the night when they had croup.

I walked them to school, kept in contact with their friends' parents, and made sure they didn't swing too high or climb too far.

Yes, they had their share of bumps and bruises, and trips to emergency. I was there - holding the bowl while they vomited, or listening to their delirium while under the effects of morphine.

They are both adults now.

They are both nursing broken hearts.

Not for the first time, and likely not for the last.

I don't know of a way to cool that anger, or steam away that sadness, or sooth that wounded heart. Nor should I if I did.

I remember reading a book called The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, by Wendy Mogel.

The author talked about how, by removing all the obstacles in our children's lives we do them a disservice.

For who among us have not had a broken heart, a lost job, money troubles, career crises or consequences from life decisions.

No-one I think.

And as we get older we bear the scars of old wounds that in fact can make us stronger, and wiser, and although we may look more world weary, we become more resilient, perhaps a little more cautious, and more accepting of ourselves and others.

At least that is what I like to believe.

I don't want to believe that the things life can throw at us will make us hard, and inflexible, and bitter.

That would be wrong - to not learn and grow and realize that we can handle it.

Whatever IT is.

This doesn't mean I do nothing. I can make tea and listen, and help, if help is asked for and within my ability to give.

I can pray.

I can believe that it will all be alright in the end.

If it isn't alright.

It isn't the end.

I have to believe that.

I have to.

OK

I have a good friend and when I see her and she asks me how I am if I say ok she says:

"Oh, you and your oks".

Sometimes my sister asks me how I am and I say OK, and she says:

"Liar"

They are both right.

Sometimes I say I am OK when I am clearly not OK.

But I say OK, because

a) I don't want to go into it

b) If I go into it I will start crying and I don't want to cry

c) Sometimes I can't find the words to go into it

d) Sometimes I am just ok, and that is better than not ok.


I have had a hard week. I have been subbing in a class with some children who have, to put it mildly, challenges.

I wasn't up to the challenge.

It made me mad. At them, at their parents, at the school, at myself.

It made me sad. For them, and for all the children that I think the education system and society has, and is, letting down.

I wanted to blame someone.

Anyone.

Everyone.

I blame myself.

For not doing a better job this week.

For not doing a better job for the thirteen years I taught at the school.

For not doing a better job for my own children.

So.

If you see me this week and ask me how I am doing.

If I say OK.

I am lying.

I am not OK.

I will be.

But not today.

Babar - I am so disappointed

Thank you to Edwina's Episodes for asking me to take part in the February 2nd tour. Check out her post for other blogs on today's tour.

Babar - I am so disappointed

Besides being a retired teacher, I am also a retired Lactation Consultant/La Leche League Leader, and a retired Computer Programmer. It fits well with my Trinitarian nature that I have had three careers.

It is the former that I come to now.

I was reading Babar to my three honourary grand-daughters on Tuesday. The girls and I had quickly decided not to read the one where Babar's mother dies because it is too sad (plus another character eats a poisoned mushroom and dies), so instead we chose the happier one about Babar and his wife Celeste where she gives birth to triplets.

Seemed innocent enough, right?

The doctor quickly pronounces that she does not have enough milk to feed them and puts the baby elephants on formula!

Ack, my blood pressure went up, and I had to stop the story to give the little girls a sidebar about how I was certain cow's milk was not the best idea for a baby elephant!

Teachable moment, indeed!

Fortunately my faith in media was restored later in the week when the cantankerous old nun on "Call the Midwife" pronounced loudly that 'Breast is Best!'.

(Of course in another episode the producers made a terrible crafting faux pas by featuring a knitted blanket as pivotal to the story line and it was clearly a crocheted blanket, but I digress!)

Friends still refer new mothers to me for breastfeeding help and advice. I like that mother-to-mother support is still valued in my community of women. It helps us stay connected in a primal and necessary way.

I wish Celeste, the elephant had been given that kind of support. I realize the book was written in the 1930s (and also realize that the Babar series has many other more serious 'PC' errors), but still I think the elephants could have worked it out without the doctor's not-so-helpful proscription.

Do you find yourself reading books from your childhood that now make your toes curl? I would love to hear about them so leave a comment.

I love the idea of a Tour through Blogland. I do it every morning touring the blogs I follow.

If you, dear Reader, want to take my tour through blogland today I suggest you start with these blogs:

Diary of a Killjoy (full disclosure - this is my daughter)
Msathlete
Life with Roozle
Wendy of the Rock


If any bloggers I follow want to play along I give you the date of February 14! Valentine's Day!

Talis (wo)men

Sometimes it seems as if the years I spent raising my children were just a dream.

And then I will stumble upon a reminder.

Like this one I found last Tuesday in the wood pile - reminding me of both my children and their gift and talent with the guitar:





Or these that I found in a box of lego that my honourary grand-daughters were playing with - reminding me of:

my daughter's passion for horses



and, my son's passion for all things star trek.





And last summer, before I embarked on a long vacation I found this suddenly appearing on the hallway floor:



I have no recollection of this ladybug, and not sure where she came from, but I popped her into my pocket, and she travels with me.

Reminding me that I was a mother of young children.

Reminding me that I am still a mother.

Allowing me to hold on to the memories for a little while longer.

The guitar is an instrument that links us all together: daughter and son, mother and father.

The ladybug and the little horse are tokens of my daughter.

The starship Enterprise, and this hummingbird are tokens of my son. He embroidered it for me a few years ago.



These tokens are with me always.

Tangible objects for an intangible concept.

Like love.

26 Years ago today - Part Two

A Friday in January
The thirteenth don't you know
You were four days early
And the forecast was snow.

The date seemed auspicious
The labour was ok
We managed despite the weather
The hospital the next day.

So two days later
You finally made your way
3:20 in the morning
On your grandfather's birthday.

You were Mommy's girl
No other arms would do
My little Velcro baby
Carried like little Roo.

You sing with all your heart
And write your point of view
You strive to make better
what others failed to do.

Tarot, horoscopes and books
Have helped you find your way
Sharing ideas with me
Hearing what you have to say.

Twenty six years ago
I was afraid to say
How much it was I wanted
A daughter to light my way.

Whether doing errands
or endless cups of tea
Time we spend together
means everything to me.

Happy Birthday baby girl
May peace come to you most
And know that now and always
You are loved from coast to coast.

26 years ago today - Part One.

It has become a 'thing' that I write a blog post in honour of my daughter on her birthday. Now that it has become a 'thing' I have horrible writer's block.

Partly because many things I would write are personal and intimate and not something I want to put in this blog, partly because I have performance anxiety.

I make it a point not to go back and read previous birthday posts because when I do that I think to myself that that Mary-Anne of Breathing Life was a much better writer than I am.

I wrote a poem, that I will publish, but it is not turning out quite the way I wanted.

This girl of mine. This girl deserves a poem of great magnitude, because she is something very very special. She is actually a woman at twenty six, but I hope I can be forgiven for thinking of her as my girl still.

If you met her you would see a young woman of amazing style, tattoos, piercings, half her head shaved, the other side long dark hair, eye-liner, bright lipstick.

When you see her, she will take your breath away because she is so beautiful.



But it is what you don't see that amazes me.

She fights for the disenfranchised. She works for a sexual assault centre and does all she can to make the streets, the university campuses, high school hallways and the world a safer place for women, for queer people, for transgendered men and women.

She does not suffer fools gladly.

She is fierce.

Her anger can be huge, and so is her love.

Her spoken word poetry will leave you speechless, and often in tears.

Her songs are poignant, wise, and powerful.

Her singing voice, and her guitar playing are amazing.

Yet, she struggles.

She struggles to make a living in a career where, as she said once, 'she is destined to work for non-profit societies'.

She struggles to truly find her community. A femme queer woman who loves her high heels, and short skirts and sexy tops.

She has her politics and her points of view, but sometimes she just wants to laugh and be silly and not take on all the woes of the world.

She is a feminist in the truest sense.

She is my daughter, and I am so honoured to be her mother.

She is one of many of her generation fighting the good fight, having ideals that get crushed on a daily basis, and coming face to face everyday with the baser side of life.

Still she gets up, puts on her face and heads out into the world. Everyday.

I have learned and continue to learn so much from her.

Our conversations makes me think. Hard.

I want her to know, today, on her birthday, and every day.

I have your back.

Keep going.

I have your back.

Spoken Word

Put me first
me first

Why did you have me?

What was the point?
to daycare me, or pawn me
or place me out of the way

I was your front
your centre
when I was cute
and mute

Now I have something to say
my turn to be selfish
to play
to get my way

To answer to myself
not be held back
because of your lack
of fact
or tact

You don't like my hair
you complain
I'm a strain
I'm too bare
You don't like what I wear
why I care
For my music
that is harsh

that you don't understand
what it is to feel lost
despite the cost

You marry and carry on
like I'm not even here
What do you fear?
Why give me the gear?

When your own life
is nothing
for you to be proud
you are too loud

Be quiet and listen

I'm just wanting your yes
I guess

You brought me into
your nest
into your mess

Why don't you just confess
unless

It isn't true

I bring you more
not less

Unless

I bring you more
not less

Written December 2011 during a spoken word workshop. Written for a young woman I knew from her point of view.

Re-visiting the past

My daughter has been asking me questions about her childhood. She wants to know how I remember her. She wants more information about the day-cares she was in.

Talking to her, and those memories, have evoked many feelings in me. Feelings of shame, anger, anxiety, and worry.

I still remember the first day I left her with a care-giver. She was crying, and reaching out for me as I had to walk away. It was heart-wrenching. She was four.

As I had to walk away. And in that statement I look back and wonder - did I have to?

I did, at the time, I was struggling with depression, and I was not happy. Not happy as a stay home mom once the children were in school.

And working did help me. It did help me fight the depression.

At least for a while.

And I thought, at the time, that was better for my children. Better for them to have a mom with better mental health. To have a mom that wasn't always going to bed with a migraine, or crying, or hiding in the basement. That is what I thought. It was better for them.

But in that day-care situation, which was a mom at home with her own children and a couple of others like my daughter, there was a boy that bullied my daughter.

And in the pre-school, at the same time, she was being bullied by a few children.

Twenty years ago I thought that this was how it was. This is what children have to negotiate.

I did put my foot down with the school when they wanted to place her in Kindergarten with those same children. I insisted she be in another kindergarten or I would pull her from the school. I did win that battle.

It was little consolation.

That summer my day-care giver had to suddenly leave for six weeks because of a family emergency. She suggested another mother at our school. I took both my children there.

It was a night-mare.

She had two very aggressive dogs, which she kept crated when the kids were there. Towards the end of our time with her, one of the dogs bite off her finger. When I dropped the kids off one morning she answered with her hand bandaged and obviously on heavy pain medication.

I left my children there.

I. Left. My. Children. There.

I didn't feel I had a choice. I was a computer programmer on a deadline.

What was I thinking?

Clearly, I wasn't.

This same house had a swimming pool. My son told me one day that when he and his sister were in the pool the care-giver went into the house and left them unguarded in the pool Another girl, who bullied my daughter, pushed my daughter under the water and held her there.

When I heard this I called the care-giver and insisted that the children NEVER be in the pool without her being there. Still, I continued to take them there.

I didn't feel I had a choice.

Finally the time came to an end, and they returned to the previous situation. However, later that year I was again left without care for my children.

A previous teacher at the school was able to take them.

Her son bullied my daughter, one day holding her hand in a pot of hot soup.

Her husband had a bad temper.

And then my daughter also talked about a friend down the street where she would often go and play. This friend had two older brothers that used to 'tease' and 'bully' the girls.

And then school began, and my daughter was in a class with a myriad of bullies. We struggled, we met with parents, we met with the teacher.

Finally, finally after grade six, we left. We left because my daughter insisted that she wasn't going back.

She was smarter than I was. By tons.

At home? At home I fed them well, loved them, kept them safe from too much television, kept them away from the malls during the Christmas hype.

But still, shit happened. It happened under the watch of others. It happened and I didn't know, or if I did know, I tried to work with it, to change it.

I feel so responsible and ashamed.

My husband reminded me that under my mother's watch, a stay-at-home mom, there was bullying between my siblings.

It doesn't make me feel better.

To my thirty-seven year old self I want to say I understand and I know you did the best you could at the time. I also want to say "What were you thinking?"

To my twenty-five year old daughter I want to say how sorry I am for all of it. For all of the times I should have acted sooner and didn't.

To my twenty-nine year old son I want to say that I should have spent more time with you, drawing at the kitchen table, or talking to you, instead of hiding in the basement when I first got home from work. You were only two, and I should have been there.

I should have been there. I should have been more vigilant.

But I wasn't.

And I have to live with that.

Yes, it is important for me to re-visit the past.

But, I don't have to live there.

Not anymore.

Mother's Day

The last time I blogged about Mother's Day I was criticized for being too sentimental. Just for the record that person got unfriended pdq from facebook. But I digress.

There have been a number of media articles around mothering and parenting in the past week. Most of them not at all complimentary. Some of them funny. Most not relaying my experience.

I have often heard parents talking at the end of a spring, winter or summer break that they were SO glad their kids were heading back to school. To be perfectly honest I never felt that way.

I loved having my kids home from school. Granted I had the ability for most of my parenting years to have the school breaks off with my kids, and I can imagine organizing care for these breaks is expensive and stressful. But many of the parents that look forward to sending their children back to school are stay at home parents. So that isn't it.

Some of my fondest memories of my own mother were around summer holidays. She would have us tidy the house, and be heading to Kits Beach by 9:30am, picnic lunch in hand. She would relax and read and nap under the 'big tree' and my younger brother and sister and I would spent the morning in the old Kits pool. Then lunch, another quick swim and home to our shady backyard by about 1:30pm. To wait out the hour after eating lunch my siblings and I would scour the beach for seashells, or play on the old train. Every weekday. Even the rainy ones. Ok, on the rainy ones it was just a quick swim and then back in the car....with maybe a visit to the MacMillan Bloedel conservatory on Little Mountain on the way home.

And so to with my own children, summers were trips to Britannia Beach pool, Murin Lake, water parks and, on rainy days, the movie theatres.

I always enjoyed their company and antics, and still do.

I am one of the lucky ones. I did and do receive great pleasure from my children and from being their mom (or mum). There is not a minute regretted.

I am not sure why the media is spending so much time, especially around this day, reporting on studies that show how unhappy parents, especially mothers, are. I am not sure what it serves, or who it serves. It could be a misery loves company kind of thing, or perhaps a way to take away the guilt that all mothers feel about not doing their best, and sometimes really messing up and feeling bad about it.

And I know that for children and mothers who are estranged this is a very difficult day. For children whose mothers are no longer with them this is a difficult day. For mothers whose children have died, this is a very difficult day. My mother and I had a terrible fight on Mother's Day when I was 18 years old, and it still hurts all these years later. So I do understand why it can be a difficult day for many.

But for those of us who celebrate this day, in big ways, or little ways, it saddens me that others want to take the joy out of it.

For, to me, that is what mothering is. Joy. For all its hard work, sleepless nights, highs and lows, it is always what I wanted to be, and always what I feel best about in my life.

So, to my two children, who have made me the mother I am today, I say thank you with gratitude and delight.

Because today I remember all those moments that we have shared, and look forward to all those to come.

And just so no-one thinks I have lost my sense of humour here is the best thing I have seen about the subject to date:

What a wonderful world

I was walking along the seawall today and noticed so many people walking and talking on their phone, walking and texting on their phone and it made me sad for them. The waves, the freighters, the dogs happily chasing balls and sticks, getting muddy in the, well, mud. The people I passed who met my gaze and smiled.

Those on their phones missed all that. But the saddest thing was the number of little ones, standing, looking up at their moms while their moms texted, or talked on their phones. Perhaps some of those calls and texts were earth shatteringly important, but somehow I don't think so. More then once there was also a dog looking up towards its master's face and waiting for the text to be sent.

I am glad that when I was walking my dog, and later my children, I didn't have the distraction of a cell phone and I could just chatter away to them.

Just chatter away.
The text can usually wait.
Those little ones won't be looking up at you forever.
Those waves, and birds, puppies and mud will soothe your soul. Really.
So will those smiles to those passing by.

I am glad for the technology we have available to us today. But it needs to be put into its rightful place.
And sometimes that place is in your pocket and turned off, or at the very least silenced.

Louis Armstrong was right - What a Wonderful World. We shouldn't take it for granted. Not any of it.

I see trees of green........ red roses too
I see em bloom..... for me and for you
And I think to myself.... what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue..... clouds of white
Bright blessed days....dark sacred nights
And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world.

The colors of a rainbow.....so pretty ..in the sky
Are also on the faces.....of people ..going by
I see friends shaking hands.....sayin.. how do you do
They're really sayin......i love you.

I hear babies cry...... I watch them grow
They'll learn much more.....than I'll never know
And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world

For your broken heart

Another broken heart
Not the first
not the last
I wish you lived here
So I could
Hold you fast
Tell you the pain won't last
This too shall pass.

Sometimes the heart breaks
with a crack
not for lack
or looking back

or a slow demise
where silence lies
love in disguise

Make the pot of tea
pour me a cup
I will drink through the miles

and listen
as you write lines that might ease
or sing songs
to appease
the silence

Your broken heart will heal
make the deal
to feel

Empty the cup
Make another pot
I am holding you fast
This too shall pass.

Twenty-FIve

Today is the day. You are twenty-five years old as of 3:20am pst. I have been thinking alot about this auspicious birthday and thinking alot about myself at twenty-five. I had been married three and a half years by that point, I had abandoned my career as a teacher, we had moved, yet again, and I was fairly directionless.

Not you. You have direction and I am in awe of your work, and research and passion as you strive to make this world a better place for your community and for yourself. You are often swimming up-stream and I know how hard that is. I didn't start swimming up-stream until I was quite a bit older than twenty-five. I am still swimming up-stream, and it doesn't get any easier, but I wouldn't swim in any other direction and I hope you feel that way too. Going against the flow is challenging, frustrating, lonely, and, well, just plain hard. But there it is. Hard, isn't easy, but it does create new capacities in a way that easy never will.

This year has been pivotal for you, and for you and I, and I think, through it all, it has been a good year. I feel closer to the real you. I think you feel closer to the real you. Real is good.
So perhaps that is something about being twenty-five. Life is real. Life is hard. Life is good.
I am proud to be your mum. I am proud to be your confidant. I am proud to share your songs, and articles and points of view with the world. You are so much braver than I am, and your bravery sustains my faith in the future.

Twenty-five and in grad school, in love with a good woman, and surrounded by good friends and strong connections to home and family. That is all I could have wished for you at 3:20am twenty-five years ago, if I was thinking that far in the future. As it was I was just so damn excited to have a daughter I really couldn't imagine another second beyond the one I was experiencing.

Being a mother was always what I wanted. But that want was theoretical and based on little more than a fairy tale or two. Being your mother is a gift.

You are a gift.

Happy Birthday. And like that little mermaid you were,singing on the living room floor, oh so many years ago.....just keep singing. And swimming.

The next 25 years will be amazing.

I love you. Forever and always.

Waiting for the phone to ring

Waiting for the phone to ring. One is hunting, and one is awaiting test results. But the phone doesn't ring. It just seems so quiet around here. The quiet is very noisy.

And it is raining. And I don't want to be 'that' person that keeps phoning, and asking.

So I am 'this' person that putters with her knitting, sweeps the floor, takes long baths, and tosses and turns.

I remember years and years ago when I got very sick and needed emergency surgery my sister sent my mother a card called 'The Watcher'.

It is hard being 'the watcher', because you can't do anything. Not really.

So today as I listen to my husband chatter with his young six year old friend I try to busy myself with this and that.

But really?

Really I am just waiting for the phone to ring.

Your children are not your children

On Children
Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.


I heard this a month ago, recited while a class of 14 year olds performed with their teacher. It brought tears to my eyes. I have heard it before at a dedication for a new baby, but then I didn't yet have grown children of my own. Adult children.

All the times people told me, warned me, to enjoy my children, because they grow up so fast, went unheeded. Now I find myself telling others. They grow up so fast. They grow up and they are gone. I find myself weeping, silently at times, sobbing loudly at others.

I think about myself as an adult and how infrequently I thought of, or contacted my mother. It is the nature of growing up. To grow up and grow away. It is what is supposed to happen. There is still a thread, a bond, a connection, but it is different now. Adults lead adult lives. They are on their own path. Still, I miss them.

I miss having morning coffee with them, running errards, watching movies. I miss their company. They are both funny, interesting, intelligent, compassionate individuals. They are both socially conscious and striving to find their way in their world and to make a difference. Even if they weren't my children, I would want to spend time with them.

But they are thousands of miles away. Being adults. They are grown up.

And it is ok that I am sad sometimes. Nobody has to fix it. It just is. And it will not last forever. It will be ok in the end. If it's not ok, it's not the end.

"For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday."

The moment of birth

At that moment of birth, in that manger stall, on that cold winter night it was just about a family. A father who didn't know if he could provide for his son, a mother who didn't know if she could keep him safe, a baby with his future ahead of him. He was born in a time of upheaval when traveling in a strange land was wrought with dangers, and even a poor family - a pregnant woman, a donkey, an ox and an old man could fall prey to dangers.

There was faith. There was prophecy. There was a shining star in the sky. Soon after there were shepherds, and wise men and gifts. But in that moment of birth there was simply a mother and a father and a baby boy. And a future that was unsure.

And so it is with every birth. In that moment when a woman becomes a mother, and a man becomes a father, and a being emerges from the womb there is that moment when a family is born.

And we are making it up all the way along. Mary and Joseph were so sure in that moment of birth that it was a miracle, as every birth before and after is a miracle.

Life is a miracle. With all of its intricacies and mess. It is a miracle. It is a miracle that even though we are gifted with language, it is a miracle to find those moments of clarity and true understanding - the meeting of soul to soul.

It is a miracle to find love in this world. Sometimes it is a dark and forbidding place, and yet in those darkest moments love can still force its way through, just like a small blade of grass pushing through a mountain of rock.

In that manger there was love. In that temple there was love. At that last supper there was love. In that garden there was love. On that cross there was love.

And so it is with us. At birth, in anger, with forgiveness, in fear, and in death there is love. And love will heal the wounds if we let it.

If we remember that Christmas isn't about the shopping and glitz, but about a simple tree, lights strung in the darkness and a meal shared with family and friends. Christmas is the time to remember that there is love, and love will conquer all if we only let it.

If we only remember that in that moment of birth there is a promise to love and to keep trying. To apologize for not always having the perfect response to each situation, but to believe that when there is love there is the possibility to get back on track, start over, and move forward.

Courtney A. Walsh says it best:

Dear Human:

You've got it all wrong.
You didn't come here to master unconditional love.
This is where you came from and where you'll return.

You came here to learn personal love.
Universal love.
Messy love.
Sweaty Love.
Crazy love.
Broken love.
Whole love.
Infused with divinity.
Lived through the grace of stumbling.
Demonstrated through the beauty of... messing up.
Often.

You didn't come here to be perfect, you already are.
You came here to be gorgeously human. Flawed and fabulous.
And rising again into remembering.

But unconditional love? Stop telling that story.

Love in truth doesn't need any adjectives.
It doesn't require modifiers.
It doesn't require the condition of perfection.

It only asks you to show up.
And do your best.
That you stay present and feel fully.
That you shine and fly and laugh and cry and hurt and heal and fall and get back up and play and work and live and die as YOU.

It's enough.
It's Plenty.

It's official - he took his Christmas Stocking

I think this is it. My first born has left home for real. Oh sure, his belongings are all in the basement, and his mail still arrives to the front door, but this time he packed his Christmas Stocking. It's official. He has left home.

He has left home before - to go to university, to share apartments with friends, to travel Europe with his band, to live in a communal house. But this time, as he headed up North to live in perpetual winter (literally, not figuratively), he took his Christmas stocking.

For twenty-seven Christmases that stocking was hung on the same mantle piece. This Christmas it will hang somewhere else. And a piece of my heart with it.

This is what an empty nest feels like. Lined with memories, but as the leaves fall away, it just looks so lonely and precarious and vulnerable.

And there really isn't enough kleenex.

27 years of parenting

I bet you are looking for advice. No, no advice here. Well, maybe some, but more for me than you.

I have been a mother for 27 years as of about 75 minutes ago. 27 years. I remember those hours (days) that lead up to the moment of birth and I remember the two weeks that followed (10 days of them in the hospital). It wasn't seamless.

But parenting, kind of was. Even the hard parts. The parts where I didn't (don't) know what to do, or say, or think. They are seamless. The days flow into each other and the relationship that I have had, and continue to have, with my children flows from one stage to the next.

The stage we are in now is parent to adult children. Children making their way in the world, settling into their lives, struggling with what it is to be an adult.

It isn't easy. Some days are, but many aren't. Life, even a good, blessed life, is still hard. My children, like myself, are always striving. And striving, not settling, is hard.

That baby boy, born 27 years ago, is figuring it out. He is, as I have told him, someone destined for greatness. He has so many strengths. He has many roads open to him, and he is figuring it out.

So is his mother.

Sorting through photographs I see him as a new born, bruised from his difficult birth, then a one year old lifted high in the air, held fast by his father's arms. Then pre-school with his new-born little sister, kindergarten, first day of grade one and so it goes all the way to high school graduation. I can flip through them in a minute or so. Each picture tells the story of a year, and then a blink, and they are gone.

He is now a young man, but within him are all those pictures, and more. And he is making new pictures everyday in his adventure up north. He is learning. Alot. About farming, and fishing, and relationship and self-sufficiency.

He calls at least once, sometimes twice, a week. Sometimes he chatters away about this and that. Sometimes our conversations are harder, and sadder.

I am always happy he called. I am always happy he can tell me whatever he needs to tell me. That is a gift I have been given by both my children.

Parenting. Seamless. One picture flowing into the next. One day into the next. When something is seamless it can't unravel. It is continuous. Like a moebius strip.

Yes, parenting is like a moebius strip.

Happy Birthday, dear one. Happy Birthday.

23 years ago today...

...I held my baby girl in my arms for the first time. With the loving support of my husband and sister she arrived. She was perfect. She is perfect.
Raising a daughter was something I had dreamed for, hoped for, but didn't realize I wanted so much until - there she was.
I tried to empower her, to tell her often how beautiful, strong, capable she was. To never devalue myself in front of her. To never moan about my weight, my thighs, how I look in a bathing suit, in front of her.

But all the while, I was dieting. Starving myself, while I breastfed her, to lose the 'baby fat'. Working for weight watchers when she was only a few years old. Measuring my portions on a little scale. Using a measuring cup to mete out my cereal, or rice, or pasta.

I confided in her this past Christmas, that I also worry when she comes home, and sees me after months and months apart, that she will see I have gained weight. She confided in me the same concern. How horribly sad is that? Two women, a mother and a daughter, who love each other so powerfully, and truthfully, would be afraid that weight, or fat, could come between us. Make us judge the other. How very sad is that?

She is beautiful. She, who is 23 today, is beautiful and unique and powerful and inspirational and, quite simply, perfect.

I am writing this today because of her blogging challenge for the womens' centre she works for. I am writing this today because I love her and I don't want her to spend the rest of her life ashamed of her beautiful body.

This body we have, if you follow anthroposophy, we chose for ourselves for this life incarnation. How can we have hate for something we, as spiritual beings, chose for ourselves? We chose it for the lessons it had to bring us, for the truths we knew to be inherent in its form.

When my daughter was 16 we all attended the wedding of my niece. Video and pictures were taken for my mother, who did not attend. When my mother saw the videos of my beautiful girl in her mini skirt she told me that my daughter didn't have the body to pull off that 'look'. I was so angry. I hated my mother for saying such a thing. How could she say such a thing? Why did it matter so much? And what did my mother think about me, and two of my sisters, who all carry weight, who are fat? And yet, I know, intellectually as I write this, that she too was a victim of society's fear of fat.

I have such conflict around my mother and her fear of fat. I remember a beautiful picture I have of her holding my daughter when she was such a little baby. The look on my mother's face is pure joy. And yet, when my mother, and my eldest sister, saw the photo they told me to take the photo out of the album because the photo showed my mother's stomach to have a roll of fat. I don't even know what to do with that memory.

So, dear girl, happy birthday. I have been reading your blogs and learning things about you I never knew before. Things I am grateful to know now. And perhaps, you will indulge me as I give a piece of advice to you and all who are reading this and struggling with loving themselves.

Love yourself. If others leave you, or judge you for who you are,or what you look like, then, as painful as it is, so be it. Love yourself. Be yourself. People will then have permission to love you too. Love is not defined by numbers on a scale, or how we look in an outfit. Love is defined by the care and respect we show ourselves and others. We are all worthy of love.

Our bodies are worthy of love.

My body is worthy of love.

Letters

The first day home after almost six weeks on the road I was at a loss for what to do. Once the laundry was done, the camper cleaned, the second bath....now what? I didn't want to start into school work yet. Not, yet. So I decided to clean out my email box, and that lead me to reading all my blogs back to the beginning, and then letters I had written my daughter, and she had written me.

These letters started when she was heading off to university, to live in residence. Only up the hill to SFU, but still it seemed so far away. Many of the letters are short and silly and verifying this and that. But a number are heart-wrenching. Even as I write this I have tears finding there way down my face, and as I sat at the kitchen table a few days ago it was the same.

They were the letters about broken hearts, broken promises, apologies, and sometimes misunderstandings. They were the letters where we could speak truths that couldn't always be spoken in person. At least not then. They were the letters of a young woman finding her way in the world, and a middle-aged woman trying to help.

These letters are a gift. Even though they are digital, and not tied up with ribbon in a cedar chest. They are a gift.

I have similar letters from and to my son as he travels the world trying to find his place. I have many, many letters from and to my husband when I have been travelling without him, or he without me. Those letters are full of love. I have letters from my sister filled with such understanding that it is little wonder she is my best friend.

And they are all saved on the computer. But that doesn't seem right. So, I will begin the process of downloading them and filing them in order and perhaps, even, wrapping a ribbon around them.

Those letters tell a story of a woman and her family. A woman loved by her family. A woman who loves her family fiercely. A woman who sometimes has to read letters that could break her heart, but they don't because she knows that the relationship that has forged that trust has wrapped her heart in such a way that she could bear it.

These are letters full of love, honesty, trust and wisdom on all sides, and they should be saved in the truest sense of the word.