checked out

Gee checked out of his hotel in Quebec this morning, and started the long drive home, tagging along with the radio guys, or the assistant coach, or some friendly parents grateful to have the Journalist in the car, hoping it might get a few more lines written about their son the maybe-prodigy in next week’s paper.  He should be home in an our or two.  He has been gone since Thursday.

I think I checked out this morning too.  I did the early morning wake-up, and the Easter baskets, and the egg hunt (one still missing and god only knows where); I cut the fresh fruit and heated pastries for a special breakfast; I drank coffee.  But my heart isn’t in it anymore.  I’m tired.  The kids are happy and playing, and if they notice that mom is on another planet today, they are being discreet about it.

I am a good mother.  My children are well raised and well loved. But every now and then my tank runs dry, and I try to get by on fumes.  When Gee is away, it all falls to me:  my long days at work, late nights at home, 100% responsibility for every need and crisis of my daughters.  I’m not the only one who does this – I know full well that I am lucky to have a husband who supports and loves and participates, and that not every parent has a willing, able partner.  That doesn’t change the fact that it can be exhausting. 

You know when you have to go pee right before you leave the office, but you don’t go because you’re in a hurry to get on the road?  And then, once on the road, there is traffic, and the urge gets stronger.  Still, you can handle it.  You know you have a 30 minute drive in front of you, and your body is well-trained to control itself for that length of time.  But as you round the corner and hit the button on the garage door opener, you know that relief is coming, and the urge comes on stronger still.  You get the door open, you fight with your belt buckle and button as you bolt towards the bathroom, leaving the back door ajar, and manage to squat just as your body finally lets go.

That’s kind of where I’m at right now.  I’ve had to pee for the last day or so, but it’s been manageable.  Now that support is on the way, I find myself fumbling with the back-door lock, doubled-over and crossing my legs (and all the while, those beautiful babies play).

the boneshaker chronicles part 1

So, I started a new job a couple of months ago.  They say a change is as good as a rest, and this is a change.  One of the changes is that I now commute to work on the bus, the 52-seat limo, the boneshaker.

Most of the time, I put on my headphones and fall asleep, but yesterday I managed to keep my eyes open long enough to notice some things, about people, about my city, even a little bit about the nature life in general.  I had the urge to open Twitter account, just so I could spill them out of my overflowing (and possibly overtired) brain, but since I hate Twitter with practically every fiber of my being, I thought I’d try it out here.

So, without further ado: 

The Boneshaker Chronicles:  remarks about life from my window seat on the 35

My favourite moment on the bus comes when I’m waiting for my transfer at Lebreton Flats.

Several times a week, the timing works out that I’m a witness as the east-bound express stops just as the north-bound to Quebec is loading, down the block and across the road. 

Watching grown men and women, dressed in slacks and high heels and carrying briefcases, RUN at full tilt down the sidewalk in a mad, hopeful dash to make their connection is so crazy and surreal that I can’t help but smile out loud every time I see it.

It happened today

And then, as if to prove that life’s every good joke has to come at a price, traffic was worse than usual going through downtown today.

At one point, an ambulance tried to scream past, but being blocked by 4 lanes of commuter cars, the screaming was reduced to a whimper.

A few blocks later, flashing lights, fire trucks.  A body lying on the sidewalk.  Paramedics working on him, worried and curious onlookers craning their necks from a respectable distance.

My frustration about the traffic melted into heartbreak.  Somewhere a wife was maybe preparing dinner.  Children were maybe waiting for their daddy to pick them up from daycare.  Somebody hadn’t yet received the worst phone call of their life.  And it occurred to me, as it does more often than I should really admit, that every moment could be that moment.  Every day could be the day that someone you love just doesn’t come home.

And with that, I closed my eyes again and tried to get lost in the music.

don’t let the bedbugs bite

Our babies grow up, bit by very little bit, and often we are too busy, or too proud, or just too damn obtuse to notice.

But other times, maybe ordinary times, maybe paint-dryingly dull times, we do notice.  And in noticing, those ordinary times become extraordinary.

My big girl was supposed to have a friend over tonight.  Her very first friend to sleep over here.  She had big plans:  movies in the basement, popcorn, giggling into the night.  But yesterday, for reasons that aren’t clear, her friend cancelled.  Too tired, her parents said, but it didn’t ring true.  Maybe she was nervous about sleeping away from home, maybe the two of them had been through some petty argument, or maybe she just really wasn’t feeling well, and wanted to be in her own bed.  Whatever.  My little girl’s heart was broken, and that of her mother fell into pieces along side it.

But in some miracle of nature, my big girl’s little sister stepped in to patch up the broken bits and fill in the holes.  And right now the two of them are sleeping side by side on the pull-out couch in the basement, 2 floors down from me, out of hearing, out of range.

I am tempted to join them, to sleep in the downstairs guest room so that I am close by in case one of them wakes, calls out, the way I have been close by since birth.

At the same time I am tempted to sleep in my own bed, 2 flights of stairs away – 60 feet that to my heart might as well be 60 miles.  I am tempted to give them this freedom, this independence.  This chance to overcome a fear they once had, maybe have no longer.

It is a tiny step for them, to be willing, excited to spend the night in the cold, dark basement.  It is them growing  older, growing up, eventually away.  Bit by tiny little bit, they are turning out of babies and into  people, and to me that is kind of extraordinary.

Update: 

This morning, I tiptoed down the creaky wooden stairs to find them, curled up with their blankets and babies in front of the glowing television.  When they saw me, before I could ask if they had been cold or afraid or lonely, Dee turned her toothless grin my way and asked, “Can we do it again tonight?!”

A silly milestone, but a milestone nonetheless.

dear gee

Dear Gee;

I have a blog. Did you know? Suspect?  Sometimes when you’ve been on my computer, I wonder if I’ve been lazy about logging out of WordPress, and if you have found my blog when looking for your (legitimate and public) own.  Did you know what you were looking at?  Why didn’t you say something?  Are you more comfortable letting me keep this from you?  Are you waiting for me to come forward on my own, disappointed when I don’t?  Or were you only oblivious?

I don’t know why I’ve kept it from you. I don’t keep much from you; I really don’t keep anything from you.  I can’t. The happenings of my life don’t really become themselves until I have shared them with you. I love you with all my heart; I am so amazingly happy and relieved and grateful to have met you in that back alley of Zihuatenejo all those years ago.

And yet, this? This I was afraid to share with you. This I was afraid to admit. I ask myself quite often, why…

You know me. You know that in my soul, I am a lot like Dee (or she, a lot like me). I learned, a long time ago, to rely on myself; to live my life alone and proudly; to be self-sufficient; to refuse to expose any Achilles heel.

And a blog? My blog? I’m afraid, mon amour, that it shows an awful lot of weakness. I’m afraid you will read it, and that you will be hurt, or angry, or (worst of all) feel some colour of pity for me. You know that what I hate most in myself is my vulnerabilities, and you know them all; your radar will easily identify every soft spot I have, via each word I commit to the interwebs.

You know too that I fear criticism, and that opening my words up to people who know me invites criticism, voiced or stifled, explicit or implied.  I write with too many commas, parentheses.  My vocabulary is limited, maybe my metaphors are forced, my ideas trite.  You’ve seen me fall apart under the weight of your well-meant commentary before…could I continue to write, risking that again?

This I know:  I hate keeping this little secret from you.  Our couple is too Good for secrets; we are too much One to hide things from each other.  I don’t want to wake up one day years or months from now and discover that this one tiny insignificant thing was really the thin edge of the wedge, forcing us apart.  We are too Much for that.

I know too that I miss writing.  I want to be able to tell you that I’m going to steal away for a few minutes to work on a post.  I’m not sure why I can’t be satisfied with writing in a diary, as I used to.  Another blogger explained that there is something about the pressure of being published:  we try a little harder, revise a little better, and (theoretically) write more regularly when we believe we have an audience.  You of all people understand that, I’m sure.  

I don’t know for sure that taking myself out of the closet will help me write more freely and often, but it seems like a logical first step. 

Sometimes you look at me when I’m blue, and you tell me gently that I need to take better care of myself, I need to do things for me.  You are so right, darling.

a new and favourite happy place

I imagine that most people have their “lottery winner” fantasy:  the one where you buy a random ticket and hit the jackpot, then figure out all the ways that you might spend the money.  Exactly how would you tell your husband?  How would you quit your job?  How would you dole out handsome gifts to family and friends?

Tonight my fantasy developed a new plot-line.  If I won the big one, the $30 million 6/49, I would buy myself a secret condominium.  It would be small, and white, and perfect.  It would have matching furniture that would not a) have juice stains on it; b) be the secret hiding place for dirty socks; and c) do double duty as a trampoline.

I would go to my secret, pristine condominium on nights like tonight.  Nights after a day like today.  A day that started with me trying to sew up a hole in my sock by putting my foot up on the laundry hamper, only to have the lid of the hamper collapse, trapping my leg inside and making me crash backwards and defenseless into the back wall of my closet.  (And all this at 5:30 am when the rest of the world was sleeping and I couldn’t even let out a scream or a cry or a well-earned curse word.)

I would go and make tea in my sterile little kitchen in my secret condominium, after the day when I got to work to find out that the fellow who is supposed to be managing our big upgrade project won’t be in, and I’ve been chosen to take his place.  Sitting in boring meetings, acting as if I know how to navigate my way through the cutover process and the testing strategy, before moving onto other meetings to go over brain-numbing verifications of processes about which I know nothing at all, and about which I care even less.

After I got out of my meetings, late, so that I could be stuck in traffic for an hour, and after arriving at the grocery store without bags, leaving me to pack my groceries cleverly in a box that has a big opening in the bottom, lying the advent calendars flat to cover the hole and arranging mangoes and paneer cheese and red peppers on top, after I picked up the kids from daycare, where I got the notice that fees are going up for the SECOND TIME THIS YEAR, and after the kids have spotted the advent calendars and yanked them out of my box, leaving cheese and pepper and mango to roll down the stone front steps, after all of this, I would go and sit on my perfect little couch in my little high-rise condominium and I would read a decorating magazine, or just sit and marvel at the complete absence of whiny children, dirty dishes and unflushed toilets.

Every now and again, my life gets the better of me.   I seem to be doing a little better about it lately, but it still confounds me how no-one else in this family thinks it is their responsibility to show a little initiative and PICK SOMETHING THE HELL UP!  When it comes to maintaining the house, if I don’t specifically ask, it doesn’t get done.

People mock so-called “Control Freaks”  but the truth is, we’re only control freaks because everyone around us depends on us to be exactly that.  I swear some days I can actually see Gee physically waiting for me to tell him what to do, and you know what?  That is exhausting.  It is infuriating.  It makes me just want to up and run away and go to a place where nobody can find me, and nobody can bug me, and nobody expects me to do a single damn thing.

So if I had a million dollars, I wouldn’t buy you a green dress.  I would buy a condo in a high-rise downtown, and I would escape for a few hours until Consuela the maid could get the chaos under control out there in the ‘burbs.

daylight

The monsters always retreat when the sun rises.

Tee woke up poorly this morning, clearly ill.  I seriously debated cancelling the party, but couldn’t bear the thought of breaking 7 tiny hearts.  Luckily, with enough of the Tylenol/Advil cocktail and a good lot of distraction, she came completely around and had a blast with her friends.

Dee came home from her sleepover, still red and rashy, but also glowing in a different, better way.  She was so happy to have spent the night with her friend, happy to be back home, and happy to be the ‘big sister’ and help me out with the younger kids.  Just seeing her was a huge relief; I knew that whatever it is that she has is not dangerous and certainly not horrible, and I was relieved and grateful beyond belief.

The monsters have been beaten back into the shadows by the weak winter sunshine and the laughter of children, and all is well again in my world.

argh. no, i’m not a pirate; just argh.

Yes, I vowed to post more. I vowed to tell my husband about my blog, and to make the time for it and to enjoy it and do it well.

I generally hate making excuses for myself, but this time I’m going to allow it. Know why? Here’s why:

I was in Vancouver the last week of October for work. I love Vancouver, loved having the chance to take the 5 hour flight without kids for once, to stay all alone in a king sized bed with more fluffy pillows than anybody ought to have a right to, and eat sushi on my per diem allowance.

But it was the last week of October, man. Which means that I had to have all the Hallowe’en stuff ready before I left. Which I was so not ready to do, given that I was getting ready to go to the whole other end of this huge great country and all. And then, as soon as I got back, it was all the last minute rushing to get ready for the big event itself, clean up the house, do all the laundry etc etc etc. That part is no biggie, really…its the same crap I do when I’m here.

What I was not ready to do was crank out posters for the Arts and Crafts day that the school council is having tomorrow in order to get our float ready for this year’s Santa Claus parade. This is my first year on the council. In some fit of semi-manic lunacy, I not only joined the council, but agreed to sit on two (TWO!!!) subcommittees, which are chewing up my time and energy the way that I’ve been chewing up mini-mars bars for the past week.

So I churned out the posters, and this evening trudged over to the school, my almost-6-year-old in tow, to set up for tomorrow’s big workshop. Which I can’t attend because it is said almost-6-year-old’s birthday party. Which I still have to decorate for…beach party theme, so decorating is like, kind of important, or else I’ll just have a bunch of kids freezing to death in their favourite summer clothes because we promised the parents that the heat would be cranked up (“heat” and “cranked up” being relative terms).

With all of that, I would still be okay, I think. Even with my failed first attempt at ice cream cone cupcakes, I think I would be hanging in there. I might be up until midnight, and things won’t be nearly as perfect as other, better mothers might make them, but I would be okay.

Except now that same almost-6-year old is lying in my bed with a headache and sore throat, and I’m not only wondering what kind of night she’s going to have (my guess is crappy), but also whether or not she will be well enough to infect entertain all her little friends tomorrow. At least Dee is at a sleepover tonight so we’ll only have to worry about one of them.

And then? The icing on my falling-apart cupcakes? The sleepover mom just called, telling me that Dee’s cheeks are really red, and is that normal? She got a bit of a mystery rash the day before yesterday: barely noticeable on her chest and tummy. It wasn’t bothering her at all, and we chalked it up to a random childhood illness and went on with our lives. She has no fever, no pain, no itch, no other symptoms except for a red, uniform, non-pimply rash all over her torso…and now her cheeks.  Is it scarlet fever?  Shingles?  Fifths disease?  Do I need to rush her to the children’s hospital in the middle of the night, so I can sit there for four hours and then watch some resident shrug his shoulders and tell me that if it isn’t bothering her it’s probably nothing and we should just keep an eye on it?

Neither Doctor Google nor Ontario Telehealth are able to help me and Gee won’t be home for at least another hour. Not that he can help either, but at least I won’t feel quite so utterly alone on this cold, stupid November night.

playdate

Dee has a friend over; we couldn’t find anybody home to come and play with Tee, so she is on her own, flailing between desolation and incomprehensible fury, doing her best to be a royal pain in the ass, the way only little sisters can.

I’m on the periphery of the thing, downstairs, listening to the rise of voices, tempers, willing the three of them to work out their differences, poised to leap up the stairs if the frustration risks a turn to violence.

They are learning to be people. We, as parents, do our best to teach them how to do that. I, as a self-confessed control freak, try my best to stay in the shadows on days like today, trusting that the lessons I have been teaching for the past 7 or 5 years will be enough to lead my children onto the right little footpath through the overgrown garden of girlhood.

Later, when Tee has been banished, or when she has fled of her own accord, I hear Dee trying to boss her friend around. Ever the leader, ever the choreographer in the dance of her own experience, she doesn’t even ask her friends to follow; she simply assumes that they will. So certain she is that her way is the right way that it doesn’t even occur to her that there might be another.

Gosh, how I want to get up there and set her straight. Gosh, how I’m afraid that she will not have any friends if she doesn’t learn to be more kind, more open to suggestion, generous of spirit.

But I stay. I hold my breath, listen for the outcome. Her friend K stands her ground. She can be pretty bossy herself. I’m learning that most 7 year-olds can; it is a necessary part of their growth; a necessary lesson in their upbringing, albeit a lesson that we the parents don’t remember ever imparting.

I let out a sigh. The two of them will make it through this gunfight intact, and they will have learned something about getting along, about compromise, about picking battles.

Its amazing what our kids are capable of when we leave them to their own devices. I suspect that I’m going to have many opportunities to discover this in the years to come. It is my job to give them the tools. It is my job to encourage success, or at least to help them define it for themselves. It is my job to make them understand that if you want to get along in society, there are certain rules to be followed, certain expectations to be met. Surely, it is a choice; it will be their choice, one day. It is my job to help them know that their choice will have consequences. It’s not wrong to live on the outside of the ‘in’ crowd. Not wrong at all, but different.

It is my job to help them draw the map and navigate the sometimes turbulent waters. But they will be the captains of their own ships, the admirals of armadas. It is their job – their right and their priviledge – to choose who to become.

It is my job to let them.

fifty years

A year ago I wrote a post reflecting on my parents 49th wedding anniversary.

This past summer, our entire extended family gathered again at their home to celebrate their 50th with them.  21 people sleeping in and around their “1 bedroom house”.  It was crazy and loud and frustrating and fun as hell.

I was asked to say a few words at their party, and any time I tried to think of something, my mind would wander back to that post I had written, some 8 months earlier.  I took it, and tweaked it, and shyly but proudly showed it to Gee, who carefully critiqued it, knowing that I don’t hear criticism well.  My immediate reaction to his comments was to abandon my speech altogether, but once I had some time to reflect, I realized he was right.  A blog post is one thing; a tribute to your parents, in front of their closest friends and family, is another.

It seemed right to put the finished product here.  The evolution now complete (or complete, for now):

* * * * * * * * *
Ten years ago, for my parents 40th anniversary, I convinced my sisters that we should throw a party – about 60 people (many of you here again today) invited to a surprise barbecue here at their home.

Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, we couldn’t keep it a surprise.  They knew something was up, but they couldn’t quite put it together, so we were obliged to enlighten them as to what was going on.　

I believe my dad’s first horrified words were “WHY. ARE. YOU. DOING. THIS?”   I sensed a mixture of fear and irritation in his tone. So I looked at my dear, dear, dad and said bluntly, “Your wife has never had a party in her honour.  She had her wedding reception in the basement of her parents’ house, for god’s sake.  So this?  This is for Mom.”

I could see him physically change as he softened, but all he said was, “Oh.  Okay then.”  You see, it’s hard for him to be the centre of attention, but he would do almost anything for my mother – and she for him.  It’s one of many things that defines their marriage.

Everyone had a wonderful time that day, and so we decided to try it again. Because if anything deserves a party, it is 50 years of marriage. If anyone deserves a party, it is these two.

I know they will be together forever.  They are partners, best friends, advocates for each other.  It may not be not a frilly, romantic love, but it has never declined into complacent co-habitation either.  People talk a lot about respect, and we like to think that we are respectful of our partners, but sometimes it is only lip-service.  My mom and dad truly respect each other.  They never complain publicly about each other, or make a cutting sarcastic remark, or use the other as the butt of a joke.  They love each other more than that, and they are from a time when honour and respect were taken seriously.

Sure, they bicker, they frustrate each other.  But I don’t think I have ever heard them actually yell at each other.  I have never witnessed anger or jealousy or the infliction of pain.  Instead I witness kindness.  Trust.  Pride.  I witness deep, honest affection.  Spontaneous hugs in the middle of the day and kisses on the top of the head.  I witness Love, pure and simple.

on the threshold, peeking in

I started my blog partly out of curiosity, partly out of vanity.  I had been reading a few blogs – the regular ones, the popular ones – and thought that I just might be able to do it too.  Cautiously, gingerly, I started looking at free platforms, and then, still carefully, creating the basic outline, picking a name (which I was sure to change, and did change, to something that should or could or will change again, if ever I find out exactly Who I Am.)

And then it was time for the first post.  I don’t know what I was expecting.  Fanfare?  Instant recognition?  Dozens of comments requiring moderation?

Instead, there was                                               silence. 

I told myself it didn’t matter.  I was doing this for me. I didn’t want fame; I just wanted a place where I could put my thoughts on paper (so to speak), to record my life, or at least the parts of it that I might want to remember, or maybe share one day.

During those early days, looking up tutorials on the web, I stumbled across an article entitled something like, “Why not to Blog”.  It was utterly depressing, actually, claiming that all bloggers are essentially attention whores, who pretend they have something to offer to the interwebs, but who really just want to be heard.  The author of the article said that the only people who would ever read most blogs were the friends and relatives of the blogger, and they would only do it to keep up on the family dirt.

He was harsh, but I think he was also right, to a large extent.  There are too many blogs in the world. You start looking at one and then you are hyperlinked to another and another and just one more and I really should get supper going but I just want to check this one thing…

Despite that (or maybe in spite of that anonymous author), I rolled up my jeans, peeled off my socks, and tiptoed into the shallow end. 

It was hard, from the very beginning.  Hard to bare myself; hard to know how much to share.  Anonymity buys freedom, but the cost is loneliness.  I blogged privately, secretly, and yet I was still afraid to be completely honest.  A few kind people found me, and even though they will never know me in real life, I felt myself starting to self-censor, starting to try to write for someone, instead of writing for myself.

In the months of silence since my last post, I have thought about coming back many times.  I miss writing.  I miss looking back on the stories I’ve already written.   I don’t, however, miss the stress:  stress of trying to write when nobody is watching, of worrying about how long its been since my last post, of needing to make the words perfect before I can click the Publish button.

If I am going to do this, the ground-rules have to change.  Gee has to know about it; my friends need to be invited here.  They all have to understand that I might say some things here that could hurt, or embarass (though mostly only myself).  But mainly, I have to give myself permission to be authentic.  To be unfunny and non-eloquent.  Loathe though I may be to admit it, I am NOT Jane Austen or e.e. cummings.   Nor Tanis Miller nor Alice Bradley.

Instead I am a mother, wife, public servant, and a woman who loves words.  If I’m going to do this, if I’m going to come back, that needs to be enough.  I wonder if it is.