Tag Archives: love

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(thanks Bilbo)

I just got home from a 3,368mile (5,420kms) drive (there and back again) from my home in Naperville, IL to Wolfville, NS. Two days driving there, one day stop-over, Two days driving back. About 54 hours driving time. It was the longest drive to and from school I have ever taken one of my kids on.

I spent the days leading up to the drive randomly being gripped in terror. I would suddenly feel the ground drop from under my feet and my stomach would leap into my throat, my heart would pound and I would want to cry. I felt certain that I was making a huge mistake, or at the very least doing absolutely everything wrong.

I get angry at myself for remaining in situations that do not serve me, my marriage, my job, my home, okay, my life in general, but then I’ve always had that terror and painful certainty that pin me down. With any major, and most minor decisions I am generally quite certain I have, or I will make the worst possible choice, and that sitting and doing nothing is my safest option. I assume that everyone else on the planet, or at least my peers, or my betters (which is where I put most people), would be handling this, or have handled this so much better, or have, at the very least, been better organized about it (my disorganizational skills are legendary). Other people, I dangerously assume, have the support of a partner, of parent or if they’re insanely fortunate, parents,  or at least some close friends to reassure them they are making good choices. I have none of these and as a result am left with the really not nurturing voices in my own mixed up head. It’s a motley crew, the voices in my head. Part my mother (appearances are everything), my father (appearances are bullshit), my step-father (you’re utterly worthless, stupid and will make utterly worthless and stupid decisions unless you think and act as I do), ex-partners (I didn’t love you and I will leave you shortly so you better get that wall up to protect yourself), the occasional friend (hey, you’re awesome!  *but if they really  knew me they would get over that notion pretty quickly), and finally, in the back ground, usually jumping up and down like a far away but hyperactive 3 year old, is a  small fierce voice that is the part of me who hopes and tries for something better. That small voice is the one who talked me into the 50+ hour road trip, it’s the voice that took me scared shitless to surfing lessons, the one that had me running around London and later the Dominican Republic on my own while presenting this brave adventurous face to anyone looking. Inside I thought I was an idiot, and doing everything wrong.

So, my monster drive, that I still can’t decide was brave and meaningful or crazy and stupid, or maybe it was all of these. I can present a very believable case either way. It did allow me meaningful time with my daughter, to process her going onto this next important stage in her life, to honour what she has done, and to be present for part of the transition which was painful for us both. That was important and I’m very glad we had that time (not sure if we needed so many hours of that time, but that’s done now).  I brought several books to listen to, and was lost in stories for much of the drive. I drove past and through many landmarks of my life, in places I’ve lived and by people I have loved.  So many places, so many people, so many memories.

In the end, truth be told, it wasn’t really that brave a decision. I could not afford a plane ticket, my husband, who could afford one,  would not discuss it, so I did what I thought I had to to get my daughter to school. I could have pushed the issue, but decades of experience have taught me that I am on my own with this sort of thing and I rarely bother anymore. Now, of course, he is organizing for her to fly home for breaks and is the hero, where I am the one that took her on the never ending car ride. Part of the reason he is adored by both our families and I am not, that and he is a much better schmoozer than I am (to be honest I suck at schmoozing, alas…).

I try not to listen to the less than caring voices in my head. To focus on the little fierce one. I don’ t know if this is wise, or how much wisdom that voice has. In many ways it is a toddler with very basic and primordial needs, so I’m not sure if this is my Id jumping up at down, or at least my ego, but has kept me going when there was nothing else that would, and for that I’m grateful. It has kept me moving forward even when I am certain I will fail, it kept me driving all those hours, it help hold my my head up (even when I’m looking like a complete idiot), and it, usually, keeps me from curling up into a ball and giving up.

I think I need to be kinder to myself, maybe even forgive myself for not having this whole life thing figured out. Maybe even let the kind voice be heard among the rabble-rousers carrying on in my head. I think this is a rather poor ending to this blog, that I could have done better, but maybe this one will do.

not okay

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Everything he wanted went into one large duffle bag, except for the two baseball hats he wore so they wouldn’t get bent.

“What’s it like to move out mom?”

“It’s really hard” is all I manage. To say more would have me crying as I picked up his McDonald’s meal and gift card.

I don’t manage this for long and soon enough I’m bawling in front of the man who will be housing my son, his duffle bag, two hats and his McDonald’s gift card. Later tears pour down behind my sunglasses as I walk my dog round and round the dog park.

He was so quiet. So mild mannered. It made it more difficult. I told him I didn’t want this, but this is what we have now, a void in my home where my son used to be.

When I was 16 my mom told me one Monday that I would not be allowed to live with them anymore and I would be moving up north to live with my father. Five days later I was on a plane to a completely different home and life. I didn’t hear anything from my mother for over six months. It was not the first, and certainly not the last time she cut me off, or decided she didn’t love me. It shouldn’t have been as big as a surprise as it was, but that first major rejection was a shock.  For months things had been getting worse with my step-father. One bad day things were bad. I tried to run out the front door and he had caught me by the hair and hauled me back in. Then he really lost his temper. My mom stood in the doorway holding my little brother’s hand watching. Afterwards when I was crying in my room she came and told me I was to come downstairs and tell my step-father that I loved him because he was so upset. Something shifted then, and I realized my mother would stand with her husband no matter what happened. This has been the case for over 30years now. Mothers are suppose to defend and protect their children, mine protected her husband. That was the most physically violent episode, but certainly not the last. Names I can’t repeat, taunts, slaps, fistfuls of hair and every time I deserved it. I simply would not play the part they wanted me to and eventually she wanted me gone, and she kicked me out.

It doesn’t matter that I am not my mother, or that the circumstances are utterly and completely different, I have done to my child the single most painful thing that I have ever experienced, and that is not going to be okay. I did it with compassion, my son knows how much I love him, but at the end of the day I sent my own child away, and that will never be okay.

kindness, pets, and kids, and the lessons they taught me

Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn’t anyone who doesn’t appreciate kindness and compassion.

Dalai Lama

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When I was about 10 we had a small mutt my mother had found in the alley behind the library where she worked. We called him Book. He was a street smart, funny. lovable small black mutt. He was my little brother’s and my first dog, and we adored him. One night when my mom and step father were out I had a terrible feeling in my stomach about Book. That night I played with him, rubbed his belly, and must have given him half a box of dog cookies. Nothing bad happened, and I went to bed. When my they got back, my step father drove the babysitter home. We think Book must have got out and tried to follow the car. My mother woke me early the next day after she spent a sleepless night worrying and we all went looking for him. We lived about three blocks from a main street, and on the far side of that street, laying on the grass beneath a tree we saw Book. I rushed to him, and reached out my hand to wake him, and only then when my fingers touched stiff cold fur did I realize he was dead.

We buried Book in the backyard under a bed of flowers, it was the only time I ever saw my step father cry. My mother said that some kind person must have picked Book up off the road after he had been hit, and laid him gently on the grass for us to find him. Tied up with the sadness of losing our dog was the thought that someone had been kind to him, and also to us by taking the time to stop, pick up his body and gently place in on the grass.

Late last night I was coming home with my daughter and we saw the body of tortoise shell cat on the road. We circled round and stopped just behind it. She looked like she had been a well loved pet. She looked like she had died instantly. We stood and looked at her silently, my car’s headlights illuminating her. After a moment I walked back to my car and got a small white gym towel from my yoga bag. I knelt down and wrapped her still warm and pliable body in it and carried her to a grassy area under a small tree. Her back legs and fluffy tail stuck out from the end of the towel and her fur stirred slightly in the wind. I placed my hand on her side and said how sorry I was she had died. We stood a moment more and got in the car and drove the rest of the way home.

Four years ago when our young, beautiful, and foolish dog Willow got out of the yard and was run over, many people stopped, someone called me and we rushed to spend our last moments with her before she died. Someone brought a blanket that they never saw again, another person brought a board for us to lift her shattered and dying body into our car. My daughter sobbed, held her face, and said her name over and over again. The driver of the car stood crying. Before we got in our car to rush Willow to the vet in some mad hope that she could be saved, I went to the driver and told him it was not his fault. She was a skittish dog, and very fast, and he could not have avoided her. I didn’t want him to carry any more grief and guilt than he was already going to. I don’t remember anyone from that day. I have never been able to thank them for stopping, for helping our dog and us when it was most needed.

We never knew who carried Book from the road that night almost forty years ago, but that act of kindness stayed with me. It helped me tell the driver it was not his fault; it is what guided me when I carried the cat from the road last night. One act of kindness decades old still touches me and through me touches the world. Such is the way of kindness.

Graham grade 3

I like sleep. I like it a lot. So waking up in the dark a full hour before I had to was not my favourite way to start the day. Waking up frightened, with a cold, hard pain in my chest even less so.

What kind of mother kicks her child out of the house? Don’t answer that. I have several excellent, well thought out answers lined up beside me right now. I don’t like any of them. In fact, I have been glaring at their calm, all-knowing, smug faces for several months now. It’s no good. I don’t like where I am now. Sorry, I really really fucking hate where I am now and the decisions I have to make. That sounds better. I have two more, very difficult months in front of me and I’m already so very tired.

I love my son.  I don’t always like the young man who lives with me now. The one who lies and steals, the one I have to keep things locked up around. My family has to keep things under lock and key and we’ve not done anything wrong. It’s exhausting, but how can I send him out?

He “ships out” on October 14th. My son, Canadian like the rest of us, has enrolled in the Untied States Marine Corps. Not a future I would have picked for him, but more and more it is looking like the only chance he has to straighten himself out. Now I’m in the somewhat ironic position of trying to keep him qualified so he can, in fact, go to boot camp. How did I get here??

Do I ruin his best hope by kicking him out? What’s fair? I have two other children who do not deserve this life in limbo lock down. We have all put our lives on hold for almost three years tying to help him, and for what??

The thought of putting him out makes me physically ill. It makes me cry. It makes my chest ache. But shouldn’t it? Shouldn’t this be really fucking hard? What does it say about you if it is not?

My oldest daughter leaves for school half a country away this month. I’m sad, proud, scared, happy and about fifty other emotions about it. I’m not forcing her out. She’s growing and leaving on her own, and while it’s not an easy transition, it is an expected one. One I can talk to empathetic friends about. Who do I talk to about my son? Where is the “What to Expect When” book with its handy check boxes and explanations of life changes and physical symptoms?? There’s no Worst Case Survival article on this. Alligator attacks and quick sand, but no steps to take to ensure you will survive sending your 18 year old son out of your home. If only all I needed to do was to stay calm and lie flat.

Maybe that is the point. There is no right way to do this. Maybe you’re not suppose  to be calm. This sort of thing is suppose to hurt like hell if you’re doing it right. Meanwhile the world goes on.

Wild Geese – Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles though the dessert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

 

Things I want my kids to know, and try to remember for myself too

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20130613_090021_1Your ego will fuck you over,  worse than any person or situation ever could

A quiet morning with a good cup of coffee is worth getting up early for

Sunshine is a beautiful gift too often taken for granted

Your feet are really important,  take good care of them

Every day that you are alive is a gift,  try to remember that

Love is unconditional,  liking is another story

Be kind,  to everyone, period,  really, this is THE thing that will see all of us through our short time on this planet

We live on a planet first, countries later, and lastly homes, try to behave accordingly

Feed people,  care for them,  not just on holidays,  every single day

Smile. Make eye contact when you do it. Do it a lot, everyone will feel better

Show up and do what needs to be done,  do more than needs to be done.  Do this every day

It’s best if you don’t get everything you want

Keep moving, your body, or mind, your soul at whatever speed is your own,  stagnation is death

Carry others when they cannot carry themselves

Do good,  not for any reward or recognition, but because that is why we are alive and on this planet

Look around you, the world is full of beauty and of gifts that you are not noticing

Listen to people,  turn off your own running monologue and just listen

Dance, whatever dancing is to you. Open your spirit and enjoy yourself

Listen to music you love, everyday,  it will feed your soul

Be alone and be quiet.

Everyday work on loving the person you are right now, not the person you want to or wish to be. Love yourself,  right now, grow from there

Forgive yourself,  forgive everyone else, for your own sanity

No one thinks they are the bad guy, everyone, EVERYONE is doing the best they can

Let yourself love an animal, let yourself love something that will die before you.

Let your heart get broken, over and over again

Stay open and vulnerable,  even when it hurts,  especially when it hurts, this will open you to the beauty of the world

Fight for those who cannot,  lend them your heart, your voice, your strength and your love. One day someone will stand and fight for you

Speak your mind with love

Laugh!! Everyday, many times. Your sense of humour will keep you sane. Never take yourself or your life too seriously to laugh at. Laughter keeps the importance of things in perspective.

Surround yourself with people who love and value you. Stay away from those who do not, they will suck the joy out of your life, don’t give them the opportunity.

Do others the honour of seeing your real self, your scars, your warts,  your self loathing and your unspeakable beauty

Love and honour something greater than yourself

The world is not here for your entertainment,  you are here to do some good in whatever form you can manage

People will not behave as you like, this has nothing to do with you

What other people think of you is none of your business

Resist absolutes, judgements and black vs white,  and good vs bad thinking, it’s lazy and will not serve you

A person’s skin colour, gender, sexual identity,  social status has absolutely NOTHING to do with their value as a person

Be mindful of your own biases
Everything begins with your thoughts, your actions, values and character all grow from your thoughts,  make them worthwhile

Change happens, always, get used to it

You will change,  this is a very good thing, try not to fight it too much

Read. Read. Read.  Read everything you can, you are blessed to be able to read and to have so much available to read,  do not ever stop reading, it will make you a better person

Be passionate about something, live your life in a way that expresses this passion

You will get hurt,  you will suffer in your life, this is not optional.  Use it to make yourself kinder,  softer,  more empathetic so you can be there for the next person who is suffering.  Don’t let your hurts make you hard and bitter.

Get out of your comfort zone, regularly,  this is where you learn and where you grow

Make mistakes and spend your time learning from from them instead of beating yourself up over them. Mistakes aren’t optional,  what you do with them is up to you

Nothing’s good or bad that thinking makes it so, decide how you want to think and then do it

Practice moderation,  and then truly enjoy the things you love

What a person says and does says everything about them and has nothing to do with you

Remember always you are precious beyond all measure and loved no matter what.