All or Nothing

Acknowledging my personal limitations has been a necessary (yet difficult) part of my journey in recent years.  One palpable limitation is winter.  Therefore I proactively and very intentionally booked a holiday to California so I could take a break from the demands of parenting and get a much-needed dose of warm sunshine.  I returned home this week after seemingly endless days of healthy eating, lots of sleep, long daily walks and hours of sitting, reading and writing.  I returned home not only relaxed and refreshed but also with motivation and passion for my life.

It has been unbelievable then, to realize that the space between quiet and calm California and chaotic and crushing Calgary is less than sixty hours!  I can’t sleep.  I have emotions to manage every moment that the kids are with me (or not with me).  And the incessant work gnaws at my consciousness like a dull saw grinding through an aged tree.  I feel like a set of bagpipes that the air has been squeezed out of, with no breath to fill back up again.  How could this be happening?  Did I not take the break, so that I could come back with a full tank and embrace each day – as if it were a day at the beach?

Portions of my adult life have been filled with All or Nothing living.  I would either celebrate my success, or mourn my failure.  I either over function, taking control of everything and everybody and flying through life without truly stopping to see what was passing, or under functioning, wondering who I can dump everything on (my husband?) and how I can get out of all the things I have committed to.  Life is a pendulum, however, we are not meant to stay at the outer edges; the majority of time is spent moving through.  I have wasted a lot of energy swinging toward one thing or away from another. I crave getting it right and am often disappointed by my mistakes.  Why?  Because our society values and encourages the capable and is uneasy with those who are struggling. 

However, the last season of my life has been about learning to embrace and celebrate my flaws.  It is teaching me to live with more honesty and to take responsibility for my mistakes, instead of using them as a character assassination.  Through parenting I have faced things that I truly believe would not have otherwise come up.  There have been many challenges, eye-opening gifts and hard realizations. Personal growth has become part of my formula for living wholeheartedly and so I have people in my life that can support me in that area.

There have been many ah-hah moments; I have learned things about myself that have always been there and yet I could not see. I didn’t have the information or perspective to understand the footprints that followed me to here.  Now I do, and it is creating a fundamental shift, mainly in the areas of acceptance and compassion. Moreover, knowledge together with practice has given me many skills that I did not possess any natural ability for.  I have learned that there is no truth to the myth that if we were meant to do something, it would come naturally.  Never has this been more obvious in my life than it is in my love relationships. 

The gulf between success and failure, between good and bad, between perfect and flawed is the place where we live; it is the place where our flaws reflect back at us, revealing that flawed is something that binds the human race together.  We are all bits and pieces of a whole, that when examined too closely, somehow feels raw.  No one enjoys that feeling.  However, risking vulnerability and being raw is our only path to human connection. 

So as I realize that less than three days have passed since I walked on the beach, heard the rhythmic surf, felt the warm sun on my bare skin and felt completely at ease, I know that I cannot live exclusively on the beach or in the confines of my family.  I simply need to let the pendulum swing and sway at a speed that I cannot control. But more importantly I need to allow it to stop and come to a complete rest; in those moments, I need to surrender all that I have (and don’t have), all that I am (and am not), and all that I want (and lack) and rest in the knowledge that I am not alone. 

California Coast

I just spent ten days on the coast of southern California, enjoying some non-parenting time. Here are a few words to share with you.  Wendy

couples walking

birds squawking

waves crashing 

friends laughing

beachfront chair

nothing to wear

dolphins play

birds of prey

shadows jumping

seamlessly bumping

children running free

that's how I wanna be

volleyball spike

long distance bike

stretching legs

homeless begs

naked toddlers 

wiggly waddlers

pelican glide

surfers ride

shine bright flowers

sand-strewn showers

sand in my toes

knowing, that knows

Sea Gall

Note - I am currently on a mom-break in California....

I raised my head slightly from my beach towel, where I lay sunning my back. I came nose-to-beak with a stunning seagull.  The seagull seemed to be sizing me up; I wasn't quite sure for what. 

I casually said, "Hello". 

His eye remained fixed on me as he raised one leg and stretched it back while spreading out his wing on the same side.  In yoga-ese, it was a half a Superman pose (though a bird hardly needed to pretend to be Superman). 

            "Jonathan, is that you?" I playfully asked. 

He cocked his head, as if he was trying to figure something out. (Like maybe who this Jonathan was; I just assumed that “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” was famous amongst his kind). 

            I marveled at my own bravado, as closeness with birds is not something I have ever been comfortable with.  But this feathery and gentle seeker was different; his eyes endeared me to him.  They were black as coal, but perfectly rimmed with red, as if someone had carefully painted on eyeliner pencil.  His head was white like cotton fluff and his long, pointed beak was a fiery orange dipped at the tip in black paint.  His feathers, three tones of grey leading from white to black, were long and soft and perfectly appointed.  I slowly reached for my camera, but even this careful movement disrupted our harmonious moment, and Jonathan flew off. 

            A short while later, as I spread out my picnic lunch of falafel, hummus and cut up veggies, he returned.  With the lure of food, he risked coming ever closer.  He circled and danced sideways, approaching and retreating - waiting, waiting.  I watched with a fascination that I had never before experienced in the presence of birds (hard to be fascinated when one falls face down at the swoop of a feathered-fiend).  Though he had gained my adoration, I could not part with even a morsel of my lunch.  It wasn't just that I knew it would be wrong, creating an imbalance in native ecology, as the signs in the area warned, I was deeply afraid.  Afraid as an infantryman might be at the sound of an air raid gun.  The call of this seagull, had I chosen to feed him, would have brought the whole flock upon me, as though I were their target. 

            This time, as I pulled out my camera, my handsome seagull posed.  And then, realizing that there was nothing else for us to share, he flew off again and blended in with the other scavengers on the beach, as if the moment had never happened.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Written January 9th, 2012

First of all, picture Andy Williams – handsome crooner from the ‘60’s sitting in a large velvet chair in front of a roaring fire place; notice the angelic children, dressed in their holiday finest dancing majestically around. Hear the well-tuned instruments of the orchestra as they lead exuberantly into these heartfelt lyrics.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year - listen to it here

It's the most wonderful time of the year

With the kids jingle belling

And everyone telling you "Be of good cheer"

It's the most wonderful time of the year

It's the hap-happiest season of all

With those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings

When friends come to call

It's the hap- happiest season of all

There'll be parties for hosting

Marshmallows for toasting

And caroling out in the snow

There'll be scary ghost stories

And tales of the glories of

Christmases long, long ago

It's the most wonderful time of the year

There'll be much mistletoeing

And hearts will be glowing

When loved ones are near

It's the most wonderful time

It's the most wonderful time

It's the most wonderful time

It's the most wonderful time of the year

I couldn’t agree more. 

Well, actually there are a few other times (of the year) that compare, but are hardly worth mentioning, like getting your wisdom teeth pulled out on Reality TV or running a marathon - without any shoes. 

But holidays really are a time about family and friends, food and cocktails – and lots of good cheer.  It is a time to shed the ‘uniform’ and kick up your heels in your holiday finest (okay, so I just switched from No Name sweats to Lululemon sweats – big deal).  It is a special time of year.  Name any other time of the year, when we are in such close proximity with loved ones, that we can see their smile lines – but not their smile, or we can hear a drop of sweat as it falls (from their body onto ours), or smell exactly what they ate for supper – last night, or find ourselves sandwiched between bodies so tightly that to move would cause an avalanche, that could affect the equilibrium of the whole country!

On the upside, I now have more empathy for Alice, the housekeeper, for The Brady Bunch, as well as some practical experience to put towards my psychology degree – should I ever choose to go that route.  Furthermore, my hands have never been softer, I use Palmolive, “It softens hands while you do the dishes”.

Truly, the holiday season is great, right?  All seventeen days of it!  For the most part, we have had people around all the time.  What a blast for the kids.  One day we had such a gay happy meeting with so many of the kids friends over, I felt like I was running a day camp.  I’m not afraid to admit that I felt sorry for the parents who dropped their kids off, and sauntered off, kid-less for hours – now what were they gonna do with themselves?  I invited them to stay, to help with dishes, or laundry, but they turned me down flat!

On the downside, through the seventeen days of internment – I mean holidays; I found myself bed-ridden part of days each week – and it wasn’t the mistletoeing that got me there!  I think the merriment simply got to me; either that, or it was the punch. The winds have been so high through this holiday season that first of all, I do wonder how Santa landed his sleigh, when runways across Western Canada were closed. We had weather warnings regularly for gusts greater than 90 km/hour.  I don’t know if that has any meaning to you, but let me give you some perspective, that means a lawn chair could take off from our back yard and land across the street in our neighbors picture window in under one second!  One day, we woke up and our house had been lifted up and moved two sub-divisions over.  What a bummer, the kids are going to have to switch schools.

But seriously, the headaches that we headache sufferers suffer from were intensified by the massive winds that blew through the days.  Now that doesn’t feel fair.  I do feel lucky though, because Ward had to work for a week of the holidays, giving me sole responsibility for the home front.  Oh, how I love to be in charge.  I felt like Captain Margaret Craig Eaton, who led the Canadian Women’s Army Corps in 1944, and like Nellie McClung, who together with the Famous Five took on British parliament contending that women could be “qualified persons” (I have been trying within my own circles to do the same for Mothers), and finally, like heroine Mary Dohey, who, in 1971, prevented a hijacker from doing any harm, by speaking gently to the armed man – although in our house, it turned out to be Laurèn, dressed up as the sword fighting cat in Puss ‘n Boots threatening to rid the house of all siblings. 

Today, such a sad day, the kids returned to school.  Whatever will I do without them?  I know one thing I am not going to do – get out of bed, or get dressed!  I was considering calling in room service, but I couldn’t reach the phone from my bed and didn’t want to exert myself.  Well, I for one cannot wait for the jingle-belling and hosting, toasting and roasting of the next MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR.

Happy Holidays!

The birth of Jesus Christ

We had somehow made it through the Christmas season without much in the form of religious tradition.  This was, somewhat unusual for us, but not surprising, given the fact that we were, due to a series of events, without a church home.  So, we missed the build up of Jesus’ birthday that normally happens through participating in Advent activities at church and culminates in the Christmas pageant.  In fact, we missed the build-up to Christmas entirely, as we chose to do most of our shopping on-line.  We simply woke up one day, and lo-and-behold, it was Christmas. 

 It is amazing to me, how my kids wait with excited anticipation for the last day of school, for their older siblings to finish University exams and re-join the family, and for the day that they can do nothing, hang out all day, and simply be together.  For our family, and I suspect – most families, the excitement soon wears off!  A few days after Christmas had come and gone, after the leftovers have been scraped from their plastic holding cells and after the nine-hundredth round of I’m bored, what can we do – my kids were driving each other crazy.

And so it was, when Faven and I were enjoying a rare quiet moment together amidst the fray, that her brother pushed her a bit too far.  Christmas holidays are probably one of Yohannes’ favorite times of the year, as there are simply more people around, and being a gamely extrovert, he revs up, like a racecar at the Grand Prix.  Given his propensity for socialization, he will bump, push and prod anyone and everyone who is within his radar to play with him – or at the very least, to notice him.  He was relentless in his pursuit of Faven, and she told him twice to go away.  Asking Yohannes to go away is like putting cheese in a mousetrap.  The third time that he came towards Faven and I, she turned and screamed at him with the intensity of a football coach running drills - “Yohannes…JESUS CHRIST!”

Between her utterance and the tornado of words that flew out of Ward’s mouth there was not even the thinnest puff of breath.  Faven was visibly shaken.  As her face contorted, revealing her irrepressible emotions, she looked at me and asked, “What’d I did?”

I made a hasty attempt to settle her down, while somehow conveying the seriousness of the situation.  I explained that saying, Jesus Christ, in that way was a swear word.  She tried to tell me that she didn’t know – and yet, she used it so perfectly inappropriately, that I had my doubts.  It was likely that she did not understand where on the scale of ‘bad words’ it sat.  Her tears were most likely based on the reaction that she got from her dad.  However, she needed support, and in fact all of the kids needed to understand why dad had reacted so passionately, so quickly. 

Faven cried and shook for the next twenty minutes, without moving from her chair at the kitchen island.  Everyone returned to what they were doing prior to the infraction and eventually, supper was served.  I had to physically move Faven over to the dinner table, where she continued to cry and moan.  As she started to calm down we began to talk about who Jesus is, what significance he has to Christians, and why screaming his name in anger at another individual was wrong.  And then we shifted to talking about making mistakes, and the fact that we all make mistakes.  We were able to name this event as a mistake.  We were able to talk about how some mistakes are smaller – and how parents react differently to smaller mistakes than bigger ones.  Ward apologized for scaring Faven and yet he believed that she learned something larger for the intensity of his reaction.  Then, just to be clear, we talked about all of the other bad words that are not allowed, or considered inappropriate.

Faven recovered and so did we.

The very next day, Faven, Yohannes and I were driving to pick Lauren up at the ranch where she goes to horse club.  Upon entering and leaving the ranch, you have to open and close a few gates.  I had just passed through the final gate and clambered out to close it.  As I took a step toward the gate – the van started to roll past me, picking up speed.  In breathtaking alarm I uttered, “Jesus Christ!”

Pause for a moment and think about that.  Honestly, do they have a comedy team in heaven writing this stuff??  And are they all leaning back on a comfy cloud laughing their heads off right now?

I swiftly slid back into the driver’s seat, and realized that I had put the van into reverse instead of park!  Both kids were completely speechless.  We drove up the hill and parked the van and got out.  Yohannes took my hand as we walked through the fields to catch up to the kids that were out on a sleigh ride. 

He gently said to me, “Mom, you said that word that Faven did.”

“Yes,” I humbly admitted, “I did.”

Like the gentle observer that he is, he said, “I guess even you make mistakes.”

“Yes I do”, I replied.

And so, we went through the entire Christmas season without intentionally subscribing to the doctrines of Jesus Christ’s birth; but it found us anyway.

Our Model Child

Faven came home from school keen to practice something with Yohannes and Lauren.  Lauren has been sick all week, so Yohannes eagerly stepped up to the plate.  From what I could gather, Faven and her friends are having a ‘talent show’ of sorts at school and she needed Yohannes to be the other ‘friend’ in the skit.  She showed him what to do, and then asked him to do it.  It looked pretty much like a model walking down the runway, complete with sass and attitude. 

Yohannes is not a stranger to being turned into a girl; nor is he a stranger to sass and attitude.  Honestly, he wears it well.   So when it came time to pour it on and head down the catwalk, he was all over it.  Faven was his performance coach, and Lauren and I simply sat back on the couch to watch.

After a couple of runs with only minor modifications Yohannes said, “I’ll be right back.”

I had a feeling that I knew what he was up to.  While he was gone, I asked Faven, “Where do you think he’s gone?”

She had no idea.  “I think he is gone to put on a dress” I offered.

“He better not be in my room! Or he is going to get it” she said.

“Settle down” I told her, “You asked him to pretend to be a girl in the first place.”

Just then Yohannes sashayed back in.  It would seem that he had gone for implants in the brief time that he was gone.  We howled.  He spun around and revealed his new B cup.  But that is not all!

He lined up for his walk down the runway, with a look of cat-like femininity.  He strutted towards us, and he paused before his pirouette and gave his mock-breast a little squeeze (while winking in our direction).  It produced a big squeak, and our dog Abby came barreling in – turning in circles, somewhat confused.  We all peeled with laughter as we realized that Yohannes’ implants were a dumbbell shaped squeaky dog toy.  The dumbbell was just the right length to give him two identical bumps right across his chest.

No one enjoyed this little prank more than Yohannes, in fact he was laughing so hard he fell right off the imaginary catwalk, his breasts squeaking all the way down!

Traction

I was very smart, intuitive really, to have booked my vehicle in a few days ago to have the winter tires put on.  This morning we are experiencing our first snowfall of the season; the roads are extremely slippery and everyone is driving as slow as if this phenomenon never happens here in Calgary.  I would be feeling smug, except that the tires for our (now gone) 2002 Odyssey did not fit our 2006 Odyssey.  They would fit the rims, I was told, but the slight difference in tire size would affect the speedometer by 5%.  So what? - I gestured.  Anything greater than 3% was unacceptable.  Ugh!

I could not have known it was going to snow this year on November 4^th – not really.  But I am still discouraged to be alternately spinning my tires and sliding through intersections while (ironically) there are four snow tires in the back!  It feels unjust.  In my life, I take the extra step to be adequately prepared – and when that doesn’t pay off, it is disheartening.

Perhaps I spend too much time preparing for the eventualities of life. However, it makes me feel more ready: emotionally, mentally, and physically, for the changing of the seasons within my life.  But so much of our lives are unknown, beyond our control or ability to prepare. Though I have learned that I can’t get ready for every situation, event, or season, I think that by attuning my priorities each season I naturally shift the flow of energy to what I can manage. It is however, a moving target!

At this time of year, when the sun tucks in earlier and earlier, I find I need a larger circle of support with frequent points of contact, yet less interaction and stimulation.  This is the hardest time of year for me to get some traction, maybe for most people. 

The truth is, it doesn’t really matter if I have snow tires, or not; I do have fuel and if I didn’t have fuel, well, I would still have money – or I would stay home! My priorities remain consistent throughout the year (or so I think), but my capacity to move beyond the top three: self-care, marriage and parenting, is hampered.  And so I will start the season without snow tires; fully equipped in other ways that will compensate for the loss of traction on certain days.  And when I find myself low on fuel or energy I will stay home, or if needed call (you) for a boost.