Happy Happy St Valentine's Day!

Start 'er off with a honeyed heart-shaped whole wheat toast.
Rounded out with some last minute heart-felt lovin'.

Ah... Young love.

Dear Josh

You are very cute. You are Good but you ben bab (bad) sometimes.

Write back.

How would you like your toast? With or without anti-seizure medication? Perhaps a little something to keep those fits and tantrums away? Remember.... Love is patient... Love is kind...

How could I not love this job?!

Is this a modern day Saint that I see here before me?

Saint Sam practising his new-found penmanship for the low pressure kindergarten Valentine festival of good lovin'.

I love Valentine day and here are the reasons why:

No one has ever started a war on whether this holiday is appropriate, or whether we should say "Merry Love" or "Happy Day", or whether using the word "Valentine" is culturally sensitive.

No one ever asks; "Are you ready for Valentine's?"

And you just can't get too much love.

Or too many red cinnamon hearts.

Happy Valentine Day, everyone!

Apathy

Yeah... I should put away that laundry.

And get those kids to bed.

Clean up that table.

And- oh mmy! That porch.

Those dusty bunnies wouldn't stand a chance if I would just run that mighty vacuum.

Oh darnit. Right. That cat really needs to get fixed.

I was gonna figure out e-bay so I could sell off some of my immense collections to pull together some money for the kid's europe trip...

oh.... that bed. Too bad that it got stripped and washed and re-made yesterday, just in time to be pee-peed again. I don't suppose I get a credit for having done it yesterday? No?

well. I guess I should go make that bed.

That wall bothers me every single day. It's awful and ugly. It got patched about five years ago. I should go buy some paint, wash that wall, and look forward to painting it this weekend.

Yawn.

Yeah, there's stuff that I should probably do.

Like a Fish Out of Water....

.....like tits on a bull.
Does anybody like feeling out of place?

Personally, I hate it. And of course, I tend to overanalyze it. I try different ways of coping with it- telling myself to "just be myself". (does anybody actually understand what that is? If so, could you enlighten me?) Or telling myself that I ought to just concentrate on engaging other people, drawing them out, and then enjoying hearing about life from their perspectives. Which only works if people are interested in talking about their lives. Which people are not necessarily interested in, which is why I am a fish out of water in any case. If conversation exists entirely in conversation realms of which I have zero or no interest in, no desire to foster interest in, and quite frankly freak me out..... Then what?

I land up feeling shitty about myself because if I can't meet people in conversation, then what is there? Which brings me back to overanalyzing.

Are there situations in which it is enough to simply endure, try to use your manners, try not to think too much, and recognize that as a fish out of water and as tits on a bull, you simply can draw no real conclusions about anything until you find yourself in a different situation where you don't feel like a pee-peed your pants baby alive in a polly pocket world? (can you say.... run-on sentence?!)

Okay, people. comment. Tell me if I am the only person who tortures herself with questions such as these.

Tell me how YOU cope.

The Day An Eyeball Ruled My Life

It's something how a tiny speck can rule your life sometimes.

I'm not very good at quoting scripture, but after yesterday's dramatic events, I have had a few Biblical references come to mind. One of them is when Jesus suggest that people don't go around looking to remove splinters from other people's eyes until they have gotten around to getting the planks out of their own eyes.

The other one is where Paul talks about the tongue being like the rudder of a ship- a small piece with a mighty ability to move things in any direction.

In the home of the Hildebrands, it was the eye that moved the ship. Or Cheri's mini van. Or my butt into action to try and solve the problem of the boy's eye that would not stop irritating him. Roughly three weeks now, we've inconsistently treated Micah's eye with polysporin to try and help his hurting, irritating, inflamed, teary left eye. It just wouldn't get better. It didn't spread either, and didn't get crusty, so I was pretty confident that it wasn't pinkeye we were dealing with here.

Sometimes my mommy guilt-o-meter spikes because it is so challenging to get my kids to the Dr when they are having problems. I have to think of all the children I care for. I have to think of all their parents; some of whom prefer not to have their children left with a sub. I have to think of how to get around without a vehicle. I have to think of who is coming over when, and who comes for lunch, and what parent comes when, and at least twenty other things that I haven't remembered to think of.

But I do have Cheri.
Who is pretty clever.
And helpful.

Cheri figured that Micah had some foreign body in his eye and suggested that I get him to the Doc. She stayed with the kids so I could get him over there, and why-oh-why did they simply write up another prescription for another eye drop when it was pretty easy to see that if he had an infected eye for three weeks already, it REALLY would have spread to his right eye by now??!!

Which always makes me want to beat my head against a set of stirrups and scream WHY-OH-WHY did I just make fifty million arrangements to get over here to be told something that even I know is not going to resolve this problem?! Why-oh-why do I get the feeling that the medical clinic is set up to frustrate me and to be told to come back in three days if this doesn't help when I have already been using antibiotic eye drops for three weeks without any progress??!!

Which again makes me grateful to have Cheri. She knew that the boy needed eye dye and some serious magnetic looks into the eyeball instead of more drops. She straight away phoned the eye Doc in town and arranged to have him take a look at Micah's eyeball later that afternoon.

More arrangements.
More subs.
More anxiety.
More adults sticking drops in and poking around in Micah's eye and insisting that he must have some crusty discharge? (please, oh please, be pinkeye. We know how to treat that).

But Dr Lecker came through for us. Thank you, Dr Lecker. One drop of dye. One look into that left eyeball and those magical, sensible words: "He has a foreign body stuck to his eyeball that needs to be removed". Ahhh... The sweet words of truth.

Then that gross feeling in the pit of my stomach-- Just how does one remove a something-or-other stuck to your son's precious eyeball?

Dr Lecker got right to the phone to contact an eye specialist in Winnipeg. Within twenty minutes, he had made arrangements for us to meet the Doc in his office, downtown Winnipeg, just moments before rush hour. Whew.

right. No car. Kids at home with sub.

Cheri.
Cheri is an adult, WITH a vehicle. Get her on the horn, tell her in a no nonsense tone that I need her body in my house, and her van keys at my disposal. Threaten her with the withholding of coffee and porriage if she doesn't cooperate fully and immediately. Thank her humbly and most sincerely for being so smart and assertive and making the arrangements for us to see Dr Lecker.

Place said eyeball in vehicle, and head to the Winnipeg Clinic. Hope that children in my care have been accounted for, fed, changed, loved.... accounted for.... Did I mention that?

Arrive at medical clinic. Meet fourth medical professional of the day. Endure more eye drops, more questions about discharge, drops, itches, and pains. More magnifiers up the eyeball.

Then the big cahoona. A pair of tweezers brought directly up to the cornea without a word of warning or explanation. WHAT WOULD YOU DO? Well, my son did what any normal, red-blooded, self-protective human being would do. He jumped back, melted down, and began to weep. He was scared. The Doc looked mad. I wanted to hurt someone. I wanted to use tweezers, without warning, in creative and unloving ways to grown-ups who don't think about what its like to be a kid who has just had four people poke at his eye in the space of five hours.

But what I did was to speak soothingly and lovingly and by the grace of God, CALMLY to my son. I explained to him what was happening. That we were all tired. That the doc was just a guy who knew how to make him better and that we had to trust him, even if it was scarey. That I would stand up at the end of the room and that he should just look at me, be brave, and let the doc take that freeeeeeeeking foreign body out of his poor eyeball.

How proud could I be of my sweet son? My sweet son who has a history of being terrified of strangers? Who as a toddler could not tolerate strangers looking at him, never mind speak to him, or God forbid.... touch him?! This brave ten year old rested his chin back on the eyeball magnifier and did what the doc told him to do. (grumpy, miserable, out-of-touch-with-his-emotions Doctor) That doc used his super duper steady hand, super duper magnifier, and super duper teeny weeny tweezers and lifted out a teeny weeny piece of plastic that was glued to my boy's cornea like so much saran wrap.

That microscopic piece of plastic that ruled my life. That mystified the professioals. That brought out my mother bear. That gave me keys to my hero-friend's van. That little bitty piece of plastic that ruled my son's eyeball for weeks. That gave him a couple of days out of the grade five classroom.

That scrawney piece of plastic that for a short time, was the boss of my life. That became the rudder of this ship. That tempted me to point of various planks in eyeballs around me. That little speck that thankfully, is no longer the boss of us.

It's A Wonderful Life

It's a wondrous thing to live vicariously through one's children. Especially when they get certain giftings that their mother only dreamt of as a teenager. Like coordination. And confidence.

So, what a thrill i t was for me to volunteer as a driver for my daughter's basketball team this past weekend. I think its healthy for parents to immerse themselves in their kids realities when possible. Like a duck out of water, the only thing I was fairly sure of was how to operate a Dodge Caravan on a winter highway in Manitoba winter. The rest of me was there to listen and learn.

It didn't hurt any that our nighttime destination was Brandon- our prior home city.

So, after a rousing afternoon of basketball where our girls slaughtered the opposing team, we headed off for the bright lights of Brandon for some pizza and shut-eye.

It was there, while shovelling spinach salad into my gaping face that I phoned my friend Lory to let her know approximately when I would arrive at her country estate. After I talked to her; she talked to her neighbour; who then spoke to her mother; who then phoned Lory to request my cell phone number. By no small miracle, my cell phone was turned on, and when it vibrated in my pocket I didn't make a metal note to get that weird sensation in my hip looked at by my doctor at next year's physical appointment. I actually recognized it as a vibrating phone and remembered how to answer it.

It was Boler Babe's Neighbor's Mother. Those of you who check comments in the Darfur blog may recognize that name. She said she had something for me, so would be right over to Boston Pizza for the hand-off. I had great fun telling my vanload of young ladies that they'd have to hang around for a few minutes because I had a "parking lot deal" to take care of.

She looked suspicious enough, and came through on her hand-off.

This marvelous wall quilt. Beautifully stitched by BBNM herself. I want to hang it up there on the side of my fabric cubby unit, just above the photo of my dad being a young man, and the wonky log cabin piece that BBNM sent me some time ago. I still like it too much to share, but one day I will and you'll see it over on the other blog. It'll make a million, I am sure.

We were lucky enough during the gap in the tournament to be hosted by someone in Carberry- a friend of the other mom driver. She had the most comfortable couches in the world, and if you look closely, you'll see that underneath that quilt of puppy shapes is yours truly- catching a much needed nap before the last two games and the long ride back home.

Other than staying up until 3:30 am the previous night catching up with Lory and stripping her fertile brain of creative ideas and inspirations.... I've no idea why I needed that nap.

Lory had a gift for me too. She is one of those people who reads about neat ideas on the computer (stumbleupon. if you don't do it; then you MUST) and then actually learns new skills and actually does these neat ideas. I think I almost have her convinced that she is an artist.

She got a serger for Christmas and made this bag out of a thrifted skirt, with a fused plastic front pocket. It's marvelous.

My daughter Jane immediately claimed it, and has toted it off to school all week.

So, maybe I get to live vicariously through my children.

Maybe they get somma dat too.

Oh. And the tournament? Our girls WON!! They were the champions, my friend.

All around, a wonderful life. Well, a wonderful weekend, at the very least.

It's Tough to be a Do-Gooder When Someone Beats You To It

So, it's awfully nice when someone from the church brings you a meal just days or weeks after you've had a wee little baby, isn't it? It sure is. So, when a coordinater type person called me to ask whether I would be willing to make a meal for so-and-so and their brand new shiney sparkly baby, I jumped at the chance to be their hero.

"Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday?"

Well, that was easy. Monday. Not Sunday, because that's the day before Monday and ought not to be messed with. Not Tuesday, because that's not quite Wednesday or Thursday, and one ought to do one's best to protect oneself on such a day.

So, on Monday I made a big supper- theoretically big enough to feed my own grateful crew plus enough to throw a little philanthropy around.

Except that when I put the fettucine into the dish and began to spoon the chicken and vegetable alfredo over it, I got a bit worried about looking like a stingy generous loving neighbour.

And I couldn't have that now, could I?

So, they got a little more than I thought they really needed.
All two of them, plus the baby. But I couldn't let my church lady persona get tarnished now, could I? Could hardly afford that. Better just cook up a little extra fettucine and stir up some extra white sauce for my own family. Scrimp on the chicken and veggies a bit for my own family now. A hard working, meal-giving gal like me couldn't resent such a little bit of extra effort now, could she?

Get a nice insulating towel to wrap that generous meal up in to keep it warm for those poor parents of one and load myself and my noodles into the van to deliver my good Samaritan meal.

Find the address. Balance the vegetabley and chickeny goodness and apple pie in my arm as I reach out to thoughtfully knock and not ring the doorbell, so as not to waken that poor one little baby. Not only does this thoughtful church woman bring casseroles, she also makes it a practise to not wake sleeping babes. Will wonders never cease?

Someone scampers to the door.
I wait in eager anticipation for that gratitude to make all my stirring worthwhile and gratifying.

I get the blank stare.
"Another one?" he says, sadly lacking in gratitude or awe.

Evidently some other church gratitude snatcher had just been there. Sucking all the available affirmation clear out of this guy. Bringing him and his wifey and mommy of one a delicious hot meal. Probably had a salad too. And garlic toast. Cheese garlic toast even. With real crushed garlic, not some pathetic yellow-ish powder shaken out of a smudgey, gritty spice bottle. And I bet she had time to actually bake her apple pie. Not shove it into a ziploc bag and scribble "@375 for 45 min" on the back of an Autopac envelope decorated with flour and lardy fingerprints. She probably took the time for a shower today. Maybe got to the hairdresser's since August and sprung for a colour and cut. She probably had a nice baby card enclosed with her hot meal. Even a gift for the wee new church member.

hhmmmmph.
Well, I tell you. It gets pretty hard to do some good in this town when all these impossibly perfect people get there before me.

If I'm going to get any credit around here, and maybe a nod for being a pretty darned generous church lady, I'm going to have to do something about those Good Deed Snatchers. Meanwhile, at least me and my large and hungry, but incredibly giving and self-sacrificial family could nibble on some fettucine with the occasional sliver of chicken in it.

Hmmmmph.

Flawed

My friend Rod sent over a you tube video that is really funny and insightful and ironic and worth a watch. Check it out, and then help us all remember that yes, our issues are real and painful but Boy- oh-Boy! is it nice to lighten up sometimes!

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=2jXtR_nWhK8

Hmmm... Tryin' To Do The Math...

Could someone please explain to me HOW, if I have this many bags to deliver and send; enough to be a considerable weight in my arms.... How the fabric in my weeney studio just seems to multiply exponentially?

Could it be related to the fact that on the weekends I seem to be compelled to rush out to thrift shops far and wide to recover what lurk there in their depths?

Could it be fueled by a sense of "not enough", or is it more insidious.... like Greed?!
(What if I don't go and someone else gets all the good stuff and they hoard it or don't appreciate it or use it for something ridiculous like *gasp* RAGS??!!)

Ahggg... my heartrate is increasing! Happily, its nearly the weekend, and I can rush out on another rescue mission to insulate my home with poor, neglected, unloved cast-offs. I will love them. I will care for them. I will go out and I will purchase them!

Oh! What a happy family we will be...

Drawing a Line in the (Snow)

I'm sort of looking around for inspiration. Well, at a more base level, I'm looking for some way live on through months more of winter with itchy skin, pale lips, static hair, and the threat of melancholy meltdown.

Heather's posts have been great lately. Smart, gutsy, brave, proactive. Her theme for 2008 is Fearless. That's pretty big. Just thinking about it sort of freaks me out, actually. I envy that, and I love it, but I'm afraid.

A few weeks ago, Brian and i joined some friends in watching "The Mysterious Case of Benjamin Buttons". There was a line in it that went something along these lines: "Sometimes in life you are going along and you find yourself where you really didn't want to be at all. You veered off somewhere, and you see it now. Sometimes life is having the courage to start all over again".

That's what I want.

I want to start from right now. Not from what when wrong back there when... but from right now. I remember when I went through a particularly difficult period in my life, and I chose one single behavior to work on. To work on not engaging in it any more. I used a smiley face on my calendar for all the "good days". But there were times when I had to go with a minute by minute smiley face, because twenty-four hours was just way too long and with one or two or ten screw-ups, I would have to forfeit that smiley face reward. So, I'd start all over again with a new minute.

I think I can do that.
I don't even want to talk about re-learning anymore, because it's so discouraging to look back, and to see an apparent backward slide.
It is what it is, and time will just keep on passing. I think I can start again with small commitments to "do the right thing". Things that won't make me crazier, but promote being well.

Yup. That's it, Heather. Not exactly fearless, but something like telling the fear that its not going to win.

The Elephant In My Head

(no holds barred. Totally making myself vulnerable here. If you are of the harsh and judgemental variety, please click away now.
Now.
Thank you.)

I woke myself up at about four oclock this morning because I was kneading my stomach in my sleep. Taking fistfuls of fat and loose skin and pulling at it. As if to remind myself in my sleep that I ought not to accept this, no matter what my logical mind, my sensibilities, my feminist lionness, my strong and happily aging self keeps gently and compassionately hammering at me during my conscious hours. The Fat Grabber seemed to be saying; "You're not to be okay with this. I'm going to sit here in your head and remind you that this is totally unacceptable. If I could, I would have pinchers grabbing at your thighs as well, because your stomach is one thing.... But those thighs...."

I woke up thinking about my weight. Truth be told; there are precious few mornings that I do not wake up thinking about my weight and listening to that irritating Fat Grabber lecture me on the importance of exercise, the wisdom of eating until you are satisfied and not past; the ridiculousness of feeling so disgusted about one's body and yet being unwilling to commit to an exercise regime. Fool. The Fat Grabber always says. Weak, foolish, sucky-pants. Get over yourself. And oh... How badly, deeply, completely I do want to get over myself. Yet, I'm utterly convinced that shame will not propell me there. Only compassion, patience, and yes... some technique. Technique that I've been fully aware of for this entire ten year relapse. I'd had five good years before that. Five years of pretty clear thinking. Very low levels of struggle. Very, very low. But I digress. Wistfully digress.

Most mornings I wake up with that elephant on my shoulder. Most mornings, by the time I am dressed and reaching for my glasses and book of the week, the elephant has been re-caged and doesn't torment me the way she did in the full-blown, really bad, lowsey, no good, fully disordered years. She doesn't torment me in the kitchen, where I prepare and eat food that I love and am able to painlessly enjoy for the gift that it is. She doesn't usually torment me as I move about my business of working, playing, loving, dreaming. She doesn't preoccupy me in social settings so that I feel such intense shame that I believe that everyone is looking at me with disgust and disappointment. She doesn't even stare back at me from the mirror every time I look into it to check for stray hairs, butt crack problems, or whether a little lipstick would hlep instill some confidence in parents who leave their children in my care. (nothing like leaving your cherub with someone who looks like the colour of death....)

But she's always around, waiting to seize me when my defenses are down. Like a virus attacking a compromised elderly man and knocking him dead with the simple flu. Like a whisper that's ever present, but becoming an undeniable, uncontrollable roar that frightens and frustrates me to no end.

Knowing all the facts helps most of the time. But the crazy, senseless preoccupation hangs over me, no matter what. I fantacize about being a different size. It thrills and frightens me. I tell myself not to play with fire. That I'm forty-one, in the healthy range for body weight, with a healthy love for divine food. And crunchy food. And chewy food. And black licorice. I have no shame for these loves, and wish them upon everybody.

But I envy myself the years when the struggle had abated. When I ate out of physical hunger only. When my body held nothing for Fat Grabber to clutch at. When my mental reserves were such that life could throw me a curveball without me being reduced to thinking about numbers on the scale; plans for running, running, running, never eating sugar again; engaging in any number of schemes and rules and plans to manipulate the size of my body.

I miss those days when I was more well than I am now. I think about them often and try to solve the problem of how to get back there. I tell myself that no one can go back; that that was then and this is now. That I should revisit all the guidelines that helped me get well in the first place and achieve again that era of relative peace.

But something stops me. Something powerful and scarey.
And I wake up with the Elephant once again.

**
I posted recently about the increase in my self editing. I meant everything I said. Now that I know how some people misunderstand my words and thoughts, I will not stop telling my story. I understand that it may not be your story, and you may not be able to identify one little bit. But I also recognize that considering the statistics of women dissatisfied with their bodies, there will also be a number of women who can identify. I write to them.
I don't imagine that anyone can "save me". I try not to worry about those who might feel sorry for me. We all have our shit, and this happens to be mine. I've carved out a pretty darned fantastic life regardless, and I strive constantly for more healing in this regard. Writing helps me to process, and I know that it is comforting to read about someone else's struggle when you find yourself with the same annoying animal sitting in your head.
I am not a head case. I have come a very, very long way. I just know that there is more resolution to be had with this curse. I urge mothers to hope for more for their own daughters. I urge you to find other things to talk about than your bodies, other people's bodies, beauty, or lack thereof. I encourage you to avoid fashion magazines at all cost. Don't buy into diet ideas. Any of them. Learn your body's own wisdom- it saved me. If you need some good books on the subject, check out Geneen Roth's work. Food is one of God's great gifts, and we should not associate food with shame and weakness. It's too precious and wonderful to be reduced to a power struggle and exercise in deprivation.
My desire is to be a voice of a different sort. Not reinforcing the diet and beauty industry's messages of inadequacy, but providing a different voice that acknowledges the damage done to me, while desiring to promote a different sort of message. It's a painful place to be, and maybe refusing to be silent will have some redemption somewhere down the line.

So Not For The Librarian type

I really like my job. I like it when these little people come to my house and learn to turn funny little munchkin sounds into words and sentences. I like seeing their little personalities take shape- tender, hard-nosed, goofy, compassionate- whatever.

But some days are just designed to test my ability to simply hack the volume. Some days the kids come in happy and just plain loud. No amount of discussions about indoor voices and outdoor voices cause any sort of lasting change. They are just set at full volume, and their little dials are stuck.

Today is such a day; but at least when I look into their loud little faces, what I see is wild amounts of happiness and abandonment to their play. Which really beats the ever livin' heck out of whining and fighting.

In any case, its nearly 3:00 and soon I can stuff their little noise makers full of oatmeal cookies to dampen the crescendo somewhat.

Thanks, I feel better now. Maybe I'll go shove some chocolate chips into my ear canals, lodge a couple of kids into the snow bank, hang the above sign on my door and lose myself in my book for a while.
There's no law against that, is there?

Not So Dirty Little Secrets

.... How Sam and I waste invest our time when everyone else is off doing more noble things like swimming lessons and basketball games...

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........................

Perspective

A particular evaluation of a situation or facts, especially from one person's point of view.

A lot of the time, that's what it all comes down to- the way that we see it. The wounds and messages that life has pounded into us shape and flavour the interpretation of every word spoken, every action carried out.

When I notice my thoughts spewing out a seemingly endless series of insults and statements about my inadequacies and failures and flaws; I call it "Being reduced to the lowest common denominator". It often feels like being reduced to a three or four year old self, minus the "cute" factor- just shy of retreating to a corner, peeing myself, and rocking back and forth as I suckle my thumb and twirl my hair.

Conversely, when I recognize all the advantages in this life; all the possibility that can be birthed; how fear and laziness can cause a person to spend their entire life quiet, unobtrusive, bored and ineffective....
Then I think that its ridiculous to let fear rob you of your life. How things need to be evaluated and filed- the negative experiences of life learnt from but not the "boss" of the rest of your life. I think about how important it is to take responsibility for your own messes, and clean up after yourself as best as you know how. Victem mentality is not something that I seeing working really well for anyone. Or blame shifting. God knows no one likes to be corrected, and few of us like to be wrong. Still, once the sting has worn off somewhat, there is true merit in evaluating it all from a fresh perspective. Learning where you could tweak your own perspective (your lowest common denominator perspective). These things don't have to remain static or become cemented in place. Our perspective should be more of a fluid variety; willing to shift and change with the inclusion of new information and personal growth.

I had a chance to get over to Heather's blog today. Its infrequent now that I get through my list of blogs because my spare minutes get taken up with the sewing machine or the urgency of daily living. But today I managed to watch her video clip while me and the kids were eating hamburger soup for lunch. (not kumst borscht. Nope. Not today) Here is a woman who seems to constantly redefine her perspectives, and press on to extend her territory. I love the still way she determines courage, meaning, and risk-taking.

What about us? Can we challenge ourselves in reasonable but courageous ways this new year? Can we absorb new information into the way we perceive and interpret our realities? Can we be patient with others as they react out of their own wounds without having to defend our own?

When you read stories or watch movies about people who change history in big and small ways, they are people who resolutely believe things empowering and positive things about themselves and their place in this world. They are not people who are looking around for permission to live their lives. (I'm partway into such a book right now- "Tears In The Desert". I expect it will be heart-breaking and inspirational)

Courage for you probably looks different than courage looks to me. Which brings us back to perspective. We're not meant to be all the same, but we are meant to fully be our own particular instrument in this orchestra called life.

I Considered Myself Tagged

I haven't played tag on the blog for a really long time. I've been reading Ordinary Courage lately, and feel inspired and excited about what Brene has learned about shame and its impact our personal lives. So, when I read her post this morning, I decided to be tagged with the "16 things about me" meme. If you don't care, then don't consider yourself tagged.

1. I hate getting wet. I have to talk myself into showering, and although I love the beach and going to the lake, it has to be at least 36 degrees before I will relent and get into the water.
2. I enjoy housework. I know. Am I allowed to feel that way? I don't mean that I love constantly cleaning up after everyone, and just live to vacuum, but I do get a deep sense of satisfaction to restoring a room to an orderly manner. I like organizing stuff. I like getting rid of stuff. I love the way the floor looks after I vacuum it.
3. My hair barely grows. I shaved my head three years ago when we got lice, and with only minimal trims, it now barely grazes my shoulder. People don't believe me, but I'm now putting it into print. Which makes it true.
4. I don't like making up crafts for kids to do. I feel ashamed of myself but it is just true. I love having kids in my house, and I'd happily give them paper, even paint, play dough, or whatever. Just don't ask me.... "Can we do a craft?" It makes me feel inadequate. I know that its all wrong because of the Darfur project and all, you'd think I lived for crafts, but I just don't. Maybe I'm selfish.
5. I have always been a bit unbalanced when it comes to cats. When I was little, I pretty much lived in the barn all summer, either at my best friend Elaine's dairy, or at my own farm. I found all the kittens in the spring, and then played with them all summer as they grew up. I felt like a traitor every winter when the brutal temperatures would kill about 75% of them.... Now I have two housecats and one dog. And I love them to pieces.
6. I rebel in the strangest ways. Keep in mind that I am 41 and long gone from my mother's house, but still I find myself rebelling. I wear white socks outside into the grass and always think about how appalled my mother would be. I sometimes throw out ziploc bags, even when I haven't reused them 28 times. My mother never even bought ziplocs. She washed the plastic wrap from store meat and reused that. And I buy things that are unnecessary to my survival. That's like a huge sin, where I come from.
7. I love cutting the grass. I love the smell, and the feeling of accomplishment that it brings.
8. I've never bought furniture from a real store. Unless you count the mattresses, which I suppose came from a real warehouse.
9. I've never chosen my own kitchen appliances. Just used whatever the house came with, which has happened numerous times. And I don't really care. The only thing I don't love is black appliances, which is what this house happened to come with. Oh, well.
10. I never got my period until grade ten. I thought I would die from humiliation because I was so ancient.
11. One of my deepest fears is that I am stupid. There is some part of me that is afraid of this getting exposed to everyone who matters to me, and even those who don't.
12. I once voluteered for Mennonite Disaster Service. If there is one thing in life that I regret, it is that experience.
13. I love old cannisters.
14. I was born the last of eight children. My parents were in their 40's and my elder brothers and sisters were most displeased when another baby came home. I grew up worrying that my parents would not live long enough to meet my children. Now I think about how young 40 is. I feel like I could easily have a baby now.
15. I love storage containers.
16. When all the kids are big, I want to drive a small car, like a chevette or a honda civic. I used to drive a crummy little chevette in my 20's. The stick shift broke off, so I just put the knob onto the stub (those sound sort of sexual, but don't be perverse and read into that) and just kept roaring around in that chevette. It was a wonderful, reliable little car. Mini vans are just a necessary evil of birthing four children.

Wanna play? Then tell me in the comments so that I can hear 16 things about you!

All Roads Don't Actually Lead to Rome

Now, I have a great deal of admiration and respect for my brother.
But he lives in Rome.
And I live in, well, practically Winnipeg. Winterpeg. brrrrrrrrrterpeg.

Do they know that its minus thirty-five degrees here?! MINUS THIRTY-FIVE?!!
And do they know what they are missing? I wish them well, but seriously.

I'm sure living in Rome can't mean health and happiness forevermore. I mean, when they get ready to leave for the office in the morning, they never have the privelege of watching their breath freeze in mid air when they go out into the dark to start their car. How can they possibly expect to develop any character? They never have the snowglobe-wonder experience of scraping the frost off the windshield. They never know the joy of one's shoulders aching from all the tension that the shivering, shuddering cold causes to the entire muscular system of the human body.

And that's just the human body.
Do they know what the kids found at school the other morning? A cat, scrunched up on a branch of the tree in front of the school building, frozen solid. Poor dang thing. Climbed up there trying to get some shelter from this relentless freezer and froze his ass off. I don't know who to feel worse for- that unloved cat, or all the kids who saw that ghastly scene. I can't help imagine that some of them reexamined their commitment to wearing short jackets, no hats, and zero mittens.

Then again, probably not.
Besides, we have a superintendent who looks outside his window every morning to see that its perfectly safe to walk to school in these temperatures. I bet people in Rome don't have that either.

They do have cats though. And I know that because my brother told me that the sound of a cat meowing woke him up one night.

Which made me think that maybe his window was open. Poor man.
I guess in Rome they have to sleep with their windows open. They don't have it good like us. Our windows have so much frost on them; we just scrape them every Friday and whip up mean lime margueritas. I bet they don't do that in Rome.

They have to do without frozen cat AND lime margueritas.
I should be spending a lot more time sympathizing with my poor brother. Like... What do they do on weekends?! Here, we've got it so good. There is a community ice rink right behind our house that we can look at outside our window every Saturday and Sunday. It's too cold to skate, but we sure can look at that ice rink. And breath some air! The same air that the furnace has faithfully cycled and recycled hour after hour since we shut the back door in August of '08.

And what could they possibly look at?! I hear that most of the buildings over there are pretty much condemned, so there's probably not that many places to go to.....

hmmmm... I used to admire my brother, but the more I think about it, the more I just pretty much feel sorry for him. Maybe I'll start sewing mukluks to raise money to bring them back here for the winter next year.

I mean, a man can only take so much time in Rome.

They Said So

A few provocative quotes to flesh out the prior post:

If one has not given everything, one has given nothing. -Georges Guynemer

The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.- Oscar Wilde

It usually takes a long time to find a shorter way.- Anonymous

Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure.- William Saroyan

Nothing endures but change.- Heraclitus

Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.- Chinese proverb


And then there were these......

It's better to be quotable than to be honest.- Tom Stoppard

'Tis better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than open one's mouth and remove all doubt.- Samuel Johnson

And now for a few words from your sponsor....
Risk. Can make your neck hurt when you stick it out. Hopefully I've learned to be reasonably sensitive to other people as I explore my own dark corners. Hopefully I can identify boundries between what are truly my issues, and what I have to firmly park in someone else's back yard.

The point is to explore things through words and mind pictures. The point is never to poke at other people's pain, or to assign blame. The hope is that through honest evaluation, other people could possibly identify with a topic and find comradarie here. The hope is that new directions can be found through laughter and tears.

The wish is for some of these annoying blocks to get a little softer, or maybe just go away.
Those blocks make me feel small, afraid, inadequate, inferior, guilty, stupid, and voiceless.

That doesn't sound like a direction I want to continue in.

Hard, Lumpy, Painful Bits

Recently I had a brief conversation with a friend about the nature of this blog. About how much editing I find myself doing now. How thoughts will come to me... and then how I imagine so-and-so reading them and misunderstanding them, and how the very thought of that nearly drives me to drink. (before Fridays...) How I miss the (perceived) freedom of the early days when I would run to the computer for solace- for a quiet place to examine the confusing, the sad, and the unexplained.

I've made myself pretty vulnerable here at times. I've been honest about the history of eating disorders, the less than picturesque relationship that I had with my now deceased brother, the sadness of loss, the death of ideals. I've been forthright about my stubborn, but not dogmatic faith. I've shown you my clutter, my treasures, my victories, my dark sides.

I've made some new friends. Learned to trust people in more authentic ways. Felt good about "putting some stuff out there"; and having found it well received. (except when it wasn't....)

Today I feel like pushing myself back there. To see if it will be helpful because I'm scaring myself a little lately with the dark corners that my brain finds itself retreating to. Today I feel like talking a little bit about sadness.

I've been fortunate in this life so far to have come through relatively untouched by the robbery of death. Sure, I've been to my share of funerals, but no one could ever write much of a tragedy about my life thus far. I expect to have a lot more funeral events if I keep living for the next forty years or so. And so, I think I've got some stuff to figure out in the meanwhile if I don't want to continue to shut down corners of myself in order to cope.

The first blow that death dealt me was when I was in grade 12, I think.
Her name was Faye, and she lived just past her fourth birthday. I was her baby-sitter. Poor little girl was much too young to have any clue what was happening to her- cancerous tumour at the age of three. Now that I've had my own kids, I can't believe what it must have been like for her parents. For her.

But when I look back on what it was like for me, I remember that rock hard wall in my chest. That weird sense of anger when my mother would ask about her. My feeling that it was none of her business and that she was being curious and nosey. I remember my guilt that Faye had annoyed me. I remember mostly that block in my throat and chest and stomach and brain. Those blocks come right back, even fifteen years later, sitting at my computer and trying to write about it.

The thing that I'm tuning into more and more is that I have all these blocks. So, what happens when more loss comes along? When I make myself remember the losses that followed that first big one, I feel them in all the same places, and have the same basic, crazy emotions. Guilt. Inadequacy. Anxiety. And chunks of hard yuck in my throat. Chest. Stomach.

I've had a few losses in the last fifteen years. I'm thinking that each loss makes another piece of hard yuck inside of me? It's kind of like with every really hard loss that I don't know how to reconcile inside my brain, I have more and more hard bits to navigate around and try to avoid because I don't know how to make it go away, or how to normalize it, or WHAT.

And that's all. That's all I can write on the topic because its as far as I can go. There are no conclusions, no wrap-ups, no nothing. Just hard bits. Unfortunately, these hard bits usually exacerbate some of my more diagnosable problems. And that gets pretty tiresome.

So, maybe this year I'll get riskier again with the blog and just try to get intouch with some of these painful parts. I don't know- it might make it worse, and it might not.

I just don't think playing it safe is really the best course of action either. So, I'll just stick my neck out and take some risks again.

ahhhh, Weekend.

The midday feast- remnants from last night's tapas. Brian made the nicest freshest pesto ever- Sun-dried tomatoe, fresh lime, and jalapeno pepper.

What's the reason for this extragavant luncheon? Well, I'm glad you asked.

See this splendid wallet? I paid a big, whopping 25 cents for that piece of leather genius. It has so many fantastic compartments, fully functioning zippers and snaps, and a price to make your eyeballs bleed.

Which relegated this broken down has-been, shattered piece of wallet wanna-be to the trash can with the coffee filters and emptied chip bags.

And is that all, you say? Well, I'm glad you asked. One can't ever have enough chocolate brown bits for the Darfur bag project.... And one can't be too early to begin anticipating next year's ugly sweater extravaganza.

And no, we're not through yet. Nothing like some properly politically incorrect stories to listen to on the newly acquired record player. And that little pink wisp of wonder? its a gift for one of my favourite three year old's in all the world.

Will the wonders never cease? A fabulous sale on jackets, assuming that my boy will continue to divide cells and grow out of the one he currently trudges to school wearing in these sublime minus thirty temperatures.

And that's not mentioning the stack of books and games that Brian bought for his classroom.

Does a Saturday get any sweeter than this? Oh, yes. It does. For this afternoon, we will celebrate Brian's birthday by going to see the movie "The Mysterious Case of Benjamin Buttons", and then round it all out with a magnificent meal at The Ivory.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

From Rob Bell's new book: Jesus Wants to Save Christians

Writer Anne Lamott says that the most powerful sermon in the world is two words: “Me too”.
Me too.
When you’re struggling,
when you are hurting,
wounded, limping, doubting,
questioning, barely hanging on,
moments away from relapse,
and somebody can identify with you –
someone knows the temptations that are at your door,
somebody has felt the pain that you are feeling,
when someone can look in you in the eyes and say,
“Me too,”
and they actually mean it –
it can save you.
When you aren’t judged,
or lectured,
or looked down upon,
but somebody demonstrates that they get it,
that they know what it’s like,
that you aren’t alone,
that’s “me too.”
Paul does not say, “To the strong I become strong.”
He only says, “To the weak I am weak.”
…
The way of Jesus is the path of descent. It’s about our death. It’s our willingness to join the world in its suffering, it’s our participation in the new humanity, it’s our weakness calling out to others in their weakness.

I'm not actually reading Rob Bell's book. (but I think I want to, because "Velvet Elvis" is awesome). But this quote was in my inbox this afternoon. It struck me for several reasons. The first is obvious- it provocative, it resonates, its compassionate.

But for me.... it had personal meaning. It was timely, and it put words to my very own "me too" experience. Just a few days ago, I opened up one of the ooziest, dark and murky interior spaces and invited humans in. And received a resounding "ME TOO!" in reply.

But not in that useless, let's feel sorry for ourselves because nothing is ever going to change and it sucks type of way. More like the.... Ouch. I know. Here's what I can see that would contribute to the current murk of your state. Here's how I know that you are ten minutes away from relapse, and how that doesn't shock me. How it "makes sense" even when it totally doesn't. How much I love you and how the struggle doesn't actually define you.

Me too.

*just a word of caution though. I am not standing behind the idea of people trying to understand, and trying to identify when they simply have not ever been there. The only thing to do in any case is to be honest. If you can't relate to something painful that someone is walking through, there is nothing wrong with saying; "I can't say I've ever experienced that.... but it sounds like it sucks". That will always beat the ever living snot out of the individual who pretends to have gone through everything, and has a depth of understanding and relatability (yeah, I know that's not a word) about every single calamity known to man and womankind. Its just not wise to say "I know what you mean" when you totally don't. And I'm sure that's not what Ann or Rob are suggesting either. Its totally true though, that when you have someone to turn to who has worn out the exact same pair of shoes that you have... it is a sweet drink of cool water to be totally heard. Especially when there is wisdom to be had in the transaction.

'kay. So, yeah. My point being that "me too" had better be sincere, or I'll have to hunt you down and beat you for your insincerity. 'cuz Paul would be all over that. So would Anne. And Rob.

Back To Work: Not a Bad Thing

End of workday conversation:

Boy to his mother: "Hey! You forgot to pick up my bag!"
Joyce to Boy: "Well, what's she-- your maid-servant or something?!"
Boy to all: "No..... Him's my.... Food Lady!"