Growing Versions

 I have been so lucky in so many ways. I have only experienced tiny specks of physical and emotional pain in my life. Luckily that pain has been either episodic or limited and I have been able to manage it with drugs, or crying or writing or wine or chips....or something. This summer, a decade of holding my head the wrong way, typing, scrolling, stressing and driving all ganged up on my neck and said...we are holding you hostage until you address this.  However, when it first started, the pain didn't explain it just attacked. And attacked. No position relieved it. No drug touched it. It went on and on. I could not sleep. I could not hold a book or type. I drove with difficulty. Swimming in the ocean gave me enough pleasure that I temporarily forgot it.  I couldn't drink to forget it though or massage it enough. It just kept going.   I tackled the pain like I tackle everything, blindly and in a chaotically forceful way. This pain refused to be massaged away. It t...

What have your surroundings been telling you this year? Have they been embracing you? Or repelling you? Have they been giving you good ideas or draining you of all of your goods? Is there a tree that gives you a comfort? Or a chair in a special place that makes you feel at home? Where do you go to be set adrift? To be rooted?

Here we go. Hold my hand, let's go ahead. We know we cannot go back. My heart still lurches when I wait for the speeding cars to stop at the crosswalk with my kids, even now, when they are old enough to remember.  I reach down, hold their hands, and tell them. "I do not trust the drivers. Look the driver in the eye, and wait for them to stop." Let's cross now.

The kids marched off to school this morning.  They chose their own outfits, one actually bought hers with her own money, they lead the way and away they went.  My role in getting them ready was minimal this time. When I got home, I felt strangely sad. I have never noticed this sadness on the first day of school before.  Over the summer, I had them in my grasp, we floated and dived together and roasted marshmallows and made crazy plans.  They got bored, found ways not to be bored and slid back into boredom again. The ups and downs of their lives over the summer were directly observable by me, but they can't live in there forever. Now they have left the jar, they have been released into territory I can't always know or understand. They'll return at the end of the day full of stories and information from that tall grass over there.

One time, my university room mate confessed to me that my white sauce terrified her, along with my driving.  I was hurt at the time, but I got over it and went onto have a life long friendship with the room mate, a good driving record and to crank out 2-8 creamy white sauces a month for macaroni and cheese from then on.  She urged me to take the critique and not overlook the value of a good, creamy, thick (but not too thick) sauce. For whatever reason, this argument has stuck with me. During my recent downtime, denaturing on the beach and bulking up on strawberries and kebabs, the words "thicken the sauce" kept occurring to me. As I roamed the beach for smooth beach glass, I would glance over at the clear surface of the low tide and see little shards of broken shells and schools of fish undulating.  I would hear the words, thicken the sauce. As I learned (to finally) make yeast raised buns for the first time, and marvelled at the elasticy substance in my hands...

246 995 11 300 3 These numbers used to say something important about me. 

Last May 31st , I decided to skip blogging in the month of June.   The weather is finally decent here in June and it seemed like the garden was a better place to be than inside my head and on the computer.Today was another great day and I stumbled into the rat's nest that is our back yard and tumbled down a rabbit hole of milk weed (nasty), a bleeding heart that might lead to my salvation and a business plan (selling flowers from the garden in a paper, hand designed cone, I KNOW, it's brilliant).  I got reacquainted with the clothes pins and the dark soil and breeze rustling the branches over head.  The backyard (especially the path to the oil tank) was a constant source of stress during our winter, but here it is putting me back together. I think I'll stay there for a while and come back in July.

This video Daylily fritters  changed my brain chemistry. The creator behind this exquisite video is Aube Giroux from right here in NS.  She was even nominated for a James Beard Award. This video kickstarted my determination to see summer in every petal, every blade of grass no matter how grey, squashed or covered in dog poop it is.

Winter feels like returning to me. Summer feels like going. How about you?

He skated on every pool of water.  We looked up, we looked down. We played a series of games waiting for a Minecraft reservation. The thing about winter is that the cold and the crusty snowbanks block out extraneous noise, the tiles of bananarama line up into place, clicking against the salted floor  The Jenga blocks clack against the surface of the table top.  The snow scrunches between our boots and the sidewalk. We are impervious to other chatter that deafens us all week.

We were completely taken off guard by a "storm day" yesterday. The very last day of summer ended up being a day off due to wide spread (albeit brief) power outages. We spent the rest of the day doing what we did all summer, scrambling for childcare and taking turns doing paid work. It was a fantastic gift. A day of being outdoors after the first few weeks of adjusting to sedentary indoor work. Scramble scramble, shimmy, hustle, lurch and then, sit, Just sit. On a tree or next to one, one more time, before we will officially be doing it in a new season.

The past few weeks, if we were stuck waiting for something we took to counting up to ten 1 or 2 numbers at a time. Whoever gets to 10 first "loses" and then we start over.We try different combinations to avoid getting to 10 first. This morning, all dressed up and equipped to start a new school year, the kids held back a bit with me as they got their bearings. As we waited for the doors to open, and the chaos swirled around us, my daughter started another round. 1, 2,3 4 5 6,7 8,9 10!!! And then their names were called and we dispersed. We'll play again another day soon.

I have been going to the same beach since I was a baby. Since I could hold my own in the water and had the ability to dive under the surface, I have made it a habit, each and every time that I swim there, to orient my body towards the same point of land off in the distance and dive down, down and back up again. I emerge again blinking back the salt water and use that point as a compass needle. For just a moment, it is just me and the ocean and those rocks. I have never actually physically stood on that point of land. It can only be seen from land or from the water.  But each year since I was a child, I have dived into the water towards that point.  Like blowing out candles on a cake, I renew my promises to myself and direct my whole self towards this jut of trees and rocks.  Each dive under the water, connects me back to the 12, 16, 22 year old and the me I am now.  I am , among other things, a delicate balance between salt and water, I plunge down  into th...

This past few weeks we have been carmelizing down by the seashore.  Fireworks in the shape of a school house flared into the black night and split  us right open to the rhythm of the sea and the tides and the tea kettle.  I made plenty of mistakes parenting my kids each day, just like usual, but the difference was I could turn them loose on the sand and they could build up an empire between us.  We walk away each day from one doomed empire and return the next day to loosen the sand and build another.

There are so many answers out there. Everywhere I look, solutions, open letters, advice, tips, reading lists, the top 5 movies, suggestions galore. Invariably, the way these answers are arranged, I get kind of tricked into thinking that I asked a question in the first place. Rumi said "silence is the best answer". Perhaps, the same goes for questions. WifeMotherExpletive  declared that June she would go paper based for a month, I am going to follow her lead.  I need some loose leaf to dream up my own questions and listen for the answers in the morning light, the budding lily of the valley and the ripening strawberries or some other place I haven't noticed yet. I'll let the paper absorb the ink for a while.

As beautiful as this day was yesterday. There was a change a foot.  We planted seeds.  The time for sleeping is almost over. We are having carrots for supper (maybe).

Marshmallow with a fresh lemon centre. Toasted nutty candy nestled in shards of coconut. Cherry enrobed in chocolate. Creamy Orange centre. We ate them all.

Sometimes I dream about taking pictures of bark, up close. So close I can see every ridge, every sprig of moss. I stare intently (as intently as one can in a dream) at this flickering image and then it is gone.  A bubble floats past and magnifies a emerald green fern, forcing me to scrutinise that for a while, until it dissipates. Sometimes I am aware that actually I am in a forest.  Standing small among the crumbling trees and growing mushrooms, unsure of where I stand. What does this place consist of? What does it looks like? My vision can only see small cells of it at a time. I can't see all of it because I am absorbed by the speckled rocks around the base of one of its trees. Yesterday, a friend helped me understand that. She used different words, a different approach, a completely different analogy, but I got it. Today is a easier than yesterday.

The ball has dropped in many villages already. 2013 is in the rear window, almost. Two years ago, when I consulted my children about what my resolutions should be their answers were  pragmatic.  The six year old wanted me not to nap too much (believe me, naps were low on the ground back then to start with) and the three year old wanted me to swim and go sledding and draw more.  A hectic schedule and an insomnia problem took care of the nap thing and we did do more sledding and drawing over the past two years.  However, last year I resolved  not to make any resolutions , but to just keep turning towards the light. As resolution season peaks tonight, I got inspiration from this list that  Woody Guthrie made 70 years ago.   It holds up well over the years.  I think I'll make a version for myself, but I'm basing it primarily on #19... Keep Hoping Machine Running. (Source: businessinsider.com) I'm going to keep up the maintenance schedule ...