Twelve

Time frickin' flies...

Twelve years already since, a little freaked out and alone, I drove to Groves Memorial Hospital in Fergus and had this crazy kid.

Twelve years of trying to figure out how (sometimes if) his brain works and how (sometimes if) I need to mother him.

Twelve years of watching him interact with the world and figure out how he can influence it more than it influences him.

Twelve years of seeing him master his body and use it to perform feats which have often stopped my heart and started my mouth to yelling.

Twelve years of getting to say good morning and goodnight and wipe that look off your face before I do it for you.

Twelve years of laughter and tears and love and pain which has sometimes engulfed him but has never broken him.

Twelve years of noting who he looks up to and why.

Twelve years of wondering which bone he will break next and how.

Twelve years of being grateful that I didn't crash my car on the way to the hospital.

Happy Birthday young man, let's see if we can get you to thirteen intact!

Seven

 SEVEN!

At 7, she is funnier than I care to admit, more dramatic than Meryl Streep, smarter than she has a right to be and sassier than I could ever imagine.

Athena  is starting to lose her baby parts. Tooth by tooth she takes baby steps closer to the adult world. Year by year she takes giant
steps from the shelter of childhood.

For now, the magic of life still clings to her. The certainty that she is loved and loveable are the cornerstones of her universe.

One day last week as we walked to school hand-in-hand she suddenlty stopped on the sidewalk and waited for her dead weight to halt me.  When the limited length of our arms forced me to turn I
found Athena looking at me thoughtfully. Satisfied that she had my full attention, she raised her right leg and ever so dramatically allowed it to dangle before swinging it forward and deliberately stepping on the crack.  Perplexed, I watched her crumble in a fit of giggles before regaining her composure and asking in a sweetly syrupy voice: "So Mom, how is your back today?"

Every day is like that. Every day has a moment when Athena's unexpected sassiness or flare for the dramatic stops us dead in our tracks, breath held as we wait for the pause to be overtaken by the fit of laughter which always lays on the other side.

And just when you think you know all there is to know about this remarkable child, she displays a deep sensitivity for the environment and humanity creating insightfully heartfelt prayers which I wish I had thought to pray myself.

Happy Birthday Little Girl!

How Do I Love Thee

Anyone who knows me knows that I believe love is the single most important thing one human being can offer another.

At 45 (soon), I can honestly say that I have offered it freely, accepted it graciously (don't overthink it) as a daughter, sister, cousin, niece, aunt, mother, friend, lover, partner, wife and questioned it rarely - until now. I don't question it's existence, it's power or it's purpose. Let me explain...

The last few years, through divorce and other family issues (aren't there always issues?) I have learned that someone loving me isn't enough and shouldn't be enough to have them take up my most precious resource - time.

I have learned to stop allowing myself to get distracted by a profession of love. To look deeper and harder at how and why I am loved. To watch the behaviors and language and ask myself if the love being offered allows me to honor who I am and what I believe in.

Not all love is created equal. Not all love is healthy. Not all love is meant to last and most importantly, not all love is love, though it may have a lot of the same trademarks.

A lot of emotional needs masquerade themselves as love, the most prevalent of which I believe is fear; fear of being alone, fear of being abandoned, fear of failure, fear of unworthiness, fear of fear.

Like most people, my kids have been the easiest people for me to love. This may be because I understand them almost as well as I understand myself. It may also be because they are still relatively young. I know that my love for them is unconditional. It will exist long after I do.

Not everyone believes that conditional love is love, but I do. It's important for everyone to know their limits, to decide what they will and will not tolerate infesting their world. If I can answer the how's and why of the love others offer me, I can decide if I want to open their gift. Do they cheat, lie, dismiss, ignore and call it love? Do they want to control, manipulate and demean someone else?

Perhaps you sense pessimism or bitterness, I have neither. I am eternally optimistic and incredibly open to whatever gift of love the universe brings to me both conditionally and unconditionally. I have been well loved and am grateful for those who love me and those who I have loved in my short lifetime.

To me, love is so much more than a word or an emotion. It is a set of values, a code of conduct, a mountain with many plateaus many of which we will not reach with everyone who crosses our path. Love is an opportunity to both offer and accept the gifts of humanity, an opportunity which sometimes comes with a price of admission and other times is beautifully free.

Either way, I don't believe time spent loving is ever wasted. It connects us to the universe and her people more securely and more profoundly than anything else can. It teaches us who we are and who we are not and if we allow it, through love's joy and pain it helps us to grow.

Isn't it Ironic...

Listening to CBC this morning I was struck by what I see as an incredible irony.

A story about Toronto-based Dewson Street Junior Public School trying to raise $30,000 in 30 days to sponsor and resettle a displaced Syrian family was followed by a citation from The Daily Bread Food Bank Annual Report.

According to the report, food bank use is up 45% in Toronto suburbs and the length of time families are dependent on the food banks has increased from 12 months to 2 years.

So what is it, I wonder that spurs some people to action? Why is it that there are desperate families within the cradle of Toronto who are being passed over in favor of supporting refugees half a world away?

One could argue that annual Easter and Thanksgiving food drives have desensitized us to the needs of those around us, or that we are disillusioned into thinking that sending our kids to school with packages of pasta and jars of peanut butter tucked into their backpacks is making a bigger difference than it is. Or perhaps we believe that being poor and desperate in Toronto is nothing compared to the blatant and very real images of despair we see being prostituted by our media outlets and talked about by our politicians.  Some of the same polititions, I might add, who have a far greater ability to impact a larger number of lives than the population of Dewson Junior Public School.

One could argue that visibility breeds compassion, that the refugees are the current “hot topic.” That they occupy the nation's eye and therefore demand attention. While I agree that despair is always worthy, I wonder at the logic of bringing even one family to Toronto, a city in which, also according to CBC, the poor are being priced out of the housing market; also in which a refugee family is bound to be relegated to rely upon those same overtaxed food banks once the nation's eye falls upon a new "hot topic".

I am all for eradicating desperation from all the small and large hollows in which it lives and also all for activating compassion and global citizenship in our young. What I question is this...how visible will a new Syrian refugee family be, in the very suburb which is diligently working to sponsor it, once is has been here for a hot minute. When the citizens are finished patting themselves and each other on the back. When the family has become just like every other impoverished family in the GTA, where will the community's attention turn and how does this benefit anyone?

There are already people in Toronto living in despair, people without jobs and without adequate housing, clothing or food. Individuals sleeping on the streets and families working daily yet finding themselves falling behind the rate of inflation.

With winter looming, we will again hear stories of people who can't afford to heat their homes, others freezing to death on Toronto streets and also of Toronto shelters struggling under the weight of demand from the community they are attempting to service.

It's interesting to me the value we give to some lives over others. The value we see in possibly creating a newly desperate situation for Syrians by transplanting them into a City which may or may not have the ability to support it emotionally, financially and socially on a long term basis, while we ignore those among us who are equally desperate and equally deserving.

As I sit in my decidedly comfortable yet far from decadent kitchen, I sip my tea and ask the empty room, "Isn't it ironic?"

Time for Falling...

It's cheesy, I know, the title and yet it's fitting for the season and the reason.

Day by day I am falling in love with my life again.  Funny thing is that I didn't even really realize that I had fallen out of love.

I was too busy driving to soccer and swimming and soccer and rowing and soccer and guitar and soccer and basketball and soccer to realize that I was also driving myself into the ground.  I was too busy to think. With adrenaline riding side-saddle I planned events and executed them with precision. I managed to be in three places at once; to make sure bags were packed; water bottles filled; to home make lasagnes; to shop and shower and dress but I failed to show up.

I was too busy mentally pre-planning bedtime; lunches; practices; games; life; that I was too busy to live it. Thankfully there were days when I snapped out of my self-imposed walking coma long enough to absorb and enjoy but they were too few and too far between for me to take pride in this.

It is only now that I have waded through the hazy days and made it to the shore on the other side of summer, and soccer, that I recognize myself.

In recognition of this, I have made a momentous decision. This year, no rep soccer.  No soccer of any kind until spring. Guitar - yes because it requires more from the player than it does from me. Swimming - no because in spite of my strong feelings about it my little swimmer loves swimming but some of that love gets lost when it comes to lessons.

I already feel the shift. We are laughing more and playing more together.  There is more time for long dinners and visits from friends.  There is time for cuddling and family movies and laying on the couch.  There is time to watch baseball and go to the driving range and the library. There is time to walk and get lost in our new neighborhood. There is time for me to sit and listen, really listen and not just critique, my budding musician. There is time for me to shoot hoops with my bballer instead of just waving goodbye as he heads to the court. Time to teach the young one to ride a two-wheeler; to get on my own bike and ride alongside. Time to strap on my roller blades and stretch before placing one foot in front of the other and feel the solid earth roll past beneath me, to push harder and feel myself fly.

In all this time and through all these moments I feel myself breathing. I feel myself falling in love again with motherhood, with my body, with my life and myself.

When in Rome

The Vatican Museum with it's Sistine Chapel is a tourist attraction. One in which for most, the orgy of art and artifacts far outweighs the religious meaning or value of the Vatican.

Even though the Museum has been open for only half an hour, the line up outside is 150 deep. Our pre purchased passes (so worthy of a high five here!) has us around the corner and through the doors before sweat begins to bead and roll down my back.

Inside, the Museum is crawling, at a snails pace, with groups and individuals like ourselves anxious to get our turn inside the famous Sistine Chapel. First though, we are shepherded through many halls ornately decorated from floor to ceiling with paintings, gold thread infused tapestries bigger than my living room and row upon row of marble columns thicker than my house.

 By the time we reach the Chapel, I feel queasy.  Sick to my stomach that so much has been crammed into this place. I am not a Catholic, but I consider those who are and consider it a shame that millions of them will never enter this place and see these beautiful creations.

When I enter into the Holy place I hear the shushin hiss of security. Silence cannot be achieved let alone maintained. I see many surreptitiously taking photographs and videos. Some are caught and asked to stop but many others grin as they paplm their smart phones and snap away as though being disrespectful in this of all places makes them really super intelligent.

I watch the people more than I look at the paintings for by now my appreciation for the art has been diminished by the sheer volume of it. I would liken it to walking into a hoarders home and not knowing where to rest your eyes because there is so much vying for their attention. There is a small group of seven or eight priests who I enjoy watching as they wander taking in the surroundings. There are also a handful of security guards weaving through the crowd.

I gradually drift to the back of the room then turn toward the altar and contemplate the magnitude of the space. I think of Michelangelo reading the Bible and working diligently until his paintings were complete. I think of the Pope entering this space. I think of the babies baptized and people of all faiths who walk through the doors and manage to remember the Holy part embodied by the space.

I bow my head, thankful that the paintings, whispers and whirring cameras fall away and I am again alone with myself and my creator. I take a moment to breathe and to remember who I am and whose I am before returning my attention to the physical world around me. After 45-minutes or so we exit the Chapel and move into the adjourning room. Like the others, it is massive, adourned with paintings and lined with glass cases which hold gold and silver dust collectors. Who on earth has to keep all of those cases and all of that stuff clean?

As I take in my surroundings, I notice a Priest sitting and reading in the corner to my left. Before him is a desk and two chairs as well as a sign which reads "Art and Faith, A Priest for you." I watch a hundred or more people stream past him and on through the room. Though many stop to crowd around the lady beside him who is selling DVD's of the Chapel, not one looks twice at the robed figure. He is bypassed as everyone rushes on, feeding their gluttonous need to electronically capture the material smorgasbord before them.

Still watching, I cross to the other side of the room before backtracking and sitting opposite him at the desk. I am surprised, really that I made it back across the floor and to him, but also not surprised. I have no desire to talk about art and I explain this as we begin chatting.

What I want is simple and two pronged: to acknowledge him and to continue infusing this journey of mine with spirituality, wherever I may be and with whomever has the ability to keep me moving in that direction.

 Non-Catholicism declared, we go on to enjoy a 25-minute conversatioin which makes him late for prayers in the Chapel. After rising, shaking his hand and gaining permission to take this photo, I am able to walk away and through the numerous ensuing rooms of "valuables" knowing that I took the time to find and speak to the most valuable treasure of all - a human being.

Digitally Yours

I watch your

life unfold

on the ten second

chats you snap;

see your face 

in my online book

and wonder 

where our timeline is

going.

You 

twitter 

when I 

tweet 

but our

digital lives keep

us from getting any

face time.

I troll around and

Google 

you,

sift through your 

instant pictures 

for

proof of your 

(p)interest;

read between the lines

of your 

text.

As my hope goes

up in smoke like 

Tinder

my 

Candy-coated crush

begins to fade

and I remind

myself that 

WOW

there are 

Plenty of fish

in the sea.

- Vera