Tuesday 31 May 2016

May 31, 2016 - Everything Will Be OK

Places to go, people to see, lunches to pack
I have something to tell you about your future when you are ready to hear it. Remind me.

Everything will be OK? It will be even better than before? Kids are resilient? I won't regret this? This too shall pass? Give it two years? When a door closes a window opens? It is a rebirth, not a death - it only feels like it? Every little thing's gonna be alright?

Meh, not exactly... Those statements are way too sweeping.

Of course it will be ok, what's the option...?

It won't be better than before; it will be different - very, very different. It's impossible to compare.

Kids are resilient, but they still hurt too - forever.

As for regret, time will tell. 

This too shall pass - yes, then it will come back around, then pass. Waves - it's like waves.

Give it two years - two!? Please! I've given it 6 - still waiting (some great times in there though). 

When a door closes... doors close. Open another, peek inside, slam it shut, fling it open, leave it shut or reopen it. 

Rebirth not a death - it is a death. Mourn it, grieve it as such; until that is done, there cannot be a rebirth. 

But, yes, every little thing is gonna be alright.

I'll still tell you about something about your future some time, cuz those cliches ain't it! ;)

How will I know when I'm ready?

You will know, Grasshopper.


Sigh. There could be a neon sign flashing in my face, but to understand it I would need to examine it: touch it, smell it, unplug it, plug it back in, consider how I feel about it, listen to it buzz - then stand back and see what has been in front of me all along. That's just how my brain works. It can be exhausting - for me and the people around me; it's amazing no one has strangled me, yet. And it takes. so. long. I guess when they say we all have special needs, it really is true.

Everything will be OK - I have been told this by many people, in a hundred different ways. I'm beginning to know that it's true.
Good question

Sunday 22 May 2016

New Year's Day Wishing - Rhein, Saskatchewan, c.1946: Dad

Uncle Larry?
I wish you health,
I wish you wealth,
I wish you bliss in store.
I wish you heaven after death,
What can I wish you more?

New Year's day we had our cap guns. The rich kids had repeating cap pistols; the poor kids had to put single shot in and you had to reload - bang! Reload - bang! We wanted to go around to the houses with our cap guns and shoot.

Two or three of us would go together. Relatives... I don't remember going to a stranger's house. Direct neighbours and relatives, but at the same time I must have had twenty cousins, uncles and aunts and what-have-you. So it was a pretty good time. We'd fire our cap gun, knock out of respect, say the wish; they'd give money. 

The old-timers we'd give a German wish. I only knew one. It was a little bit on the risque side, something like: I wish you hurry up and give me. I can't stand here too long 'cause I'm crapping in my pant legs. But you didn't say that to serious people.

All we were really wishing is that they would give us some money - and everybody did, depending on their financial condition: a nickel, a quarter. It wasn't a big Get Rich deal; we would spend it on the necessities of life: Cherry Blossom candy bars. Wagon Wheels... they were that big, not like they are today.

Later on: pinball machines, which we played by putting the pinball machine on our toes so the balls wouldn't come down so fast. It upset the whole machine so you could keep your ball in play long enough to get free games. Put your first nickel in and play all afternoon. The result was sore toes and mothers who kept asking how it was that your shoes were all crushed, scuffed and misshapen, and why you were always limping. Those machines were heavy. 

The person in the store didn't care: it was a restaurant; they had it there to attract kids. Which it did.


**********

Wednesday 11 May 2016

May 10, 2016 - Dream Catcher


She pulls the paper plate from her backpack. Strung with yarn, feathers and beads, enlivened with oil pastel - how did they know she needed a dream catcher?

"Wow! Look at this! Can I hang it up?" I look toward the kitchen wall; is there space for this work of art?

Tuesday 10 May 2016

May 9, 2016 - Where my son sits; where my daughter used to sleep

Chair and footstool - new friend; brown blanket - India, before me; bed frame - Craigslist; coffee table - alley (thanks Linda); diner cup - Prophouse Restaurant close-out; carpet - seized property auction (thanks husband);  red blanket, cabinet, painted by me - Costco;
wall colour: Benjamin Moore Camouflage - Chris A
Cardboard boxes - what's going to Daddy's
My husband is dismantling our daughter's bed. He carries it down the narrow stairs, piece by piece, to the living room: a blue and white picket fence leaning against the melted-ice-cream-textured fireplace. My daughter inspects it when she returns home from school.

"It's getting closer," she says. "It's getting closer, going to Richmond." She goes upstairs to her emptying room. "Look at my bedroom," she tells me. "Go inside. I'm lucky. My bedroom is clean... I guess it's a play room now."

Cheapola glassware (fireplace shelves) - alleys and free boxes; cast iron love note bowl - Ontario; mirror - estate sale; tree of life (hanging) - Metepec, Mexico; Pineapple boy (window ledge) - Taxco, Mexico; red chair - neighbour's mother

My son has a heart as pure and good as an angel. A swearing angel whose vocabulary is guns and strategy and dank memes, which I'm not permitted to repeat.

When he drives he takes me to places of bizarre imagination, wonderful surprises, and clever wit I simply do not understand on my own. When we connect he guides me there. I give over my confusion, my exasperation, and I can see - not the sharp tip of the pyramid showing above the sand, but the base that supports it, buried deep below. It is a foundation of caring, tolerance, openness, desire to do good, temperance, and love. 

Monday 9 May 2016

May 9, 2016 - Daughter's Bedroom

"There was a space there, and a window, but no walls, no floors, and no way to get in. We were hoping to find treasure, but all we found was a desiccated rodent, and some old newspaper, stuffed around the windows. I put it in the blue bag. I don't remember how we disposed of the - what was that thing we found, a rat?"

"I don't remember."
  • Wall colour: Dulux Strawberry Puff - Chris
  • curtains, lampshade - me
  • cardboard-and-glue-gun doll house - Dr. R
  • felt pen tote tray, home-made doll cradle, ceramic elephant lamp, framed picture of two dogs, square nicknack shelves - yard sale or alley
  • bedside table, bureau and mirror (not shown) - Carol and Chris (refinished with auto paint in a home-built spray box)
  • Second hand American Girl doll - Craigslist (thanks, Laura)
  • Rose's bed and bedding - with love, from Grandma
  • Braided carpet of my childhood bed sheets - me; started before I got pregnant with my son, finished just before my daughter came
  • Back brace - Ortho Dynamics
  • Flooring - reclaimed from a house like this one

Sunday 8 May 2016

May 8, Mother's Day, 2016

In a few hours it's Mother's Day. A special occasion. I had almost forgotten to prepare myself for the brick to the head that each celebration, big or small, has brought me over the past nine months while my husband and I slowly, painfully - and until tonight, secretly - separate. Tonight we told our daughter; now everybody can know.

Luckily tonight an email from a new friend; we have bonded over loss and shared first times: him newly widowered, me on the road to divorce. Emails at Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's Day: How are you doing? How are you holding up? Way more emotional than I could have guessed. Like being hit by a brick.

His email reminds me to prepare for tomorrow: prepare myself, and prepare my children - no doubt they will be walloped, too.
May from the kitchen window: clematis, wall flower, Japanese Maple
My family doesn't make a huge fuss over me - a cup of chai in bed, or breakfast prepared. School-made cards and gifts from the kids - a happy Mother's Day. Every year I see the garden sale signs (is it Van Dusen or UBC?), but, unless they are away, most of the day is spent at my inlaw's. A family potluck: we take a salad of some sort. Or maybe there will be sushi. The kids play with their cousin and visit the dog. His family is pleasant, but my garden is more sustaining. We drive home in silence - the kids asleep in the back.

My first Mother's Day: the first time I asked my husband for a break. The guilt I felt, wanting to spend this special day alone! Our son was 7 months old, and I was exhausted. Unable to calm him, unable to help him sleep; I needed a few hours alone - a little breather to gather my forces up again to try, try, try.
Seen it all
My only trick was nursing - the Golden Orbs of Milky Goodness: eventually he would grog out; his arms would go limp. I would carefully lift the sleeping baby along with the nursing pillow, hold my breath as I undid the long, noisy Velcro strap that held it around my waist, and gingerly deposit him into his crib. Occasionally the transfer would work and I would sneak out as silently as is possible with these creaky, wooden floors. Usually, he would wake, and the crying would begin again. Rocking, bouncing, singing... we took turns: my husband one night, me the next.

I sang what I knew: Elvis, the Beatles, Buddy Holly, and songs I learned from my parents. "You Are My Sunshine" - bawling in love and despair.  My husband made up wonderful songs on the spot, that rhymed and made sense and were funny. I would listen over the baby monitor as I cleared up the kitchen or sterilised bottles and breast pump parts - a big smile on my face, and a big relief that it wasn't me still up there. Around that time I started using earplugs - the orange squishy kind; they could be found in every pocket and drawer. We soon stopped using the monitor; we could hear him plenty well without it - even with earplugs.

When he was finally asleep and in his crib, I would slide my cheek along his - smooth, cool and very chubby from all that milk - and whisper, "We'll figure it out. I won't give up." I risked waking him, but my heart had grown three sizes larger, and I was dying for connection, hugs, and snuggles. I would peer into his angel face - so beautiful, so peaceful - and make my promise. Kiss his cheeks and eyes and his perfect mouth. His toes and wrists and fingers. Re-draw the invisible string between his forehead and mine that should connect us - no matter how far apart - and resolve to find a way.
Lone, surviving lilac tree, orphaned rhododendron, snowball (Van Dusen - before kids)
I don't remember exactly how I spent that first Mother's day, away from my son, but I know I was at home. I had three - maybe four - hours to enjoy myself, with nothing to do but what I felt like: engage in some activity that gave me energy: gardening, likely, or sewing. Making something from nothing. Giving use to unwanted stuff. The opposite of being fussed over; I wanted to be alone. 

This became our tradition: breakfast with the kids, putter around the garden or house, then off to the in-laws for dinner.

(Except for last year. Last year our daughter had just gotten her scoliosis brace, so we agreed to go swimming - she's allowed to take it off when she swims.)

I hadn't given any thought to what might be the best plan for tomorrow until I got my friend's email. The first Mother's Day of the "Transition"... By now you'd think I'd be prepared for the brick; walloped at Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's, my birthday... and especially "Some Pig Day" - the first of every month: a tradition that, until last week, we had never missed in over 20 years. I've not once anticipated how emotional these day would be. His email reminded me to expect Mother's Day to be the same, only worse; it's the first occasion when our children know we are separating: I'm sure they will be smacked by their own bricks. If I am prepared, maybe I can mitigate some of the emotional onslaught. 

I've spent the evening thinking about how to make this Mother's Day a happy day for everyone. Here is my plan:

Composter - blue turner from my mother-in-law: an excellent tool
I will pick my son up from a birthday sleepover at 10 and take the kids to Dairy Queen - we'll have anything we want. (This is a rare treat for us, due to our daughter's PWS.)

Back at home I will Wait Watch and Wonder - one of the interventions that eventually helped me learn to connect: just hang out with the kids, watch what they're doing, wait for them to engage. Wonderful.

At noon - and well-connected to their mother - my husband will bundle the kids, their tablets, and a veggie tray into his car and head to his sister's for the rest of the tradition. They have been there many times without me, but never on Mother's Day, less than a week before their father is set to move out. Will they find the day as hard as I found Christmas? I would guess so; I will prepare myself for their return - I'll have some fun while they're gone. 

I thought about going to the plant show, but it would be pointless without a garden come August. And sad... I will miss my lovely garden of orphans beyond everything else. 

Instead, I'll get a haircut. Go to the beach - sit on a blanket in the sun. Eat rice pudding. Enjoy the trees and the view. Later I will water my garden in the early evening light, take some pictures, enjoy the house. Maybe cry. I know how to have fun! I'll be ready when the brick hits me, and ready when it hits my children, too; it could even be my best Mother's Day yet.