Growing Versions

That gap, the one between you and I, between here and there, between now and then can seem so large. Centimetres can still cause missteps, broken ankles, misunderstandings. Centimetres add up to metres, to kilometres. Distances comes in so many lengths.

Decisions don't just make themselves. Sometimes they take a long time to make, others are made in a snap. Sometimes they are made for us, others, hopefully more often than not, they get made by us. Informed decisions, uninformed decisions. Reckless, calculated. No matter. They do not make themselves. They are made.

Scene from Vicar of Dibley, Season 1, Episode 1 Members of the Parish Council discuss the prospect of having a female vicar. Mrs. Cropley: ...things have to change, don't they? Jim: That's right. I mean look at traffic lights, well, if they didn't change there'd be terrible congestion, wouldn't there? Owen: On the other hand, there's gravity. Jim: What about it? Owen: If gravity change, we'd all go floating up into space. Some changes are instant and irreversible. Some changes are contemplated for ages before even one minute movement can be detected. Some of us need agents of change. The other day, a friend took me to see this beautiful property. We have been in the midst of a change for a while now, but this was just the little push I needed to speed up the process. The question when contemplating a change is will this relieve congestion or cause me to float up to space? Now I see a clearer road ahead, the sky i...

This weekend my daughter decided, after visiting a friend's, that she should redecorate her room. Her friend's room had inspired her and for the first time ever she had her own vision for how her room should be organized.  I was not allowed in for my semi-annual clean and I realized that I won't be so readily invited in to re-organize things in my own way from now on. I came across a stack of sealed envelopes that were addressed to various relatives by my son. They had been written and stacked there at some point and I resisted opening them. I decided I would stick a stamp on them and fill in the address and send them on their way.

Dr. Vandana Shiva came to visit our city a couple of years ago. I remembered her visit when I heard her speak about the Paris climate talks on the radio the other day. It goes without saying that she was incredibly inspiring. She opened her speech by saying something like, (I am paraphrasing): "The sign up there says I am going to talk about all kinds of thing under the sun...food security, poverty, sustainability...(meaningful pause, I was waiting for her to self-deprecate and say something like, "that's a tall order"...but, no, she said)  "good thing everything is connected". Her full-hearted belief in her own message inspired in me a confidence that even I could do something to improve the world. One thing she talked about was, her book Soil Builders.  She talked about farming with reverence, that making soil a nourishing place for food and plants  and diversity to flouirsh is noble and is a vital role that cannot be diminished or d...

If I am not there wihtin ten minutes of the bell ringing, I get a phone call, politely inquiring when I might be gracing them with my presence.  Day in and day out, my children go in that building, I occasionally follow or am ushered in for a special event or because I forgot to pack their lunches. There will be a day, one that is rapidly approaching, when they won't be there.  They will have finished all the lessons required of them and they will transition to another school.  If I show up within ten minutes of the bell ringing, it will be politely tolerated and then, if I persist, eyebrows will be raised. I walk past the wooden gates of the daycare where my son went the year before school.  I walk along the street towards the building on my way home. The late spring warmth permeates everything. The children's voices and laughter escapes through the fence. I walk on.

Spring cleaning is about taking off the wool blankets, airing them out and packing them away.  Spring cleaning is about remembering and behaving as if, we need less. Less clothes, fewer shoes, fewer drawings, fewer broken toys, and crumbs, and magazines, and furniture, and food, and Christmas trees (long story), less Netflix. We need less. Now, let's prove it.

Just like that, after several years of putting up a fight against the demise of sending Christmas cards (real live ones), it seems that we collectively kind of sighed and put them aside. We got a handful of cards this year. Yes, and that means I have five fingers.  I atleast made some vague effort before, but this year, no, I put it out of my mind. I got another five electronic cards and countless Facebook/Twitter/Email greetings instead. I am an advocate for writing cards, for care packages and for letter writing, but even I have surrendered.  I want to want it more. I know we will miss something.  Down the line there will be a petering out of artifacts from this season, in this era.  I still treasure Christmas cards my mother was given, and that I gave my parents.  When I read ones from the time before that, I am rather in awe of the artistry that they feature, the humour that now seems stranger than funny, and the sentiments that echo down the line.  ...

We are taught from an early age not to yell for help when we are swimming in case we unduly alarm the people around us.  I took this lesson right to my heart. I have been thinking a lot lately about how I have somehow  trained myself to resist help.  Pride is partly to blame, never wanting to be accused of not being "helpful" is also a culprit.  For whatever reason, I feel compelled to tackle most of everything I do solo.  I repel help by not asking for it and assuming it's not needed, until it is. I have, in turned, trained the people around me not to expect that I need their help and I have almost (almost) forgotten how to ask for help. This weekend I needed help. I had a stressful situation on my hands (our hands) and I completely absorbed it.  My lips were trembling I was so stressed out, I could not think straight, my heart was racing. Help! I took my son to basketball. The sun was strong and gorgeous and we walked slowly  home toget...

I think Valentine's Day is like a half way mark. A bait, a switch if I am unlucky, to lure me to the centre of winter. I have candy.  Sugar to prove we are almost there.

I seriously risk sounding very old here when I say a  "I walked uphill both ways to school in my day" type comment, but I'm gonna anyways. When I was 5 years old, I walked a little over 2 kilometres a day to and from school ( and home for lunch). When I was in grade 1, I walked 3 kilometres. When I was 8, I walked a total of 5.2 kilometres. How far is too far? How far is not far enough?

This week school started. For our youngest, it was his first time. He was excited and a little worried, but it was all a big adventure as far as he was concerned. As we left the kids the first day at school and went on our way, something was missing. I was missing my travelling companion. Normally, we would drop off his sister and then go on our way to poke our way to preschool or daycare.  We'd have to check out every stick and rock and tree. I was missing the little 2 and then 3 and then 4 year old preschooler who didn't go to school yet. I did not expect to miss that little companion so much.  Of course, he's still around on weekends and afternoons and he still loves to pick up sticks and theorise about stuff as he goes, but it was a tangible re-jumbling those first few days.

A friend and I were out for walk on one of the very first hot days of the summer season.  As we walked, we reminisced about really great summers we've had.  Some of the summers that linger in my memory are the summers I did not necessarily do a lot that was exciting, but rather were times when I was able to fully respond to the moment. The summer I got married, I moved back from the west coast and spent the summer picking berries, making jam and wedding invitations and swimming at the beach in between.  Another summer, we moved to an apartment in the city with just one bag each containing only just enough clothes and toy and books to keep us going all summer. The common denominator, of course, was simplicity.  Everything was boiled down.  There was less stuff to keep track of and maintain.  The time we saved by not being absorbed by all the stuff, that seems to bog me down now, we put to good use.  Those precious summer days were savoured becaus...

Everyone knows the secret to making the right decision is making a long detailed list rationalizing why they should not do something, right?  This should be followed up by a lot of restless to-ing and fro-ing. That's what I thought.  I figured I needed to pour a lot of resistance into the mix and be convinced of something. But that is not what did it. I was asked by someone, "what if?" And my heart woke up and cleared its throat. Ready to answer that question.

"You are usually not so close.  That tree is usually not so far away," he exclaimed all the way to preschool that day. Everything was examined from both ends of the binoculars.  Nothing escaped his notice through those lenses. I am taking some time to do a workshop at a retreat centre this week.  I held my breath a lot (and washed a lot of dishes) making the decision to go through with my plans to come here.  All the routines (however only half working as they are) have been the tracks I have been sliding along.  I didn't want to leave the tracks, the making of lunches and matching of mittens and the reading of bedtime stories, because sometimes it feels like those tasks are the only gluey bits holding us together. I have left the tracks. Usually things are not so close or so far away.

The merry-go-round has officially started to turn in earnest.  Even though a lot of us were cringing when we saw decorations on November 30th, a lot of us, myself included, were eagerly (or resignedly) taking out the ornaments December 1st.  Every year I am determined  to be more committed to a less consumer driven holiday.  I always  intend to make simple, homemade gifts for people and give fewer, but more thoughtfully chosen, gifts.  However, in the end, I usually end up throwing a heap of cash, that I do not always have, at what almost feels like a problem.   Everywhere I turn I find myself succumbing to the twinkly lights and sweets and endorphins and think, "oh what the heck."  I spend more money than sense on this holiday and I end up spiritually  feeling short changed.  The to do list is only a shopping list not a-what-I-want-out-of-this-experience list. This year I have been a little slower climbing on the merry-go-round. ...

Last Hallowe'en, after yet another version of a "princess" costume got assembled, I suggested that she be a queen instead.  For some reason it made me feel better.  Why settle for princess when you can be a queen?  I mean, if you are going to go trick or treating as royalty, you miles well go all the way!  She agreed that a queen was way better and went with that.  I'm not saying queens do not have their issues but at least they are less defined for us by popular culture and are more open to interpretation.  This year, when she dressed up as a cat, I wondered out loud if she was a queen of cats.  She dismissed this notion outright.  "No way, I'm just a cat!"(Well, actually, she was going to be a butterfly cat but there were some technical issues)  Put in my place, I realized with relief that the princess/queen spell had been broken and new ideas for costumes had finally deposed the monarchy.

I'm waiting for the next ...development ...person ...inspiration ...story ...incarnation ...dream to make me see things in a whole new way. I'm not sure what, but I'm waiting for something.

You will find truth more quickly through delight than gravity. Let out a little more string on your kite. Alan Cohen I ca n do a lot of thi ngs. My kids are co nsta ntly updati ng me about all the thi ngs they are lear ni ng to do. Today, my so n informed me that he does n't  need  help any more ope ni ng the straw o n his juice box.  Sigh. I worked for a lo ng time to prove to everyone around me all the thi ngs that I ca n do.  Since childhood, I've made quite a long list . So, yes,  now I ca n make espresso, a nd write a fu ndi ng proposal a nd give a resista nt toddler a ntibiotics, a nd I ca n unclog a toilet and clear a jam in a photocopier.   The problem with my list is that all of those things involve gravity.  I'm going to start attempting things that defy gravity for a while. It's time to make a new list.

For the first time in about 8 weeks, I made my bed.  The minute the calendar ticked over to September 1st, something inside me clicked and I started to turn towards ensuring my household was in order. I embarked on a flurry of making ready projects, washing bedding, putting clothes on the line, putting all the laundry away in their respective places and beginning to think in terms of regimented scheduling again. The making of the bed was the most symbolic for me.  After weeks of vacations and overnighters and late nights lingering beside campfires or watching movies, I clung to the idea that a made bed was a waste of time, after all I barely spent anytime in it.   Making a bed was associated with school work and assembling lunches and remembering milk money.  But as soon as that full moon made its presence, it was like it switched on my bed-making reflex and it suddenly became extremely important for me to get into a bed with fresh sheets, without sand. The su...