Fear of Success/ Fear of Failure

This is an area that I want to explore and hopefully find resolution in. Its one thing to "live my life out loud", be honest about where I struggle, and honest about what I learn. There always seems to come a point though, where I just shut the whole thing down and believe that I've set myself up to fall and I'm just not willing to do that.

I think two culprits are fear and pride.
If we think little of ourselves and the potential we have to impact our world, and wonder that God will be with us through such a bold venture, we shrink back and take the safer route. To a fairly large extent, I think I've taken the safer road. Its safer, simpler to go back to shitting on myself than to stick my neck out and risk people misunderstanding my intent, or conversely, expecting too much out of me. Even as I write that down, I see the irony. People do misunderstand. And that's not my burden. My purpose in life is not to defend myself. Consistently defensive behavior in people always makes me think: "He doth protest too much"; What is it that he/she feels needs to remain hidden away from others?

Back to me, fear, and pride. Pride isn't necessarily a person puffed up with the pleasure of being himself. Pride can also be found in the act of keeping oneself small. You don't have to look far to find people who are very proud of their humility. They don't wear trendy clothes and they are right proud of their schleppy choices. They live in modest bungalows and don't associate with those "gated community types". They serve in at least two capacities at their local church, because simply loving their neighbor wouldn't count as a good service, nobody would notice, and their neighbor never mows his yard on time and his dog shits on their lawn.

Fear is a slippery one. If you keep yourself small, you always make room for people to build you up, which makes them feel useful and adequate. What if you didn't need to take so much any more? Would you intimidate your friends? Offend them? Would you run out of friends? Would they whisper about you, how special you think you are, how badly you are about to fall?

One of the humblest people I've had the pleasure of knowing is also very powerful. But he knows where his strength comes from. He doesn't depend on his amassed knowledge, although it is consistently drawn on. He has a deep love for God, and a daily dependence on that relationship. He is buried neck deep in human misery nearly every day, but he has fantastic joy and peace and is not overwhelmed.

I'd like to get me somma dat.

More Happy Stuff.

Maybe its the increase in daylight hours thats bringing up my serotonin levels.
Or maybe its just this fun stuff I found at the "boutique" this weekend. Oh, and some of it came from a secret thrift shop that sells stuff for peanuts. I'll never, ever reveal its secret location.

And as Shelley will attest to, it also sells the best t-shirts.


Fab-YOO-luscious shoes.
Sammy tells me that the white ones are "boy colour". He still prefers to wear the pink ones though. They go with his tutu.



A stack of fun vintage fabrics and a couple of custard cups. The custard cups are fun on the coffee table with little old junk I've picked up for no particular reason, but just love looking at.





I love old patterns. I rarely use them, and after a while, I wonder... Why did I pick that up? Whatever will I do with this? How long will I find joy in staring at it, then decide to use it for bum wipes at the cabin outhouse?

I nearly had a coronary when I saw this absolutely perfect lustre ware creamer hidden behind some junk on the toppest, toppliest shelf. And I didn't drop it.

The stack of plates beneath the creamer are so great that I can't stand to look at them.

I entered my name in a silent auction.

My offer was $2.50.

I was the only one who put down my name and number.

Fools.

I will never serve you pie on those plates.

You may be prohibited from even looking at them.

Sweet, Sunny Saturday

There is a blog that I love to hate. A wonderfully creative person who appears to whip together the most wonderful stuff out of bits of fabric. I like to imagine she does this while simultaneously home-schooling her eleven obedient, ruddy cheeked cherubs who dine on her slowly and methodically prepared meals of organic, home grown vegetables and tofu. She likely follows a budget, works out by howing beets or kumquat, and never colors her hair. Like I said, I hate her.
That's only because I rarely find time any more to make stuff. And I happen to like doing that sort of thing.




Lots of coloured buttons with bits of old thread still attached to them make me insanely happy.
Old scraps of quilted squares make me weak in the knees.
So on this sunny Saturday, I had nothing but time and oppurtunity to put a few of those hoarded bits together.




I hope you don't hate me.

Have Courage

I am a shameless thief. I pillage and steal and thieve without a single shame. In the days when I used to sew and sell garments, I stole ideas from frocked toddlers whose aunties had brilliantly outfitted them. Now I fancy myself a housebound philosopher and I steal thoughts from brilliant writers and expound on them here.

This morning I came upon a post that I got so excited about that I had to walk away from it because I was trying to read it so fast that I was skipping too many parts. Kind of like stuffing your face with almond rocha at Christmas and then realizing you should have slowed down and enjoyed the process. Or like finding a vintage quilt at the thrift shop for $5.00 and just woodenly walking away because you can't bear the stimulation.

Allow me to introduce Queen Heroical:

"...It also dawned on me that this might be why the Bible needs to tells me (us) to think on whatever is good, whatever is noble, whatever is right etc etc etc ... not because doing so is easy,

............. but rather because doing so means accepting, openly accepting that there is love greater, there is love which exists in the pain of it all. Think on it – have courage oh you of little faith ... have courage, do not be afraid, think on these things. Lifting eyes up can be harder than seeing what is at our feet. Daring to trust in the ever familiar face of betrayal – daring to love when it seems impossible – daring to believe that despite it all – we are all, each one of us, loved by God. Hard. "

I've been thinking about how when we are confronted by things that frighten us, we search our minds for a way to "set things right". We search from the storehouse of all the wonderful learning we've submitted ourselves to. Surely we've read a book about "What-to-do-or-say" when confronted by this situation. Surely we heard a sermon that taught us the appropriate antidote. Surely if we choose our steps righteously, we are responsible to appropriate the correct behaviors to bring back the familiar equilibrium of yesterday.

I challenge you to instead examine your own heart.
How righteous are you feeling? How relieved that your ducks are in a row? Do you dare to lift your eyes? Do you have the courage to love authentically? Do you have the guts to tell your own truth? Ask your own questions?

From which perspective will you love others? From the honesty that we are all stumbling, all gasping, yet all impossibly, mysteriously loved by God?

The more I learn, the less I know for sure. And there's a great relief in there somewhere, because it opens my mind to the endless possibilities of God's endless, redeeming love. And that's where I choose to look and rest.

Redemptive Love

My husband recently wrote a sincere and beautiful tribute to me, his wife. It was honest, and completely lacking in cheese products, cheese sauces, or even essence-of-cheese. He also posted a photo of me where I look like a stupid little girl who just stole a cookie. I mean, he admitted to the world that he was decidedly in love with a dorky looking girl from darp-ville.

Running on empty myself, My heart gingerly tasted the offering he had laid out for me. I knew there was no manipulation in his intent, as he is not nearly as under-handed as *I* can sometimes be.

For me, the real thought provokers were in the comment section. Comments of admiration from people who wished their marriages were as idyllic as Captain I Wonder's surely was. Observers who surely wished their days were filled with wine and tributes, foot rubs and roses, and knowing glances cast across vats of mass produced yellow-brand macaroni and cheese.

Well, after a fourteen year honeymoon of bliss, here's what I say.
Anything worth keeping is worth going to battle for. Its like anything else real in life. The beauty will get smudged with the reek of excrement, your feet will get thick and ugly with corns and blisters from the times when plodding on is the best you could do. The cozy love nest can feel constrictive and prickly some times. The whole game of marriage, once out of its shiney, colourful packaging, can appear to be nothing like what you'd envisioned when you first spotted it in that mail order catalogue. (No, I did not order Brian from the "Schwartzgreig Classifieds")

But here's the mystery, the redemption. Two imperfect, selfish people determine to love intentionally. They decide that in their ignorance, naiveity, and imcompetence to do all this stuff together. Imperfectly. Painfully. Awkwardly.

Chins set like steel, feeling the fear mixed with determination, we go on loving even if it does not add up in the immediate accounting sense. Even when we hate the sight and smell of each other. Even when we understand nothing, we have no answers, and the lovers nectar has soured.

Precious, powerful, overcoming love that when the black winds howl, allows me to feel my hand clenched forever in his, my fears soothed by the sound of his voice propelling me forward.

**This is no way meant to say anything about marriages that end in pain. This is a reflection of my journey alone, and not in any way an attempt to suggest that human love and commitment are enough to subdue any evil. (Although that is a beautiful thought!)

Yeah, Thats What I Said

I have the biggest, strongest, most handsome brothers in the entire world. My brothers could beat up your brothers, your daddies, and your li'l dog, too.



I have the prettiest, toughest, most loving and compassionate sisters in the world. My sisters could pound your sisters, your mommies, and your Skipper doll too.



None of us could have imagined in which ways we would grow to become broad shouldered people of love, brave enough to carry one anothers burdens.



If we moved into a more measurable arena, we've likely been a testament to the reliability of statistics. We've know gum disease, violent sexual assault, divorce, chronic migraine headaches, alcoholism, eating disorders, bad haircuts, too much ham, cancer, premature death, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders and drug abuse.

We've known wealth, we've known poverty.



We've known wisdom, we've known folly.

I don't believe that there is a person in my family who does not have wisdom. Its a gift that we received by the grace of God but with a lot of credit to my father Abraham, the father of many.(No, really, my natural born father's name is Abraham, and he is indeed the father of many).

This does not ensure that wise choices have consistently been made but I believe in the underlying legacy of such a gift. I believe there is redemption in it. It allows us to be less fearful in the face of impossible situations.



This has been especially apparent in the face of the very large, painful "statistics" mentioned above. Many people in my family had enough reason to lie down, lie low, and choose to keep their life boats floating as gently as possible to avoid any future upheaval.

But thats not our way.



No, my big beautiful family is brave and they love dang

erously. If information comes along that challenges their tidy sunday school columns, they examine the way Jesus loved the slutty, the sneaky, the smelly. Then they go back to the central message which is Love, and they LOVE with great, beautiful abandon.

My firstborn brother by practical

standards, grew up in a different family than I did. Our birthdays are sixteen years apart, and I have no memory of ever sharing a house with him. Over the past few years though, a new dynamic has emerged. Brother and sister by virtue of birth, yes. But more than that, true brother and sister from the perspective of mutual respect and the desire to interact. Recently, he stuck that loving and never trite "neck" of his out and sent me a long e-mail without black and white answers or judgements. Just beautiful affirmations, truths, tender love, and a deep faith in God that blows all those cheesey, churchy books straight off my bookshelf.



"As I examine the lives of people around me that are redeeming, caring for others in a determined way is always central and restorative. I have benefitted enormously from such people, and the list is very long.

I wish for you peace, and strength to carry your burdens, and victory over the demons. I hope the Shepherd's voice comes through clearly, even if only quietly, and even if amid the noise of the wild all around."



That's my brother.

He's not afraid of the wild, and he's got my back.

Don't mess with me, 'cuz I have a feeling he wouldn't be afraid to meet up with you and yours in an empty lot if you so desire.
Well, in love of course.
Restorative, redeeming love.

Running on Empty

I believe it's more an issue of the gauge not working properly.

So, I'll borrow from Paul again.

"Get along among yourselves, each of you doing your part. Gently encourage the stragglers, and reach out for the exhausted, pulling them to their feet. Be patient with each person, attentive to individual needs. And be careful that when you get on each other's nerves you don't snap at each other. Look for the best in each other and always do your best to bring it out."

*with special thanks to Al K., Janice, Kathy B, Carol, Kathy D, and God who I stubbornly will continue to insist is good and loving.

Thank God For Brothers With Cabins

I did a little magic over the weekend.

Weary of the battlefield, I made myself disappear. The change in location ensured a sharp decrease in the "fight or flight" response. In fact, the only time I rose from the sectional was to ensure my gin levels or maybe to dip a cracker into cheese.

I did bump into the odd giant wolf or two (or did they come in with me?) None were slayed, but we did shake hands on a tentative peace treaty.

Now, at home again, methinks I'll spend my energy not on sharpening my weapons, but rather on learning to most accurately discipher the sheep from the wolves. Then we'll go find us some local green pastures to lie down in.

Simple Living

The mania of our current society has created renewed desire for the less complicated times of the past. There are many publications out there for you to access that secret information on simplifying your life. But if you want to listen to them, you'll have to get up from your warm computer chair right now, transfer your sorry self out to a cold vehicle, then drive to Chapters where you'll be tempted to spend your hard-earned money on a latte while you're perusing the aisles. While you are there, you'll likely run into that old boyfriend from high school who always makes you feel nervous and stupid. You'll probably see a lot of books and magazines on self-improvement that make you feel really lousey about your current self. You'll notice people who have regularily left their houses since 1981, and notice that maybe that's totally irrelevant because those really wide elastic belts are back in fashion, especially with long, clingy, vertically striped acrylic sweaters. Then you'll kick yourself for having thrown them all out just last week when you went about trying to simplify your life without the guidance of a published author. The affect of these stressors will likely engage the compulsive componant of your mind and you'll soon find yourself in the mall, tossing throw cushions, sweaters, and ottomans into your shopping cart with great abandon whilst casting nervous glances at your watch because you really should get going on that list of stuff that you should have been working since 7:00 am this morning.

So, lets keep it simple, shall we?

Lets get started with the kids bedrooms. Keep them in cribs or toddler beds for as long as possible. They come enveloped in heavy plastic which eliminates the need for absorbant sheets and mattress protectors. If the precious kiddies have little OOpsies in the night, the urine, drool, and vomit will simply roll off the edge and save you a lot of laundry the following morning.

A lot of televisions is worth the initial investment. A minimum of one in the kitchen, bathroom, family room, living room, and all bedrooms is a sensible place to start. It completely eliminates the need for teaching and learning social skills. Since much tv programming now is also educational , it will also help to free up any time that you have been using to instruct your children on life-navigating skills. You will also be able to give away all books, games, messy craft kits, cars with sound effects, tiny lego pieces, and electronic pianos. Hence you have eliminated clutter, and dealt with noise pollution.

When the tv's get a little dull, try the kids on the computer. Google earth is an excellent place to begin. Early on even the smallest of children will learn to spin that virtual globe round and round and round at a dizzying speed. Hence, they've recreated the mania of our actual lives, but without the noise and clutter of hockey lessons and equipment, a large cumbersome piano, and ballet leotards, (we don't want to bother with the inconvenience of body image problems either).

The very, very most critical way to simplify your life is to keep your relationships to a minimum. Banking cards have eliminated the need to engage with tellers, mail keys simplify access to your bills, blogging can substitute for relationships with real people, and the tvs should take care of any marital instability. When you are forced into relationships, keep things as minimalistic as possible. Stick to the safe, simple responses to most questions, and smile pleasantly at most times. "I'm fine", and "No problem" are excellent choices for most concerned inquisitions.

If you have problems implementing any of these concepts, please don't come crying to me.
I'm trying to simplify over here.

Parenting, Chapter 4

The crazy thing about being a parent is that you started out this whole overly optimistic project by believing some idylic nonsense about "happily ever after". Somewhere between the notions of "her pomegranates will satisfy you always" and "His eyes are like doves by the water streams" all that symbolism just sort of got to you. All those flocks of new shorn goats mingled with the mhrrh and honey and HOLY SHA-MOLEY the lilies and saffron began to procreate!

Right about that time, you and he emerged from the mountain haunts of the leopards and became fully aware of some other realities. Little goats and doves all over the place. Dripping snot and poo and yelling for chocolate milk and monster cookies.

What the -----?! Time to wake on up and smell the saffron.

Here's where the mama-idealists skip ahead to the whole Proverbs 31 thing. They trade in their two gazelles for a business degree, do a little sewing on the side, and pass up the wine and milk for running out and planting a little vineyard for her and hers. Apparently right about the time she comes in with a cluster of grapes, she can expect her children to rise up and call her blessed. Her husband will want for nothing.

Now, what separates me from the people who seem to have made this transition smoothly? The serene ones who spend time doing sand art and cooking with their children-- those parents who start insisting on good manners by the age of four hours instead of waiting til the beasts are 12, then yelling at them to SMARTEN UP! ?

I think I spent Waaaaaaaaaaaay to much time in that leopard cave admiring rods of gold set with chrysolite. By the time I had fully exited and my eyes adjusted to the new lighting, I think I just went into full blown shock. The kiddies were wild little animals. The closest we'd come to the proverbian formula was for the kids to rise up on one elbow and call out for more blessed popcorn.

Its hard to tell if Mr happily-ever-after is still mesmerized by the nectar of my pomegranates when I'm gently reminding him about garbage day and occasionally letting words like "selfish bastard" escape through my clenched teeth. The teeth that used to look like a flock of sheep coming up from the washing.

Maybe its time to make these passages more relevant to present time. Maybe the best we can do is dress in purple lounge suits (with lycra) and throw some wool or flax into the occasional frozen casserole. Maybe instead of watching over the affairs of our households and not eating the bread of idleness, we could snack on mojos and gingerbread whilst watching Entertainment Tonight and tut-tutting over the bad people having illicit affairs.

Our children will become so disillusioned by the mistakes that we make, that they will rebel. Their elbows will come off the table. They will look adults in the eye, smile, and say "please" and "thank you". They will always stay fully alert, never confusing a human for a dove washed in milk, or a lilly dripping with myrrh. Then when they grow up and pro-create, we can sit back and strengthen ourselves with raisins, exhausted from leaping across mountains and bounding over hills like gazelles and young stags.

"She's a Little Loopy"

I've been saddened by the church community's often inappropriate and ungracious attitude to people who suffer with illnesses that are a little more "grey area" than say diabetes or cancer. Do we have to react in fear and judgement when we are confronted by people who shake our beliefs about God, wellness, faith, and other ambiguities? If a person is diagnosed, or is living with a mental illness, why do we have to ask more nervous questions about faith and healing than we do when someone finds out they have celiac's disease?

I'm relieved and grateful to be part of a faith community that does not categorize one from the other. Still, being a survivor myself, I must own the fact that I would feel particularily vulnerable to stand before my people and tell my story. I would want to be able to conclude that my victory is consistent and unshakable. I would want people to have a reason to laugh and clap at my conclusion.

How do we make peace with the messiness of life? How can we?

The longer I live, and the more I ruminate, I think that I agree more and more with my blogger friend Judy who describes her image of God "spilling out of our gashes". On this side of eternity I don't think I'll ever be entirely healed. Oh, I believe that I am, but I just don't think it'll feel that way. I'll struggle with negative thoughts. I'll not achieve quite as monumental tasks as I imagine when I think of being "successful" in this life. And if it were possible to fully arrive, what would I need God for on a day to day basis?

I'm beginning to see that the powerful ones amongst us are those who don't apologize for their scars. Nor do they dwell on them, allowing pain of the past to define who they are. Acknowledging life's pain and messiness is different than being controlled by it. Here's where I need God. I don't want to barge on ahead on my own determination and sheer grit, with a dash of rebellion and change the world, the church, and all the people who annoy me.

I want to be powerful and impact my world, but not by myself. Not without direction and conviction from my maker.

So its also helpful to remind myself and others that courage is not the absence of fear. I am just going to keep working at resting instead of struggling, feeling fear without being mastered by it, and leaning into the bigness of my God.

Amen.

Suckitude

It's a term coined by Bobita. I like it.

Yesterday after church potluck I got engaged in a conversation with a group of about eight women sitting in a circle. (only one or two of which I really knew very well). I got sort of caught up in what I was saying- maybe a little carried away with the passion of it, and threw in a word or two like "dammit" and "shitty". As the words escaped my parted lips, I sort of heard and saw myself in slow motion, as if from a distance.... but just barged on ahead, carried forward by the momentum of what I was saying.

Methinks I may have forgotten to use some church etiquette. Not for myself, but maybe out of consideration for the others who I subjected to my "common-folk" semantics. And dwelling on it, trying to decide whether I had been inappropriate or not, and what I should do about it, I began to feel a case of "suckitude" settling down on me.

That afternoon we took our kids to the pool for a swim time. Not only was I subjected to the character building exercise of wearing a bathing suit in public, I wasn't even able to indulge in a good old-fashioned game of calling myself a long list of unflattering words. (I gave it up for lent) To compound the stress, our beautiful, adolescent princess was also in one of her moods. We had to listen to her go on and on about how we should have waited for her friend to get home and come along with us so that she wouldn't have to PERISH from the unbearable boredom of hanging out with her family. (wearing her "ancient " bathing suit, on top of it all.)

After swimming everyone was just too itchy to go straight to sleep. Micah was worried about school the following day. Sam played loudly in bed with his plastic army men. The girls kept flying out of their bedrooms remembering crucial and vital bits of information that they needed to share with me immediately. I actually began to look forward to Monday. They would go off to school and I could fill my day with more simple, manageable toddler things. Read stories. Eat snacks. Make play dough snakes.

Monday morning. Children are piling into their respective clumps of outdoor gear. Micah is slumped on the floor no where near his backpack or snowpants. The slightest bit of questioning brings forth tears of tremendous drama. This guy is stressed out about school. Even the impending loss of gameboy and computer priveleges is not worth getting his butt off to the schoolhouse.

Well, I was feeling kind of sucky anyway. I may as well phone his teacher, tell her that Micah is tired of listening to her yell at kids, that he doesn't understand his math work, that he wants to quit school, and go work full-time at Chicken Chef deep-frying stuff.

That can of worms fully opened, I forget that I'd invited a friend over for coffee until she shows up to the tune of me grinding my teeth over Micah's hysterical tears.

Suckitude.
Treatment options anyone?

Phenomenal

"Like Ruthie Foster, I think it’s time to embrace our “phenomenalness”. Oh, I’m not saying we should all start bragging about ourselves, or taking on overly-inflated opinions of ourselves, but what’s wrong with believing that God made us beautiful and talented and phenomenal? Sure we’re all flawed – that’s a given – but we all have within us the seeds of great potential. Believing otherwise is doubting God’s design and ability to work through us."*

(*borrowed from Heather-the-phenomenal )

I was more than a little pleased to come across Heather's thoughts over at Fumbling for Words this morning. I agree that the Christian community, especially in the past, has confused humility with self-deprication and stunted women in their potential to impact the world. We have only so many hours in a day, and a limited number of days in the week. How much of that time should we spend on wishing we looked different, smelled different, had someone else's giftings? I've always loved Paul's model of the church, likened to the parts of the human body:

"... we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ's body, let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't."

I think this year for lent, I'm going to give up self-depracating thoughts and spoken words. Not only will I seek out beauty in others, I will recognize my own. I will make choices stemming from an honest estimation of my God-given gifts and abilities. I will begin to practise what Paul teaches in Romans 12.

"God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life- your sleeping, eating, going-to-work and walking-around life- and place it before God as an offering.... You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."

Now, that's phenomenal!

Parenting: Chapter 3

Chapter Three: How to Raise Children to Become Excellent Assembly Line Workers:

Do not encourage autonomy or personal responsibility.
Keep children dependent on you as their moral compass. Enforce this by standing fully erect, with hands on hips, and using the word "punishment" a great deal. Establish yourself as the feared authority with powers well beyond what the child could ever hope for.

You will know that you are being punitive enough if your children consistently practise the following behaviors:

Children:
a) Furtively engage in a negative behavior so their caregiver doesn't notice.
b) When someone gets hurt; they immediately claim to have been out of the country at the time and there's no way that you could associate them with the incident.
c) When stealing property or candy they adamently refuse to take responsibility.
d) When allowed to eat more than concentration camp rations: they fully believe that their caregiver is being manipulated and taken advantage of. Children must never trust their own instincts or bodily signals.
e) The child accidentally falls down or bumps self: immediately they ought to cry their loudest, teariest tears and pin the blame on which ever child is within the immediate periphery.
f) One should hear children practise the words "allowed" or "not allowed" as often as possible.
g) At every possible oppurtunity, youngsters should tell on other children.
Tattle your face off.
The worse your peers look, the better you will appear.

Now, if you have a secret lifelong dream of being a drill sargaent, a prison guard, or a power-hungry mall security guard, then this parenting style is perfect for you. For the first ten years or so of parenting, you will be very, very busy growing extra eyes at the back of your head, handing out punishments, and reinforcing your child's belief that its a dog-eat-dog world out there. The home is no place for your child to feel safe or to tell the truth, but more of a training ground for the tough world out there where its strictly "survival of the fittest".

When they enter the teen years, you will have to try and figure out a way to stand taller, look tougher, and yell louder. Never give children the impression that they can be trusted.

Always assume that they are here to make you look bad.

Doing Business in Dirty Sweats

A few days ago, Brian and I made our way to a tall office building in the big city. Time to face facts: we were in need of some good counsel. We'd had challenges in the past, but this was a whole new row to hoe.

Back in the day when Brian was in university full-time and managing The Keg in his spare time to support me and the babies, we had our share of challenges. I used to moarn in those days that all I really wanted was enough money to have a nice clothesline, and a block of cheddar cheese in the fridge. Cheese was a real indulgence in those days.

Fast forward 10-odd years and picture us with a house full of kids, the fridge bursting with cheddar and boursin, a collection of debts to repay, and both adults gainfully employed. It seems we had survived to the point of having some choices and needing to ask some hard questions. Would we be able to retire before the age of eighty? Had we painted ourselves irrevocably into any corners?

Our chosen advisor began by asking us a few questions about our jobs. He seemed well pleased with all of Brian's answers, including that he had a retirement fund, some benefits, and that he was in the field that he really enjoyed. Then he turned to me.

The gist of his summation was that I was too nice. I needed to become more calculating. Kind, but calculating. "You need to think like a business woman"; were his words, I believe. He was eloquent, but his basic message was: "If you're going to work that hard, you really should be making some half decent money".

I don't like to be told. I don't like being the focus of attention, unless it was MY idea first. I don't either like to be set up for failure. "Aim low, and you can't miss" is more agreeable to me. Still, I had to think through what the man had said. Words like: "You don't have to be the cheapest daycare in town, you have to be the best", and "target your customers- they'll choose you because of your reputation, and they will respect you for it".

I missed my ten oclock bedtime that night, all that stimulation and virtual hand-slapping made me feel a little tensed up. I liked the idea of not working six days a week, and actually catching up, possibly going on a family holiday before Arianna turned thirty-seven but, the whole business thing made my skin crawl. I'm a hearts and mush type, not a rows and columns gal.

Sleeping on it seemed sensible. I dreamed that I was trying to locate a phone so that I could call work to apologize that there was no way I could make it on time. I went from phone to phone, but not one had numbers on it. I just couldn't dial the number.

I awoke to the sound of a truck idleing in my driveway. I flew out from under the covers, hair wild and flannels flapping as I raced down to open the door to child and father, cell phone in hand.

Maybe polishing up my image would be simpler than I'd imagined. Like the tired motels along the trans-Canada whose weathered signs read: "Air conditioning! Colour tvs!" I could work on a poster to hang in the local grocery store:

Tired Woman
Home Anyway
Sometimes Dressed
Always Apologetic

Colour TV!!!

Dealing With Dying

There is a direct correlation between the open ended, uncontrollable event of death and the manifestation of self-destructive thoughts and/or behaviors. The frustratration of grappling with death is complicated by finding one's mind gravitating to old thought patterns that are unrelated, unhelpful and terribly distracting.

Death has been kind to me, as I've been relatively unscathed. My parents were not young when they had me, and even as a child, I played mind games to prepare myself for their inevitable deaths. The one thing I tried to prepare for has so far been unnecessary. They live on, active in their eighties.

My mental calesthenics did nothing for me when four-year-old Faye died from a massive cancerous tumour. Her body grew increasingly smaller, as the visible blue and black growth grew ever larger. I was sixteen, and her naive and ill-prepared baby-sitter.

Most recently was the sudden death of my brother Ken. The news of terminal cancer reached us on the last day of the school year. Two weeks into the following term, we attended his memorial service.

There were other funerals between the parentheses of Faye and Ken. Mostly elderly aunties and uncles, my grandmother who lived happily until the age of niney-five, and some friends' mothers or fathers. My part in those deaths was mostly thinking of the people who were close to the deceased. It didn't seem to have a direct impact on my day to day living.

There were also the less measurable deaths of friendships. Some were dark and ugly. Like my best friend deciding to give her virginity to my very recently EX boyfriend. That was a death to me. Our shared group of friends died along with her and him. They were frightened of my pain, and hid away. It seems that to them, it was me who had passed away. I limped away, alone, and my disloyal brain simultaneously turned on me, engaging full time in detrimental patterns of thought and belief.

Mental illness maimed another friendship. My legs felt amputated at the knee. My lungs lost half their capacity. My heart constricted and expanded wildly. My entire body was filled top to bottom with fear and nervous energy. I was propelled into completely foreign territory without so much as a moments notice.

So why dwell on the sadness of the past?
What good can come of it?
What can we learn from the patterns observed?

It appears that the blobby grey mass that lies beneath my tresses requires some reprogramming. It is wired to a default switch that is tripped when the uncontrollable agony of death is forced upon it. It instantly suits up in lycra and hits the track, hard. At some psychological level, it has been indoctrinated to believe that if it cannot control the uncontrollable, then it must generate a substitute. Even if the substitute is one hundred percent unrelated to the actual brain pain. The brain is under strict order to spend at least eighty percent of its output on grappling with the chosen substitute.

The outcome? So much energy is diverted from questions that cannot be answered, that it would appear on paper that the original issue has been resolved. Except, that I don't think its working. I think that the substitute begins to grow its own tumours. The substitute appears to be larger than life. It seems that if the substitute could just be evicted, the brain would have complete peace, complete clarity.

But the brain doesn't really want to evict the substitute, because laying dormant underneath it is the original, agonizing, unresolvable horrer of death and betrayal.

Why I Insist On Working Weekends

Any sane person would advise that after spending eleven hours a day, five days a week, running a home daycare it would be sensible to take weekends off. I often say that to myself as well, especially when I look at the calendar and really wish that I had forty-eight hours or so to do what sensible people do. Like.... maybe watch tv or have a shower or get a haircut or get to that list of stuff that's undone or get the bedrooms vacuumed or make twenty thousand meatballs or defrost the freezer or join the gym.

Exactly.

Who would want to take weekends off?

Take today for example. I slept in until a shameful 7:20. I got up, made coffee, soaked the dishes that some ungrateful vagrants left lying around the night before, threw in a load of laundry, then took a fistful of hard earned cash and spent two hours spending it on cheerios and ground beef. That brought me to 2:20. Seven hours into my ten hours off. Better squeeze in some "me" time. I vacuumed the slimey excuses for bedrooms, scooped two hundred teeny-tiny lego pieces into some plastic drawers, threw out a creature made out of cracked egg shells, unearthed some petrified socks, and spent some time on google researching some women's group ideas. Time to go to work.

"Work" consists of one adult individual who requires my company and assistance in her home. There's a lovely warm fireplace, a fridge full of food that I did not prepare, a phone that rarely rings, and no toys. Not even one.

After enjoying a dinner that I did not prepare, loading a deliciously few dishes in the dishwasher, and helping with bedtime routines, I check the clock and tally the hours left on shift. Three hours to go. All the tasks have been completed. Looks like I'll have to watch some television. "The Notebook" is on, and I settle in with a hot cup of tea and a box of kleenex. The commercials provide that coveted time I've been craving for my mind to wander. The movie provides that catharsis I didn't know I wanted to cleanse my body of some toxins via my tear ducts. The fireplace and fleece throw make me cozy and warm. Its quiet. Every conversation in the movie is heard by me, uninterrupted. No one asks for a snack. No one wants company in the bathroom. Even the phone rests respectfully in its cradle.

And in two weeks..... someone is going to insist on sending me a cheque for all my unselfishness.

And, that's why I insist on working weekends.

The Intervention

Our unauthorized study in cryogenics has confirmed my suspicions that we are:

a) difficult to kill
b) prone to severe side-effects such as couch-potato-itis.
c) this is further confirmed and compounded by our rear ends actually flattening from parking on them well beyond the two hour limit.

I began to feel panicky and almost criminal when my offspring began to speak exclusively in memorized commercials, and experiment in some cross-gender fashion options.

Time to get radical about our addiction to screen stimulants. I put us all on a restricted diet, effective immediately. The children showed some severe withdrawal symptoms. They had to relearn how to make eye contact with real people, redevelop muscle mass to raise their sorry butts off the couch and learn to walk again, and worst of all: learn to entertain themselves!

Naturally, there was a painful transitional time for all six of us as we raised our eyes from our various flat screens, and we forced instead to interact with each other. The first week was downright frightening. I suspected that my husband had actually quietly hated me for a decade or more, that our offspring's formative years were way past us and we'd lost that window of oppurtunity to have any positive influence on them whatsoever. They spoke mostly in grunts and squeals, punctuated with prepubescent tears and accusations. We'd forgotten about the baby in the family, thinking that he was about 18 months old and tolerating the tantrums. But when the screens went off, we realized much to our surprise that he had turned four, spent his time in a pink tutu with spaghetti straps, and hadn't had a decent haircut in years.

Once we elbow-greased our way through those first memorable days, some new dynamics came into play. The girls who by all accounts hated each other began to spend time together, with no blood. One could actually hear the sounds of giggling and imaginative games instead of the customary selfish and territorial rhetoric. Micah resurrected his Calvin and Hobbes book and polished up his reading skills. He learned to make eye contact with humans, noticed his long forgotten brother, and taught him some wrestling and pillow fighting skills.

Sam cut down his pink tutu wearing by opting to stay in his spiderman pajamas at least 50% of the time. He also opted for hotwheels slippers instead of lipstick-red stillettos after recognizing the difficulty in shooting hoops balancing on those beauties.

Once Brian and I got over the initial shock of managing six people in withdrawal, we began to (wait for it...) have conversations! Brian had time to fix the wiring in the dining room which had rendered half the outlets to be purely aesthetic. I found time to sew Sam's duvet cover, and put away most of the Christmas decorations. While in the giant-walk-in-closet that doubles as a basement, I came across a carefully preserved box. It contained every card, love note, and enclosure that Brian and I had exchanged throughout our dating life and early years of marriage.

It turns out that I had great taste in men at the tender age of 22. Turns out he was a sweet mushball who wrote me poems and drew me pictures and complimented me well beyond the Dr Phil recommended dosage. Turns out that not watching tv made me remember what silly fun we had together, why we didn't want to live without each other, and why we still don't. And I don't think I would have remembered that nearly as well with my flattened rear end parked in front of "W5" or "What Not to Wear".

The Headless Chicken Dance

Lost my head some time ago, but I'm still pecking away for grain. Turns out I don't really need my tiny little head to keep doing what it is that I do...

Mondays have been blurring into thursdays at breakneck speed, burying me under oatmeal and tax papers, toast crumbs and valentines. I crave the time to let my mind wander, to change up some things around the house, or just to get to the bank. My drivers liscence payment is due, and I need a picture but few and far between are the days when I manage to both shower and get dressed well enough that my pants are on the bottom and the top is on the top ( a sign of brilliance, I've been told).

The winter has been unforgivingly cruel. We don't dream of going for a toddler walk, as I'd likely freeze one or two of them solid within a half block. The ice rink behind our house has been deathly silent for weeks, not counting the town truck that faithfully dumps more water on it every few days. How that truck doesn't spit out ice cubes is beyond me.

Its not that there is a lack of stuff to do. Its just all quite repetitive and dull. Out of sheer desparate boredom, I've been going through mysterious dusty boxes in the basement that we moved here from our old house a few years ago. A fair bit is landing up at thrift shop, and an equal amount goes straight to the landfill. Shame on me, but its just that I feel like I am being buried alive. If the boredom and the cold doesn't kill me, all this stuff will surely suffocate me.

"So, what is it that you want time and space to ruminate on ?", you ask?

Well, our church is on the small group band wagon. (I've stuff to say there that would fill another post, but I'm too lethargic to go there right now. I've been breathing the same, stale, indoor air for three weeks now, and I just really can't trust myself to speak of anything but drivvle right now.)

(Not that this is drivvle. Is "Drivvle" a word?)

As I was saying: a few weeks ago a booklet was passed out at church outlining all the groups that the church endorsed. I found myself flipping through it repeatedly, coming to the end, and realizing that I was looking for something specific and was not finding it. After a few days of this (READ: small head) I concluded that I was looking for an oppurtunity to explore self-image in light of our position as women of God. I don't want a bitch and groan session. I want to learn stuff. I want it to be practical, revolutionary, life-changing.

I want to be able to go through dusty old boxes that live in my head and clear out all the clutter for good. I want to breathe some fresh air.

Peck, peck, peck.

Parade of Homes

Brian's entire family seems to have been born with blueprints in hand and the genetic inheritence of skills for construction sites. Physically, they all look suspiciously like the mailman, Schwann's man, the meter man, the travelling salesman.... but all my questions were put to rest when I observed their commonality with drafting proposals and the sheer joy that fills the room at the meer mention of additions, garages, or house plans.

On Sunday, the women of the group found ourselves on a parade of homes, of sorts. Two brothers had recently constructed a house for resale and we decided to go and give our assessments. This morphed into a scavenger hunt/show-and-tell as I was challenged by my malicious sisters-in-law to find each of their houses in succession. We then admired newly painted walls, new flooring, some nifty appliances, kitchen designs, crown moulding, gorgeous couch sets, decorating ideas, and a shocking lack of clutter.

"We won't be including MY home on this tour!", I said, picturing my ratty couches held up by tuna cans, the cheap malanene cabinetry, the laminate flooring minus baseboards, the duplo on the china cabinet, the primed bannister, the paint splodges where I tested colours about a million years ago, then got distracted, the closet door that keeps falling off, the nail holes we never filled......... not to mention the spider webs (and summer was a long, long time ago...), the mis-matched kitchen chairs, the complete absence of curtains and blinds, and the clutter, CLUTTER, clutter!

Now, I'm not really embarrassed by my home. Its our home-- its where we are a family, where we have hilarious dinner parties, where kids come to paint, where we fight, where we love one another. That doesn't make it better or worse than anyone else's home, but it does make it special.

This got me thinking about all the homes that I have warm memories of. There was my best friend's farm house when we were little girls. It was old and quirky. The bathroom was in the middle of the house, just off the kitchen. There was a hand-written note on the wall suggesting that employing the fan was always a good idea. The only bathtub was in the half finished basement. That always made the idea of sleepovers a little threatening... to think of going down to the furnace room for a nice relaxing bath...

That house is one of the happiest places I ever was in. We rummaged through clutter for cake mixes and old pizza mixes and learned to "cook". We had Fantasy Island parties on Saturday nights in their kitchen. We had zillions of sleepovers. We played hide-and-seek. We tricked her mom into thinking we were cleaning up after ourselves by running the vacuum cleaner while we read comics on her brother's bed.

As an adult, some of my favourite memories are spending time with my collector friends. One of them lives in a giant castle of an ancient house, filled top to bottom with interesting repurposed furniture and ecclectic tidbits. My other friend lives in an old stone farmhouse that "wrote the book" on country living- complete with laying hens, a goat, and a grove of trees for the kids to make forts in.

In total contrast, I have friends who live in show homes. White leather. Real art. Pristine design. The most amazing fridges. I mean, I could be happy just living in her fridge!

I have friends who live in house trailers that drop worms from the ceiling every spring. I have a friend with three couches in her back yard, and just one chair to sit on in her living room.

It's not the physical structure of any abode that draws me back for another look. It's apparant that wealth of character comes in many packages, floor plans and colour schemes. The commonality of warmth in trendy or trashy is what has real people coming back for more. That diversity of taste and preference displayed in friends' dwelling places is simply an extention of what we celebrate about their personal qualities.

So, thanks for letting me in, everyone.
More than that, thanks for letting me into your realities, and sharing a bit of how you see it.