A Song Not Scored For Breathing

It's Time

2011-03-26T17:44:00.008-06:00

I've known for a while that it's time for me to step away from blogging, be it for a time or permanently. I haven't wanted to heed that nudge so I let it sit until I could feel peaceful about it. Peaceful and a bit sad. You have no idea how your comments and readership have influenced my life for the better these past six plus years.

I started blogging to prove to myself I could write. Blogging regularly has improved my writing, there's no doubt about that. I learned to delete whole sentences, paragraphs and posts. Before blogging I used to fall in love with every single sentence I wrote. Not so much anymore.

Today I celebrated with my home group 23 years of sobriety. Technically my sobriety date is another 5 days away but my home group celebrates birthdays on the last Saturday of the month so today was the day. The picture with this post is a reflection of some gifts I received today. I feel blessed to be loved so much. And not just because people buy me stuff! But because they continue to walk with me in the fullness of my humanity. Like you folk have. I am grateful.

For now, I have other writing that I want to focus on. Maybe in time that will bring me back here. Part of me wonders if I have it in me to shut my mouth or the ability to stop looking at the world around me outside the realm of whether or not it's bloggable. If I can't then I might reappear tomorrow. Or next week. Or next year.

Whatever it turns out to be I'll catch ya on the flip side.

Oh, Spring Where Art Thou?

2011-03-21T21:30:00.006-06:00

You'd think that after seven and a half feet of snow we could be done with it now. Apparently not. Oh, Spring, where art thou?

I drove home in a blizzard yesterday. Thankfully there were stretches of no snow, no ice. It was a long 600 kms. For quite a ways a big truck followed me and I chose to see it as a big angel. Which made me chuckle at how we humans need to assign divine identities to inaminate objects. However, it made me feel better to do so especially when the trucker waited until the roads were bare and wet to pass me even though he had the chance to do it over the course of 100kms and didn't. I was gripping the steering wheel so tight there for a while that I thought I was going to get blisters.

Last week I was reminded, again, of the truth of the saying,

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

Reminded after the fact, of course. It's been haunting me ever since in a slapped up the side of the head kind of way. I realize not everyone has a God of their understanding who slaps up the side of the head but mine does. He hugs fiercely, too.

This past weekend I took my best self to some service work instead of my dragging my butt self and the difference in the experience was enormous in a humbling kind of way. And in a Godincidence happening I crossed paths with someone from a very long time ago. There we were 600 kms from our home that is 1000kms from our original home. It was pretty cool.

The way the tires sound when they are driving over ice? Not the most pleasant sound. I turned up my music a little loud yesterday on the drive home so I could pretend I was driving on anything else.

Tomorrow I'm not driving anywhere. I'm pretty pleased about that. There's this most pungent smell that wafts like a fart under blankets coming from my fridge every time I open the door so I'm guessing getting rid of that is on my to do list tomorrow.

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Fluff and Depth In One Package

2011-03-15T09:07:00.005-06:00

Holding a baby is a very healing pastime. Dearest one and I took turns on Sunday doing just that. Couple that with good, deep conversation with our guests and it was a great way to spend our time. They were unexpected company to have. In God's good humourous way and timing because I'd just left Mass where I had bemoaned my self centeredness to God only to came home to a baby and her mom waiting to visit the day away. Later we were joined by another couple and the conversation went deep and there's nothing I quite like so much as deep conversation about the guts of life.

Even if we continue to get snow at least when the sun shines it is warm and comforting and a very hopeful thing. I lay on the couch the other day reading a book enjoying the sun tickling my feet with kisses as I lazed away the afternoon. I used to read 100+ books a year and since I've gone back to work that number has dwindled to a handful. I didn't realize how much I missed it until I requested a passel of books from the library and began devouring them. I do have time to read after all. I've read half a dozen books in the past 10 days. I have always been the type that really couldn't care less about the state of the house around me if there was a good book waiting to be read.

One of those books was this one. I ordered it in to read because a writing teacher had recommended it as a great example of writing. It is a purely fun read that left me with great admiration for the author and how she ramped it up all the way through and made me laugh, too. The kind of laughing that begs you to go find someone and read a little bit to so that they can enjoy a belly laugh,too.

A "fluff" book as I used to declare derisively to my kids when they were growing up. A stage I went through where fluff was the enemy. Now it is fun. Oh, Lordy - when I looked it up to give you a link I found there is a whole series of books about Miss Julia. I have my fluff reading in order for years to come now. I am thrilled! (Only daughter is alternately feeling vindicated and horrified I bet!) HA!

Another book I read was this one. I remember a friend sending me her essay in the New York Time the summer I was going through the very same marriage journey. Laura Munson and I handled it in the same way so reading her book was both painful and affirming. I guess the point is that I went through it and came out the other side with a much deeper and satisfying marriage. Enough said.

And here I thought I had nothing left to blog about, that it was time to close up shop and put my energy into other things. For today I'm content to write and read although the only fluff I will encounter are the growing piles of dust bunnies.

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Easy, Peasy. Not

2011-03-06T11:56:00.009-07:00

This week I was given multiple opportunities to once again acknowledge that I am not God and don't know what's best for anyone else. How easy it is to think that I do! And how easy it is to forget that I can't see the whole picture. Even the most put together people can be fighting battles that are invisible to the casual observer or even friend. I got reminded of that this week. It was humbling.

And then I spent time with someone whose praise and applause I so desperately want and who I often feel judgement from. Someone that made me want to bang the table and shriek, "Change already, you thick headed fool."

I hashed it all out with my sponsor last night who knows everyone in the story and she gave me good direction in seeing my part in it. There's always a my part of it in any situation. I'd really be screwed wouldn't I if there wasn't? I mean trying to do something about someone else's part in it could be very frustrating. Just ask me. I know.

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Even When It's Frozen

2011-03-02T20:10:00.007-07:00

It was -45C before factoring in windchill here the other day. Dearest One figures it was -55C with the wind. That's -67F for my American friends. We live in a bit of a valley and are often colder than other places. We were 10 degrees colder than town. At any rate too darn cold to be outside that's for sure. Today was snowy with -35C windchill. People are starting to make tongue in cheek comments on how warm it is because, hey, -35C is better than it was! At least we are driving to and from work in near total daylight now. That is a bonus. And, and, it can be too cold to be outside and yet the sun is high enough in the sky to melt snow while the air is cold enough to freeze pee at the same time. Just sayin'.

It's a luxury to be able to blog about the weather. Serious shit is happening to people every day and all I have to whine about is the cold and snow. This does not mean I am happy being cold and driving in blowing snow. I'm not. I am surrounded by people who are so totally sick of winter they want to boycott it. I do, too, some days. But in the whole scheme of life, it's not that big of deal. I can say that because I'm warm and dry and fed tonight. Which is a luxury, too.

Tonight when I got home from work there was a message on my phone from someone that got my blood boiling. You'd think in cold weather that would be a good thing. I spent some time stewing it over in my mind before I called them back. I toldl myself to keep an open mind while convicting them of such and such a thing before giving them a chance. And after a long while I picked up the phone and found out that all my blood boiling, convicting without proof was a total waste of time and energy. I picked up the phone again and called my sponsor to tell her the whole spiel. We laughed. Then I told her how I hadn't felt good today, nausea and not exactly dizziness, just well, you know, not quite feeling right in the head. She laughed long and loudly before telling me she wasn't touching that statement with a ten foot pole and if dearest one knew what was good for him he wouldn't either. And then we both laughed.

Yep, not quite right in the head sums up how sick we can get in our thinking. I'd blame it on the weather but I am perfectly capable of having a case sewn up against a person sun or rain or wind or snow. It's not a luxury to realize that, it's a life and death thing, really. My head is truly out to get my ass. Even if it's frozen.

A Whine And A Prayer

2011-02-25T20:25:00.005-07:00

All I want to do is gripe about the weather. Wouldn't you if it was -50F at your house. That's what it was here last weekend and it's gone up and down all week. Bah Humbug.

Other than that not much is happening. Well, that's not entirely true but nothing bloggable. The brightest spot in my week has been the discovery on a bookshelf of a book I bought for Lent last year and never even opened its covers. I picked it up this week and have felt nourished by its contents. Here is a snippet:

A Blessing Prayer

What is a blessing but a rain of grace
falling generously into the lives of those in need;
and who among us is without need?

May the Spirit touch your spirit in this midmorning pause.
May this day be a pathway strewn with blessings.
May your work this day be your love made visible.
May you breathe upon the wounds of those with whom you work.
May you open yourself to God's breathing.
May you honor the flame of love that burns inside you.
May your voice this day be a voice of encouragement.
May your life be an answer to someone's prayer.
May you own a grateful heart.
May you have enough joy to give you hope,
enough pain to make you wise.
May there be no room in your heart for hatred.
May you be free from violent thoughts.

When you look into the window of your soul may you see the face of God.
May the lamp of your life shine upon all you meet this day.

Friday Wrap Up

2011-02-18T10:29:00.004-07:00

Life in our house this past week:

Dearest one and I celebrated nearly 3 decades of married life last weekend. We were married on a Friday by a JP and dearest one went back to work on Monday. Then we renewed our vows (mistyped that as 'cows') eight years and a lot of story later in a church, a week after both of us were baptized. Six years ago we had our marriage blessed when I became Catholic (and he became Catholic a year and a bit later). So that's 3 marriage ceremonies to one man. Enough, I'd say. I am loving this stage of our marriage.

We weathered the weather this week. It was -38C here before windchill this morning. No wonder I have layers of clothes on in our two by four house. Well, the house is bigger than two by four but the walls are only that thick. Not thick enough. I've spent the morning looking at replacements online. One day we will replace this one.

Dearest one and I had a long chat on our anniversary about our plans surrounding that. Neither of us are willing to part with hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a house built. Neither of us really like living in a ~~trailer~~ mobile home. Not sure we are willing to risk trying to build our own house even though we work really well together. We found that out last year when we renovated our bathroom. We managed to laugh our way through our differences and no one got hurt.

When we were talking about our housing options I had one of those moments when tears just welled up out of nowhere and I could hardly talk. Why? Because I am grateful that he and I share the same values when it could be so different. The short version: when you die, who cares what you lived in.

Which was a good conversation to have considering that a few days later dearest one left for work in a blizzard and came shakily home 45 minutes later after nearly being in a head on collision with a Semi. His first words to me were, "You were almost a widow today." He was still shaking hours later, that's how close it was. He ended up part way in the ditch with zero visibility just over a mile from home. He doubts the big truck even saw him.

I immediately thought of the boxes of Christmas decorations sitting on the back seat of my car. When I carted them out of work and put them there the day before I thought to myself, "There's a mighty big rock in there that could do some damage if we were in an accident." Which is a perpetual story line of mine. Youngest son likes to pick up random objects from my car and wave them in my face, teasing me that it might hurt someone if we were in an accident. Usually he's waving the box of Kleenex.

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At What Age?

2011-02-11T16:52:00.011-07:00

"What age were they when they became so matter of fact about what their children were doing?

I used to wonder about that when I gathered with a group of elderly grandmas for Bible Study when my kids were all pre teens. I'd listen to them share the latest news about what this daughter or that son was doing and be unable to identify at all with their matter of factness. I know now they had the ability to see themselves as separate beings from their children and I could not. Every action of my kids was always about me in my mind. I really believed that. They were a reflection of me. It was a painful and thank God, necessary, process for me to learn to detach and see my kids as separate from me. I cannot imagine being in relationship with them today had I not been given that gift. They'd want nothing to do with me, I'm sure.

The other day I was observing my mother-in-law walk across her kitchen floor. Her movements seemed a little stiff like she was the Tin Man getting her joints oiled with every step. For the first time I realized she's frail. Not uncommon for someone who is over 80 years old.

So it seems like an oxymoron to be 80 something and still wishing you could lose those last 10 pounds. I've heard my MIL talk about it my whole married life. Dearest one heard her kvetching with one of her daughters about it not too long ago.

Later that day I wondered what age a woman has to get to before she stops talking about the need to lose weight, to reach that magical number in her head that will never be hers again except by default of getting an insidious disease.

There's a scene in one of Anne Lamott's books that has stuck with me:

When my best friend Pammy was dying, I asked her if I looked fat in a certain dress, and she—from a wheelchair—said, “Annie, you really don’t have that kind of time.” I live by that.

I look at pictures of me when I am the mother of a one year old and remember how proud I was to come home eight days after having gall bladder surgery and the number, THE NUMBER! on the scale, I hadn't seen since before pregnancy.

In those photos I dont' look like I have any extra skin on me at all. A few years and another baby later I went on a weight loss binge and in those pictures I look anorexic. I remember the powerful feeling of losing weight and telling dearest one to please keep an eye on me because I didn't think I could stop losing weight, it felt so good. THAT NUMBER on the scale I hadn't seen since 9th grade. I only came to my senses after I slipped on a pair of 28 inch waist jeans and realized that size of jeans and fat couldn`t belong in the same sentence. I`m embarrassed at how much of a jolt it was when that realization hit me.

Twenty five years later I`m about being at home in my skin. It's taken that long to reach this place. I could write reams about the journey to get here. Being at home in my skin has nothing to do with the number on a scale. My younger self would never have believed that. A few years ago my cardiologist was raggin on me to lose weight. She wanted 20 pounds gone before she saw me again in a few months.

I looked at her and the part of me that is competitive, that has the I'll show you mantra threw down a glove and said, "Game on." The other part of me, the side I've worked harder to nurture, looked at her and thought to myself, "I will never do that crazy making dance again. Not even for you."

The other day, as part of my job, I had to weigh someone and record their weight for a contest. She can't be any older than I was when I was in my near anorexic days. She was excited for the contest and was off to the gym to exercise. I encouraged her in her desire to be healthier but I felt a real sadness as I watched her walk away, pining for a number on the scale. Wondering what age she will be when that pining goes away.

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Gambling On The Life Span of A Motor

2011-02-08T09:37:00.006-07:00

"Have you heard the expression the truth will set you free?" The elderly man thinks a bit and says, yes, it does sound familiar.
The mechanic wipes his hands clean and replies, "Well that's what we believe around here." He said this in response to the man's comment on his good work, not charging more than was necessary for mechanical work.

Dearest one overheard this conversation yesterday at our mechanic's shop. My car had lost its heater and there's no driving a car here without a heater. Last night it was -33C and I can't imagine trying to go anywhere without heat, let alone having to then scrape the windshield from the inside just to see where I'd be going!

Dearest one has always done all the mechanic work on our vehicles for the past nearly 30 years. From rebuilding motors and transmissions to changing tires and oil he's done it all. Last year we decided that the bigger stuff could be handed over to someone else now. We'd heard about this mechanic through word of mouth, from a single friend who told me the guy didn't try to take advantage of her lack of mechanical knowledge by charging her for stuff that didn't need fixing.

A quick phone call to the shop from the grocery store parking lot was answered with a "bring it right down and we'll take a look at it." And that sweet, honest, upright man who looked under the hood, diagnosed a broken heater motor. He pulled it out, thumped it a good one and oiled it then put it back in and it worked.

He ducked his head out from under the hood and told dearest one that it might last a month or a year, who knew. At least we could be on our way. Then he checked around for prices on a new motor and left the decision up to us. If we didn't live so far north we might have gambled on the life span of the heater motor.

When dearest one went to pay for the thump and oil trick, the man said there was no paperwork, it was free. Dearest one asked him to order in a new heater motor and told him to call when it came in so we could bring my car back and get it fixed. The guy doesn't know us from Adam. It's only the second time we've been to his shop. This was no reward for being long time customers, it was just his way.

Which gave me a lot to think about.

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Expanding

2011-02-06T12:16:00.003-07:00

"I think these things happen as a way for God to prepare us to be willing to leave this world."

He sighs as he says it and turns his hands palms up in a "what are you going to do?" kind of way. He's referring to his loss of hearing, his unsteadiness on his feet, the headaches that sometimes last for days. Even though I'm sitting a few feet across from him his voice is so loud that the people in the next unit probably hear his commentary on life as well.

Bit by bit his faculties are dimming. It's a miracle he's still with us after 3 open heart surgeries and many mini strokes. As he talks I am reminded of his own father who longed to go "home" many years before he did. I feel a little taken aback by his statement though. I don't think I agree with his belief, almost certain it would take a punitive God to believe it.

The last time we were together he had uncharacteristically taken my face in both his hands as he said goodbye and dished out some good natured ribbing his eyes sparkling all the while. It was one of those moments I will treasure forever because it came from the heart.

I've long thought growing old was a privilege. Maybe that's easier to think because I'm not there yet. Sometimes I wonder if the litany of ill health that sometimes peppers the conversations of older folks is really a way of grieving what was and never will be again. I wonder what it would look like if we could honour that process instead of getting irritated by those in the midst of it. Dearest one's Pa has the same litany day in and day out. I wonder if he felt like he had been heard his conversation could expand to other things. Or if it's me who needs expanding.

The Colour of Humility

2011-02-02T21:32:00.007-07:00

"I want a medal for today."
I'm standing at the photocopier trying to fix a paper jam
when I say this to someone waiting
to see one of my coworkers.
It's been one of those days.
Brutal. Well, not really.
It just feels that way.

The person looks at me and says,
"Just go home and have a drink."
When I tell her I don't drink she says,
"Then go home and have some chocolate."
I don't eat chocolate either but I don't tell her that.
Which is a funny commentary if you think about it.
It's easier to tell people you don't drink than
that you don't eat chocolate.
I could just imagine her face contorting as she says,
"You don't eat chocolate?!"

Instead I finish fixing the photocopier in silence,
wipe the black spots of ink off my finger and go back to my desk.
Where I turn up my Christian music a little louder.
If you only knew my motives for that some days
you would puke.

Funnily enough. Or not as it turns out, one of my bigger frustrations today concerned someone who I ~~was absolutely convinced~~ thought was pulling a get-me-to- the-front-of-the-line sob story. So convinced was I that I let someone higher up the food chain know that I was on to that person in a who does she think she is kind of way.

Which led me to a getting a proverbial smack up the side of the head by reality. Yep, that happened when higher up the food chain person shut my office door and told me little miss front of the line's rest of the story. The real one. Not the ego driven, motive certain one I had made up all in my own little mind. The story I would have bet money on. And lost. She told me the one I could have only known if I had been God.

Humility. I can always use more of it.

When my oldest son was a toddler I used to wake up to him sitting under the kitchen table with the ketchup bottle in one hand and an arc of little red splotches holding court around him. Today it felt like God made the beginning of yet another arc right where I could see it. The red matches the colour of my face rather well.

Pretty soon I'm going to be surrounded by a sea of ketchup as all those arcs of humility/slaps up the side of the head that have been given to me over the years become one big blob.

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No Matching Required

2011-02-01T07:16:00.007-07:00

I was in bed by 8:30 last night. I was ready to drift off to sleep when dearest one came in to get his work clothes ready for today. I watched in the shadowy lamp light as he opened the drawer of his childhood dresser and pulled out socks and underwear and a clean white t shirt. I had one of those moments of overwhelming gratitude for the simple things in life. The stuff we take for granted. Like a drawer full of matching socks.

As I watched I was taken back to a moment when I was six years old. I remember swinging my feet under the breakfast table on the kind of warm June morning that called for a dress or shorts. I had on a pair of knee high mismatched socks because that's what had been in my sock drawer that morning. Who knows what other stresses my mother was under that morning. It must have been something because she got really mad when she noticed I had on two not so white socks with mismatched patterns. She angrily sent me back to my room to get a matched pair. I didn't feel safe to tell her there weren't any. So I obediently went back to my room and stayed there a while feeling utter panic.

And there my memory ends. Sometimes I think if I squint hard enough I can see in my mind what happened after that. I doubt I missed the bus. I doubt I had on a pair of matching socks.

My mom bought groceries every Thursday of my growing up years. When I was a teenager sometimes I'd come home on a Thursday after school to find a new pair of white tube socks on the stair railing for me along with a pack of gum.

Compassion runs both ways today for me. Most likely my mom felt shame at sending me to school in a pair of mismatched socks. She couldn't do anything about it, either. There probably wasn't any money for new socks. I wish she'd had the tools to handle the situation differently but she didn't. When we know better, we do better.

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That Mysterious Wedding

2011-01-25T10:30:00.005-07:00

"Oh, good. If you're working from home, you'll clean your desk."

That was last week. The roads were too icy to travel so I'd brought data entry stuff to do from home just in case. Dearest one has a hard time reconciling my spotless desk at work with my messy one at home. I don't.

At work my desk is the first one the public sees when they walk into our building. I'm the first person they come in contact with. It's important to me to represent our company well. Plus I'd be very inefficient at work if I didn't keep track of paperwork in a timely manner. And most likely fired as well. Although I have to admit that last week, when I was doing data entry, the disappearing information, hidden in yet another screen, felt like looking under piles of paper on my desk, saying "It was here just a second ago!" Five hours of that made me realize I prefer going to the office to work.

The truth be told, I did have cleaning off my desk on my to do list last week.
Today I am finally making it happen.

Amid the three catalogues, 4 magazines, and 5 books I've unearthed so far there have been dozens of little pieces of paper, too. About half can be tossed. Christmas lists of things to do are behind me for another year. Every once in a while I scrunch up my face and wonder why I wrote down a name I can't recognize or some words that make absolutely no sense. And then there are the scraps of paper holding information I need transfer before I can let them go. The one in the photo above grabbed my attention as I was sorting. I have no idea where it came from. Most likely from somewhere on the web.

There was a time when I would have used that quote to measure myself, beat myself up, be discouraged with who I am. Told myself that I was not good enough, had to try harder.

Today I'm pondering it, wondering what it has to say to me, if anything.
If I can't accept that who I am in this minute is enough then there's a good chance that my striving to do better is ego driven.
I can do better, but not on my own strength.
Change is that mysterious wedding between my willingness and God's grace.
I really believe that even my willingness is a grace, too.

Cabin Fever Sunset

2011-01-18T09:15:00.005-07:00

Late in the afternoon yesterday the sun came out and perspective was mine once again. Even though it started to set withing a few minutes of its arrival, for once it didn't fizz me a bit that it was setting at five in the afternoon. It was just glorious to see it after a week of grey. It's a rather beautiful sunset if I do say so myself.

Raking Snow

2011-01-17T15:42:00.005-07:00

That's one of the Puglies outside before we got another dump of snow. We've had another foot of it since I last posted. Oh, joys. Dearest one and I are snowed in today. There sure is a difference between having the option of seeing other human beings and not. I'm tempted to go to work tomorrow for the human contact even though it's my regular day off.

A few days ago I was able to participate in a AA Phone Meeting due to the good fortune of the folks who provide such a service. There was something calming about hearing other people share their experience, strength and hope. It's a great resource if you are getting a little cabin fever like I am and can't get to a meeting.

I am grateful to have a warm house, whose roof I hope holds under the snow load until we can get it cleaned off. I had no idea until a few days ago there was such a thing as a snow rake. We just got up on the roof and shovelled. Physical limitations mean that's not an option for either of us so a snow rake it will be.

Today the temperature finally broke the -30C mark. Perspective. I tell you it's all about perspective. Rah, rah, rah. I think mine's buried beneath the snow. I wonder if there's a rake for that?

Through Gritted Teeth

2011-01-14T20:57:00.010-07:00

Despite it being between minus 30C and minus 40C for days on end, plus snowing (over a foot and counting), well, I'll take that over flooding any day. When my spiritual director said that this afternoon I had to agree. So much for my planned communal whine fest on who in their right mind signs up for this after they've experienced it one winter, never mind decades of them.

But I restrained myself.

It was good, however, to touch base with him and get his feedback even if it had to be via phone due to the weather. And in the vein of my post the other day I was honest with him which meant my side of the conversation was peppered with a lot of "I don't give a shit" comments. It's been many, many weeks since I've been to church or a meeting and the longer it gets the harder it is to be motivated to care.

Part of me wants to remind you, especially if you've never experienced it, that it's January in the north, Spring feels like it is buried far beneath the horizon and we still get less than 8 hours of daylight (although it feels like the never appearing sun has to shine to get even that!) I haven't felt well physically. You get the drift. All that is code for don't rain on my pity party. Like a good friend used to tell me ~

"Enjoy that there pity pot while you're sitting on it because you won't sit there forever."

Then he'd throw his head back and laugh stopping only to take a drag on his smoke, when I'd shoot him a fuck you look, which only made him laugh all the harder. Because he was right, dammit. And we both knew it.

Some days I resist wanting to remember that no matter what, my attitude is mine to choose.

I told Fr. Charlie that I had decided that when my spoon supply, the weather or the road conditions were not a factor, my place was to be both at Mass and meetings because I have a responsibility to myself and to the communities I am a part of.

But I don't feel any joy about it; more a begrudgingly doing the right thing despite myself, knowing eventually I will care again. I have been surprised by what can happen when one simply shows up anyway. Many times I have told God, through gritted teeth, that I am here out of obligation, wherever here happens to be only to have that split moment happenstance where Grace reduces to me tears reminding me that I'm right where I'm meant to be.

There have been positive things I've been doing in the meantime including nearly daily contact with my sponsor and a regular period of meditation, but there really is no substitute for flesh and blood meetings on both fronts.

Where Are Your Feet?

2011-01-12T19:48:00.009-07:00

At one point today with windchill, it was hovering around -40C. Too cold to go for a walk. It's been too cold since I last wrote. We're getting another dump of snow, too. I have been selectively using spoons the past two days, taking time off work because I haven't been feeling too good. Tomorrow it will be back to normal, snowfall and all.

I feel like whining and moaning but who wants to read that? Even I don't. Sure, I want to know someone is human, and I rarely trust someone who is happy, happy all the day; you know that false niceness that seems too good to be true? I guarantee there is a wack of anger buried beneath it. I speak that from personal experience of having people tell me I had so much patience with my kids when they were little only to go behind closed doors and fly into uncontrollable rages with bruises to show for it. (That haunt me still.)

Someone I admire said not too long ago that he'd rather be honest than positive. I will take honest over anything else any day. There's no guess work with honest. I love this story of honesty. Love it.

I don't know where this post is going, if anywhere, so you'll have to bear with me and see.

Last week the topic came up with a group of friends about times when God made a way clear or not for us. I used to think that the goal was a straight line from here to heaven called Doing God's Will. I spent some time thinking, Oh, this must be God's will, it's exactly what I would do! to thinking "this must be God's will because there's not a snowball's chance in hell I'd choose it for myself."

Today I just try to do my best to hear God and go about my day. I don't trust my own motives because I can make just about anything sound like God, or not, when I want it to. Or as my sponsor says, sometimes you have to call bullshit on yourself.

A friend gets a chuckle when people ask her how they can tell if they are on the right path. She tells them to look at their feet.

Yesterday I spent the day in solitude, in quiet, on purpose. Dearest one was gone for 24 hours and it was just me and the Puglies. They must have sensed I was sick because they stuck to me like glue and were a real comfort.

Having one day of intentional silence a week is something I'm experimenting with this year. I spent it reading and writing and puttering. I had bigger plans than that but when I woke up feeling wretched I had to gear down my plans. I am grateful to be comfortable with silence and my own company.

It hasn't always been that way.

Addiction is all about looking to be anywhere except where one's feet are. I have relatives who live every day with intentional silence, their homes devoid of radio, tv, computer. I thought about them this week and realized it's really that internal silence that I'm seeking. Although being where my feet are without external distractions, is a good place to start.

Photo Credit(taken by someone doing my dream trip)

Trade Offs

2011-01-08T08:30:00.005-07:00

I traded my morning Internet time for meditation this week. Spending twenty minutes in centering prayer is one of the best things I can do for my overall health. I've been resisting it for a long while because my ego tends to take a shit kicking whenever I maintain it as a regular practice.

Getting back into a routine this week after several weeks off for the holidays has felt like a brutal adjustment. It doesn't escape me that it's also the luxury of having a job with paid vacation. I feel like I have a tenuous hold on my spoon supply at the moment so my bedtime this week was the same as it was 40 years ago. You know you're tired when the evening news comes on and you feel as tired as if it was the late night news.

I'm doing what I can these days to maintain my equilibrium. There was a bit there before Christmas when my spoon supply was so depleted I questioned whether I'd be able to keep working. All my energy at the moment is going into staying well.

I work with a bunch of keen eyed health professionals. One of which told me this week that before Christmas I looked dreadful. Another who said that even if I still looked tired at least I looked rested. Which is the same as saying yes, they are still deep circles under my eyes but the rest of my body doesn't appear to be dragging as well.

I've made a few small adjustments this week to help. As tired as I am it still is a real benefit to me to go for a walk every day. Doing so meant paying no heed to the whining and moaning going on in my head as we pulled into the yard every day after work about how tired I was. I can do a mean immitation of a tired, cranky six year old on demand.

Instead I changed into warmer clothes and headed out on my walking trail, flashlight in hand and walked. It did me good. Seeing all those tracks of moose, deer, mice and birds sharing my trail made me smile.

Once, seveal years ago, after my health had rebounded for the better, dearest one looked at me with a puzzled look on his face and asked, "Why are you doing this?" I was all bundled up on a -25C day to go for a walk and I looked at him and said, "because I can. I do it because I'm grateful I have the ability to go for a walk. I don't want to take it for granted."

I didn't have to say anymore. We both could remember, rather vividly, the days when lifting one foot off the ground took more energy than I could muster. I had a few scary days there before Christmas when it felt like I was headed right back to those days.

So today the trade off is a bit of a walk for a few spoons. I'm grateful it's even an option.

Photo Credit

Mulling In A Mowhawk

2010-12-31T08:51:00.008-07:00

It's just before 9 in the morning and I've put a cheesecake in the oven (which set off the fire alarm halfway through writing this post, only to have me find the cord of dearest one's nearly new electric skillet heating itself up by being caught in the oven door!)and the makings of chicken stock in the crock pot. I'm also still in my pjs with my mowhawk morning hair waving to and fro. I can tell how much I toss and turn in the night by how big my mowhawk is in the morning. People who can get out of bed and comb their hair and be ready for the day - I envy them.

I've been awake for several hours in the night for 10 days in a row now. It's nigh impossible to wake up rested, no?

Today is youngest son's birthday. You can read about how his birth changed my life here and here. However old he turns is the forerunner of my sobriety birthday 3 months later. Sometimes I forget how long it's been since I had a drink only to think about how old he is and then I remember.

I've been mulling. That's the best way to put it. I can't seem to think of a darn thing to write about and neither do I have the urge to mull out loud here. I sent several of my blog posts to an old friend a few years ago. She told me that some of them sounded like they were written in persona and some sounded like my authentic voice. I used to spend 2 or 3 hours crafting a post. Now I dash them off and go on about my day. There is part of me that thinks not having anything to say is a good thing. But I miss the writing.

Sometime in this past week I clicked on this link which felt like playing Russian Roulette. The last time I wanted a saint for the year it hit way too close to the mark.

This year I got this guy. The original little blurb said he was the patron saint against drowning. Fitting considering the previous day I'd told my sponsor that I am scared in water over my head. The immediate thought that came to me when I read about his patronage was that I needed help not getting in over my head in the coming year. There are lots of ways to drown other than water. Such as the pile of papers on my desk.

Although if I feel myself going down hopefully it will be after a night of major tossing and turning. That way my mowhawk will be the last thing to disappear below the surface and you'll know it's me.

Photo Credit

The Big Silence

2010-12-28T09:36:00.003-07:00

I've been watching this 12 part series over the holidays and have found it fascinating. I am hoping to do a three day silent retreat in 2011.

Best line so far:

"The God you don't believe in is the God that doesn't exist."

Belly Laughing In The Night

2010-12-22T03:58:00.006-07:00

It's really early - I've been awake for an hour already. Maybe because today we're opening our Christmas presents? When I was a preschooler I remember getting woken up in the middle of the night by my older brother and sister to start opening presents.

I opened up a present that contained a doll before my Dad came and hustled us back to bed. Typing this I just realized only daughter is probably groaning at the thought of us opening our presents early. My reputation for not being able to wait for the actual day to give someone a present is well known. I get so excited I want them to open the present NOW!

We're travelling to see family for Christmas and decided opening presents in a hotel room just doesn't cut it so we opted to open them early. I only put the presents under the tree last night for fear that the dogs would mark them as their territory if given the chance.

If you want a belly laugh just click on this link. Some people won't find it funny, maybe even irreverent, but dearest one just had to come tell me to be quiet because some people actually like to sleep at night. I know it's going to be one of those things that makes me laugh every single time I read it.

And perhaps it's extra funny because once again I made it past the shortest daylight day of the year. Less than seven and a half hours of daylight yesterday. It is always a relief when that day is behind me.

After my last post I got in contact with my Spiritual Director. After writing some words of encouragement, he recommended that I go outside and make some snow angels in the snow. Which is another way of saying put rule 62 into effect.

Soon

2010-12-19T15:34:00.008-07:00

I unlock the door and step inside, cool air hitting me as I kick off my snow covered boots and slip into my shoes. I haven't been here all month, Advent progressing without my presence.

Methodically I go about my duties in the silent church. I turn up the heat, pull the dust cloth off the altar. In the space of a few minutes I set up the altar, pour water into the font, place the Ciborium, the wafers, the water, the wine on the table by the entrance. I turn and dip my finger in the font and say a prayer.

I make my way to the fourth pew from the front. I kneel in the silence and solitude and tell God how ornery and resistant I feel. That I don't know why I am there, just that I am. After a while I am quiet, glad for the grace to be honest and raw before God.

Soon I can hear people stamping the snow off their boots, snow that has fallen every sinlge day this past week, as they come up the wooden steps of the church. They, too bring a blast of cold air in with them.

One hundred times out of a hundred that I come here I am the lector during the Mass. A pity party builds within me as I consider this. I rise and go to various neighbours, asking them to do the readings. I don't tell them I just want to sit in my seat, that I have no desire to contribute, that I don't want to do a thing.

We are few in number. Very few. A handful at best. It's Advent. There are four candles to light. When the priests finds out I'm not doing any readings he asks me to light one of the candles. I see several faces turned my way at his request. He's wrecking my firm intention to not participate. I tell him grumpily that I don't want to but I will. Harrumph.

So we process in and as we wait for the last strains of the entrance song to fade I consider how my orneriness is contributing negatively to the atmosphere. In my head comes a picture of Jesus and a small child. A small child having a whale of a temper tantrum with Jesus holding them by the back of their shirt, suspended in mid air kicking and hollering and carrying on, arms and legs flailing like an airplane hitting turbulence. Jesus can barely restrain himself from having an all out belly laugh. A small smile escapes my lips despite my resolve to be ornery to the end.

When my turn comes my candle won't light. I tip it and let wax drip away but still it resists the flame. The priest comes and together we get it lit. It glows faintly beside the others whose flames reach for the ceiling.

Eventually I thaw out emotionally enough to participate. I still feel the faint pressure of my heels digging in, not wanting to abandon myself to the moment. There is relief in prayer, even if its just to say that I feel empty, absolutely empty. At the end of Mass I consider Advent, the darkness I feel inside and out. Father Charlie has told me many times that beautiful flowers grow in the desert. "Fuck the desert" I think to myself. Been there done that as the saying goes. Every winter.

Soon the darkness will break.

Come O come, Emmanuel.

The Little Things

2010-12-18T10:30:00.004-07:00

It's a snowy and cold Saturday morning and I am grateful to be inside. It's snowed all week. So much so that dearest one and I stayed in town one night rather than brave the icy roads home. I am done work now until after the New Year and am grateful for some down time. I am the sports fan in this house and I said to dearest one earlier today, "I could watch sports all day." which would be a luxury to me. Normally I am in town on Saturdays as that's when my AA home group meets.

I have a pile of library books to read and some Christmas baking to do. Lots of little things to choose from to fill my day. I am grateful that it's the little things that make me the happiest. There's no big thing I'm chasing after. No, one day, when (fill in the blank) thinking going on. Today is what I have. I'm going to make the most of it.

Six Years And A Freebie

2010-12-08T00:50:00.001-07:00

Edited: Commenter Katie Rae won the draw for the hope bracelet. Katie - I'll be in touch! Thanks for all your comments and well wishes.

Six years ago today I wrote my first blog post. It was a few weeks after I'd been given a diagnosis for my health and felt quite discouraged that there was no magic pill to give me my life back.

I closed the year with this celebration. I began seeing someone for spiritual direction which quickly morphed into counselling. That trust relationship gave me the courage to eventually admit to myself and others that I struggled with this addiction. This is what one of my sessions often went like in those days.

I continued to struggle. I didn't change overnight.

If you have read me from the beginning you know I've experienced parenting nightmares,
spoonless days,
got back to meetings,
and did a radio documentary.

Eventually my chronic illness became less of a daily factor. (That sentence says so much.)

I continued to see my spiritual director.

Life went on.

I completed a life long dream. Although this much distance from that event humbles me. There's a long way to go before it's ready to submit anywhere for publication.

You journeyed with me as I faced the difficult work of healing from childhood sexual abuse.

When these two made their appearance you watched me become someone I never dreamed possible, one of those dog people.

The posts that get the most hits are for belly button birthdays and Thank You For Each Moment.

The one thing I rarely have posted about here is about this program. I post about it today in case someone comes across my blog because they are sick and tired of binge eating, white knuckling it, restricting their eating, any or all of the above. It is this program (which deals with the physical allergy to sugar/alcohol), combined with AA, that has given me a much more stable life. Sugar no longer calls my name and I am grateful.

The link I'm most pleased to have shared is about spoons.

The picture at the top of this post is of a bracelet made by my friend Ellie.

You can find more of her jewelry here.

I'm giving away a bracelet just like that one except it will have green stones because green is the symbolic colour of hope.

To enter the draw for the bracelet (hey lurkers, this includes you!)all you have to do is leave a comment telling me which blog post I linked to in this post you liked the best.
You might read them all, you might read just one.
You might like a different one than what's linked to here.
Just pick one.
I'll draw from all the names entered on the 15th of December.

Happy 6th anniversary to me!

To Suit Myself

2010-12-05T09:12:00.005-07:00

This morning I pulled the word smells from my word jar. Yesterday I pulled the word winter and decided I didn't like it (even though I promptly took a photo to go with it) so I changed the rules to suit myself.

I bet there are quite a few people in recovery (or not)out there who can identify with that tendency. Thankfully I'm changing the rules on something harmless. Before recovery, especially, I changed the rules on just about anything that didn't suit me and would like to change them for other people, too, to suit me as well. It's amazing that people cooperated but they did. The ones who didn't, didn't stay in my life too long. You know how that is, the healthier someone else is it can be like shining a flash light on your own sick state of mind and the light isn't too comfortable.

The smell that catches me off guard is when I'm doing dishes and suddenly it smells just like it does when one is camping and washing dishes in the open air. I love that smell. As soon as I notice it it seems to disappear and I am left wondering how it can appear and disappear so suddenly. The other day I recognized a smell that put me right back in the hallways of my high school. Then it vanished. And nothing beats the inky smell of a a new book. Hard to find that smell anymore.

I prefer the smells of nature to anything else. Far more than food, or perfume, or humans. How about you?

Sink Your Teeth Into Life

2010-12-01T20:50:00.004-07:00

The word I pulled tonight is teeth.
I still have all of mine.
Save one I had pulled when I was a newlywed.
I was a teenager the first time I saw a dentist.
He was a crochety man. Grim.
No mercy.
I had 14 teeth with multiple cavities.
My dad's company had just supplied workers with benefits.
I spent that summer getting my teeth fixed.
I remember once giving the receptionist a cheque from my mom for $75.

That was a lot of money 35 years ago.
More than we spent on groceries per week for a family of seven.
I know that because sometimes my mom would send me to town
with the grocery list and a blank cheque.
I'd go to what seemed like a hole in the wall
in the grocery store and slide the cheque
through a little half moon opening,
where a woman would stamp it and slide it back to me.
Then I'd be free to go buy what we needed, give the blank cheque to the cashier, who would fill it out and give me the ticker tape to bring home to my mom.
She never had to choose between groceries and dentist bills but I bet it was close.

My own kids were much more fortunate when it came to teeth.
Our dentist told us he'd rather see our kids with their teeth fixed
than see our money.
They were just learning to read,
teeth dangling back and forth while they sat absorbed in a book.
Those teeth dangled
while their adult teeth tried to fit in their mouth, too.
He plucked them as need be,
trying to avoid the need for braces later on.
He was successful.
It took us years to pay the bill.
But we did.
He is still our dentist today.
Over 20 years later.

Tonight I am grateful for the gift of life.
A life worth sinking my teeth into.
Today brought news of two people we know
who've died this week.
That's now 6 people in the past 7 weeks.
Half of them sudden and unexpected.
It's a bit mind boggling.

Photo Credit

Not Written In Stone

2010-11-30T09:36:00.007-07:00

When I wrote this post I copied the pages of word lists the author had supplied, cut out each word, and put all 208 of them in a jar. Today I reached in an pulled one out. I've said for nearly 30 years that give me a topic and I can write on it. That might be the only remnant of my journalism training.

Our professor would give us something to write about and it didn't matter if we knew anything about it or not, the assignment still had to be handed in. He was not above giving it back either, and telling us to do the whole thing over again, if it didn't come up to snuff. One time I did an interview which involved taking a bus to the outer skirts of the city only to find the man who I needed to interview very uncooperative. That assignment was handed back to me to redo. The man refused when I showed up the second time.

At any rate my word phrase today is locked doors. When I unfolded the piece of paper and saw those words an image flashed through my mind. I was six years old and had broken my arm. I was wearing a short sleeved knit red shirt. Funny what we remember. I was sent to my room to change shirts before I went to the hospital. No one helped me. My arm was broken up near my shoulder and I felt a little sick to my stomach as I tried to figure out how to get my arm out of one shirt and into another. I felt so alone and confused to be alone. I didn't know I could ask for help and no one offered. It took me 40 more years to learn it's okay to ask for help. Childhood messages are not written in stone. They can be rewritten.

At the hospital a nurse with a kind face gave me a gown and put me in a change room. She had blonde hair and a beautiful smile. She was the first one who I felt some sympathy from. Somehow I got locked in that little cubicle. Somehow she got me out. She put me in a wheel chair and took me to the x ray room. If I shut my eyes I can see myself laying on that cold steel table with just a gown on. The room seemed so big and I felt so small.

They were unable to cast my arm because of where the break was so I came home with my arm in a sling. The next day one of my classmates couldn't stop laughing when I told him I'd fallen off a three foot fence and broken my arm. I was sure my grade one teacher would excuse me from penmanship that day. No such luck.

For the last 40+ years whenever I find myself in a little cubicle I momentarily panic that I'm going to get locked in with no way out. Then I remember that I have a voice and can ask for help if I need it.

Photo Credit

Walking Miracles

2010-11-28T15:46:00.002-07:00

At an AA birthday celebration this morning we got to listen to a man play Amazing Grace on the bagpipes. Right there in the meeting room. Cool, eh?
We are all such walking miracles.
Every last one of us.
Amazing Grace, indeed.

Photo Credit

More Will Be Revealed

2010-11-23T16:17:00.007-07:00

My previous post was number 1300.
I'm thinking of making a commitment to daily posting in 2011.
It was much easier to write posts when my life was full of issues.
Don't get me wrong.
I am grateful for a settled life.
And it's not as if I've arrived.
Lord knows I haven't and never will.

It just leaves me scratching my head about what to write about.

I've been reading this greatest book about being creative and writing called What It Is. AuthorLynda Barry has lots of thought provoking ideas in it.

I found it in the young adult graphic novel section of my public library after hearing the author interviewed on the radio. It looks like an innocent book. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a graphic novel. Weird term.

One little bit in it has haunted me from the first reading:

"An iceberg is a big chunk of ice that floats in the sea. Sea water is not clear. It hides most of the iceberg. In order to be safe from underwater danger, ship captains steer away from icebergs."

And then below that is the question "How is a thought like an iceberg?" She goes on to ask what thoughts are made of. Can one have thoughts without language? Is thinking voluntary or involuntary.

That kind of stuff sucks me right in. She has a new book about drawing, too.

Today I told a friend that I like reading books about writing nearly as much as I like to write. I've been frozen with fear quite a bit lately when it comes to writing. Facing how much anxiety I live with in most of my life, really. I would never have believed it had someone observed it about me out loud.

Actually someone did a few years ago and wrote it on my medical record and I was about as pissed as one can get when I read it. A few months ago I had a moment where I was facing a possible wretched outcome at work and the anxiety in my body wouldn't leave even after I had mentally worked through it. I asked myself when had I felt like that before and I knew I had lived in that state of anxiety my whole childhood. The awareness in that moment brought tears instantly to the surface. I thought I had worked through my childhood shit.

That episode prompted me to ask myself what would happen if I entertained the possibility that I live with anxiety on a regular basis. Kind of in the vein of "me thinks you do protest too much". I don't know if it's a relief to acknowledge it but at least I'm not spending energy fighting reality. At least that bit.

P.S. It was -42C with wind chill at one point today. That's -43.6F. Thankfully a chinook is on its way.

Tempted

2010-11-23T06:39:00.002-07:00

It's been bitterly cold. Weather we don't normally see until January. I am grateful to be inside today. The windows are frosted from top to bottom. I have a very vivd memory of sticking my tongue on the screen door frame whenI was about 6 years old. I had to wait for someone else to get to the house to rescue me.

I can't say I want to repeat that experience but sometimes I get tempted to see if it would still happen.

The Elk pictured above are no where to be seen this morning but they're warm somewhere.

The Art Form of Sticking One's Foot In One's Mouth

2010-11-19T09:01:00.009-07:00

"Tidiness is the art form of the non-creative." ~ wildlife artist Greg Beecham

If there is truth to that quote then judging by my desk pictured above I'm quite creative!

It's bitterly cold here today. So cold the Puglies won't go outside. Last night I took them for one last constitutional before bed and they both sat on their butts trying to get all four feet up in the air at once to keep from freezing. Needless to say I carried them both back to the house, each snuggled under an arm like a football. This morning the windows are frosted up to the tops and the sun is shining through making it seem like I have stained glass windows.

At least the weather gives me something to write about. I've had a full week with little down time. Gone for 12+ hours at a stretch. Three luxurious days lay before me with no plans to venture farther than the yard. Winter makes me feel like hibernating and my cave is rather full of stuff.

Once winter is here to stay, and judging by the snow and cold, it is, I feel closed in on, like my clothes are too tight except it's the house that feels too tight. Invariably this lead to me wanting to open the door and chuck most of my belongings out in a snow drift so I feel like I have more room to stretch. Contrast that with a sunny summer day when I feel like opening doors and windows to let the outside in! Same amount of stuff, same house, way different perspective.

I had a few places to stop yesterday to buy yet more stuff. Winter boots. Greeting cards. I am so grateful for warm boots in this weather. It was a spur of the moment buy as I have boots on order from the catalogue. But I couldn't face taking one more dainty step on snow and ice in my dress shoes. I'd already just about ended going ass over tea kettle coming out of a store the day before and this lead me to walking tentatively ever since. I'm the kind of person who would lay in the snow after a fall, declaring "You don't understand! I had to wait to buy them until they were on sale!" as they loaded me onto a stretcher. And I'd expect applause, too, for that ridiculous behaviour. Oh, come on, you frugal shoppers know exactly what I mean.

So there I was standing in line at the checkout counter, in my new furry lined knee high brown boots, buying a bunch of greeting cards when I put them on the conveyer belt at the exact moment that the clerk started that belt going into overdrive. It was like she was driving a car and her foot was stuck on the gas. I take a lot of time looking for just the right card and one of those cards had been the only one of its kind in the rack and I'd be darned if it was going to get wrecked by jamming up the conveyer belt.

I reached to save it and she just kept her foot on the gas. I grabbed that card and watched as the belt threatened to suck another card into that little space between belt and counter. I felt like I was playing Jacks and was scrambling to pick up the last Jack before the red ball stopped bouncing. At the last minute I grabbed up every last card, narrowly avoiding getting my fingers jammed in there when I said, "You're going to drive me crazy." You ever have that happen? Realize you've said out loud what should have stayed in your head and there is no going back? Not even on a conveyor belt.

The sound of my voice must have startled her because she suddenly let go of the belt drive button. She looked embarrassed to have been caught not paying attention. I was embarrassed to have spoken out loud what I thought I was only thinking. I kept my mouth shut after that for fear of sticking the other of my newly purchased furry boots in my mouth although I do think there's room for me to rest one of them up on my desk. Right beside the catalogue I ordered my boots from to be precise.

Entering The Cave

2010-11-14T02:46:00.005-07:00

Second night this week that I am having insomnia.
It's been a good day.
Full of people.
Which has been strangely uplifting for this avowed introvert.

Winter is coming this week with cold temperatures and snow.

I do not feel brave about driving winter highways.
Not that I ever have but every year I feel less so.
But when you live in the middle of nowhere one has to drive to get anywhere.

So facing my fear of winter driving
is going to happen
whether I like it or not.
In the past few weeks I've come to see just how much
fear I have about most everything
and how it affects me on a daily basis.
Near 50 year habits are hard to break.

I'm not trying to fix that, just being aware of it.
Much better than repressing it.

Last night I woke from a nightmare with a start.
Waking past the point where one normally wakes up.
It was only when Something shouted at me in the dream
that I woke. I tried to stay awake then for a bit
because I was scared of going back into the dream if I didn't.

Tomorrow is another full day.
I hope sleep comes soon.
Sans the nightmares.

Photo Credit

Meant To Be

2010-11-11T01:39:00.004-07:00

Today was a one foot in front of the other kind of day although I took a sick day because whatever is kicking my butt is still kicking. Didn't think my coworkers needed to be exposed to my germs.

Today another little piece of the puzzle, as my Spiritual Director calls them, was revealed to me. Snuck up on me only to smack me right in the face. An opportunity for growth. Lovely.

Ever since saying yes to God in the midst of early sobriety, I have been determined to embrace growth opportunities. Sometimes the hug is tentative and sometimes it's a bear hug. Either way it doesn't mean they don't scare the beejezus out of me sometimes. This is one of them. I'm trusting that stuff being revealed is stuff being revealed in its proper time, that it's not some random act but meant to be.

Photo Credit

Serendipity

2010-11-08T17:27:00.003-07:00

Today contained one of those serendipitous moments that I credit to my HP. I had to look up the definition of serendipity before I could publish this post though. Does that ever happen to you? You hear a word used for years and understand it from the context in which it's said but if asked to define it you come up blank? That happens to me a lot.

Anyway, I've been sick since last week. I've been trying to shake it off, waiting for my immune system to do its work. Today I finally cried 'uncle' and went to the walk in clinic to get a throat swab. Let's hope this doesn't need antibiotics as I'm allergic to just about every single one of them. The person attending to me said she'd have to really think hard to come up with something I could take if the swab came back positive.

She was a medical personnel I'd known of who could be a great resource for one of my health issues. Today I asked her if she'd be interested and she said yes. She doesn't take new patients but was willing to help with this particular issue. I'm grateful for that. She is a wonderful advocate and having her in my court is a gift.

I am slowly learning how to be a self advocate, too. I've often either been worried I was inconveniencing people or I was on the defensive and came across as aggressive and demanding. There is something empowering about stating needs without apology or entitlement that I am grateful to be learning.

It's something I've learned was possible through the example of people in AA quite frankly. At first when people would simply say what they thought or set boundaries without apology and without throwing a hissy fit I wanted to duck before the war errupted. When there wasn't one (and I'm not saying this is normal or 100% happenstance in AA, cause I don't speak for AA, this is just my experience)it became a possibility for me, too.

So today I did a bit of a happy dance, sore throat and all.

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Good Friends

2010-11-06T21:32:00.005-06:00

There are three funerals I could go to this week. This morning there were two. Then I opened the paper over lunch and there were three. Remember this post? The man in that post died a few days ago. The poor people left in that family have lost a sister and both parents now. I cannot imagine.

Tonight I reconnected with a friend I rarely phone but we both knew two of the three people who died. She is one of those lifelong friends one has where you pick up where you left off and it's like it was yesterday that you last spoke. There aren't many of those kinds of friends in this life and I am grateful for her.

Me Nan

2010-11-05T09:36:00.005-06:00

I am a bit of an X Factor addict. Every season I wait for the show highlights to be posted on youtube. Then every week after that I am waiting for my fix. The young girl below really captivated my attention even though her kind of music is not my own. I especially like the bit with her "Nan" towards the end of this clip. Just this morning I watched her vlog for this week and when asked what three things she'd want on a island with her one of them was "me Nan" because she said, "I can't live without me Nan." And I love that.

Everyone needs someone to love them so well especially while they are growing up. Some have parents who do that, or a friend, and many have grandparents. One set of my grandparents were that for me as a child. If you have time if you look on youtube for this young girl's live shows 1 through 4 you will see she really has talent. Her live show 4 mesmerized me.

Cher Lloyd - Live Show 1
Cher Lloyd - Live Show 2
Cher Lloyd - Live Show 3
Cher Lloyd - Live Show 4

End Of Story....Except.....

2010-11-02T10:13:00.005-06:00

All the posts around the blog sphere today about voting in the US makes me think they take voting much more serious south of the border than we do in Canada, where there is a general apathy about it. Least that's my opinion. I admire the difference.

When I was a child my dad was approached by a provincial politician to enter the upcoming election as a candidate. I remember a big sign that was hung on the fence announcing to the community which political party we supported.

After my dad was approached we travelled to the provincial capital so he could spend the weekend hob nobbing with politicians. Money was tight so we pitched a tent in the pouring rain, in a campground 15 minutes outside the city. I remember my mom sitting in the car smoking her Peter Jackson cigarettes while three of us kids went inside a big city hotel with my dad to some kind of political gathering. There were ladies in fancy clothes serving fancy food. I don't know if it was pity or good social graces but they treated us like we were special. We were the only kids present. Soggy, bedraggled kids who had spent the weekend camping in a tent in the rain. We never went to another political function. My mom told my dad she would divorce him if he entered politics. End of story.

Except there was this big, blue, round building at the campground where one could buy candy and pay camping fees. People would gather there for a cup of coffee to shoot the breeze. I stood not much more than eye level to the candy counter and while my dad was visiting with the man behind the counter I reached up and stole a tiny Cadbury chocolate bar. It fit right in the palm of my hand. Inside it was two squares of delicious milk chocolate. I hid in the tent, water leaking from the roof and ate that chocolate so fast you would've thought I'd inhaled it. (A habit I never lost the whole time I ate chocolate!)

I doubt I wiped all traces off my face and I'm sure my mom had other things on her mind than wondering whether her kids were stealing candy. Like how it sucked to be stuck in a campground on a rainy weekend with 5 kids while her husband spent the weekend at political parties bull shitting with the candidates and possibly the former provincial premier. Looking back I doubt I would've given up a chance to meet Tommy Douglas either had I been my dad.

Fast forward 20 years. Dearest one and I are driving down the highway to our new home. And there beside the highway is that big, blue, round building where they used to have tiny chocolate bars for sale for a nickle. I could even remember exactly which camping spot was ours.

From then on we drove past that campground every time we went grocery shopping or had a doctor's appointment. One day, after I had sobered up, I stopped to make amends for stealing that chocolate bar. I have no memory of what followed. All I know is that I stopped carrying around the guilt and shame for my childhood crime. The adults around me as a child set all kinds of poor examples of morality but stealing wasn't one of them. It was a huge relief to make that amend.

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Seeking

2010-10-31T19:53:00.003-06:00

"Most of us don't seek God during happy times. We seek God when we're in distress."

As the priest said this tears sprang to my eyes. Had I not been an alcoholic who's life was becoming more and more unmanageable every day would I have sought God? I'll never know the answer to that one.

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Fixated

2010-10-29T20:56:00.003-06:00

Once in a very long while I feel like I get a nudge from the Holy Spirit. Most of the time I doubt those nudges, unable to differentiate between it and my ego. My ego is great at masquerading as so many things.

But last night I was sitting at a friend's house and got a sudden urge to call another friend. I ignored it for about ten minutes and then excused myself to go use the phone and call. Tears on the other end of the line. There really is nothing I can say to a sorrowing person that will make anything any better. But I can listen. So I did.

Kindness is seriously under rated. When I hear people talk about so and so is destined to do Big Things For God I recognize my own ego inflation tendencies. My experience tells me it's much harder to be faithful in little things. Especially when I get hung up on thinking there's something bigger I should be doing. What rubbish.

I'm having a really hard time lately living in this day only. I constantly feel like I'm waiting for something. Right now it's for the time change next weekend. I'm not sure why I feel like an extra hour of sleep is going to change anything but in my mind it is. My whole growing up I was fixated on the next thing, never this thing right in front of me. It was the only way I could cope with my reality. I know my restlessness is temporary but it is not fun waiting for it to pass.

Kisses From God

2010-10-27T20:53:00.005-06:00

The solitude was wonderful yesterday.
Very restorative.
I puttered and cleaned and cooked.
I love cleaning in my pjs.
But yesterday I got dressed because a friend was coming over.
I looked in the mirror and decided my hair would pass muster.
Barely.

My hair is poker straight and short.
Depending on how much I toss and turn during the night
it can look, as my sponsor's sister says,
"Like you stuck your finger in an electrical outlet."
It was as if I stuck half a finger in yesterday.
They don't call them rooster tails for nothing.

Today the sun shone for the first time in days,
guaranteeing the snow would melt although
more is falling as I type.

On cloudy days I try to remember that the sun is shining high up in the sky.
I imagine I'm in an airplane that breaks through the clouds to see the sun.
Today when I was on an errand
and realized the sun was shining bright,
I felt like I'd forgotten there was a sun.
Sunshine on my face feels like kisses from God.
Feeling that sunshine filled me with gratitude.

I used to think I could only be happy,
be truly grateful, if things were going my way.
If the planets were aligned as they say.
As if I have any control over planets aligning.
I sure tried.

This afternoon I had a chance encounter with someone
who it was nice to touch base with again.
So many times in my job I talk on the phone to the same
people over and over again and rarely, if ever, get to
put a face and name together.

It doesn't take many words to brighten someone's day.

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Before Me

2010-10-26T08:11:00.009-06:00

A day of solitude lies before me.
My first in 6 weeks.
Sometimes on days like this, I practice silence as well.
Well, except for the committee in my head.
They never shut up.
I've gotten much better at recognizing their voices though.
Voices of my ego, not of my soul even though they try to convince me otherwise.

The biggest difference between dearest one and I
is that he is a big picture thinker
and I tend to get bogged down in details.

I remember once a friend told me a story
of when they had company coming and her house was a mess.
Everyone flew to a task. Picking up newspapers,
clearing the table, vacuuming the living room, wiping down the bathroom.
And there was one of her daughters, expending much effort by
dusting each individual leaf on a rather large house plant.
My friend was utterly frustrated.
I understood her daughter's actions completely.

Which is why you might come to my house
and find things in disarray
but my bookshelf has every single book in alignment
like soldiers on a march.
While a pair of dirty socks (or more likely, one sock)
might be peeking out from under the bookshelf
ready to be a soft landing
for a book that will never fall.

I wrote this post while thinking of the bookshelf in my livingroom. Ha. Then I remembered the bookshelf in the spare room. This one may harbour a dirty sock. I won't be spending my day of solitude finding out though.

Which kind of bookshelf do you have?

Sorting It Out

2010-10-23T20:33:00.003-06:00

Today I sat in the parking lot before my AA meeting and just about put the car in reverse and left. I've never had such a strong resistance to going in. Thankfully a few things came to mind. One - that when you least feel like going to a meeting you should go and two - I've never regretted going to a meeting. So in I went.

I had sorted it out in the parking lot why I had such a strong resistance and I'll be hashing that out with my sponsor. I appreciate that she will tell me what I need to hear, not what I want to hear. It's why I asked her to be my sponsor in the first place. She loves me whole heartedly and will not baby me one little bit. She has the biggest heart and a humble spirit. Her bullshit detector is keen.

I am grateful though, that AA is a place where I can go and tell my truth. Today I felt resistance to being here. I sat out there and just about didn't come in. If it wasn't for what I've heard around these tables time and time again I might have put the car in reverse and driven away.

I am grateful for a place to be fully human and still loved.

Hallelujah

2010-10-22T08:58:00.001-06:00

I was going to save this one until Easter but I couldn't wait. I hope you enjoy it, too.

And You Would Be.........?

2010-10-21T21:01:00.003-06:00

I stopped by to see my sponsor on a whim tonight. As I got close to the road that leads to her house I said a little prayer and decided that dropping by to see her unexpectedly would be A-OK.

I drove up to her house and the lights were on. So far so good. One of her dogs came bounding up to greet me. That meant she was home. I rang her doorbell. I never ring her doorbell. I knock and then walk in. We have that kind of familiarity with one another. Her TV was blaring but she was no where to be found. I called. No answer. I slipped off my shoes and went looking. Her dog picked up my shoe and went to lay down and chew on it. As I called to him to give me back my shoe a voice said, "What are you doing in my house?" I looked around wondering where was my friend that she could see me but I couldn't see her.

That's when I realized the character on the TV show had asked me that.

Eventually I found my sponsor relaxing out back in her hot tub. I told her how her TV show lady was looking out for her. Lordy, we laughed and laughed.

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Way Too Fuzzy

2010-10-19T07:11:00.004-06:00

I keep thinking that I'll write a post when I'm not so darn tired. Dearest one and I used to have a joke that we would spend time together in 1992. Then that year came and went. So waiting for something to change isn't the answer. Showing up is. I'm having more days with less spoons lately. I do hope that changes soon.

I'm hedging my bets that I'm going to graduate from reading glasses to all day glasses today after my eye exam. I've been waiting for this appointment since June. Not that it's so hard to get an appointment but that's about the time I realized that without my reading glasses some things were way too fuzzy. Oh, couldn't I make an analogy of that sentence?! Insurance only pays for eye exams every two years so I had to wait until today to make it past that 2 year mark.

Youngest son and I deactivated our social networking accounts while we were on the phone together last night. Let's see how bad the withdrawal is, for me anyway. Our decision followed a lengthy chat about relationships and the false sense of depth to them when we know what someone is doing but not how they are doing. Sometimes I wonder if blogging can be like that, too. I've been having those what's the point of this again? conversations within myself about blogging lately. I still can't tell you what the point is but here I am anyway.

Dearest one is still home recuperating from surgery. I am missing commuting back and forth to work with him. It feels like a much longer drive when I'm traveling solo. We used to dream of working at the same place, different departments. What we have is so close to that we can hardly believe it some days. My office is less than a five minute walk to his. I have this pair of shoes that make a nice clicking sound as I walk. I am embarrassed, but not too much obviously, to admit how much I like that sound. Maybe it's because I spent my whole childhood trying to make as little noise as possible so I wouldn't get noticed and therefore not get in the line of fire.

Tired or not, there's lots to be grateful for today. Shoes, work, relationships, choices, sleep, eyesight. You.

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Wondering

2010-10-15T09:31:00.001-06:00

"I never believed you when you said alcoholics don't sip their drinks."

Only daughter and I had just come from my home group AA meeting. As a result of what she'd heard in that meeting she believed me now. (And there may be some alcoholics who are able to sip their drinks. I never could.)Because it was an open meeting and she hadn't been to one since she was a young child, I asked if she wanted to come with me. It was a good meeting. They aren't always. Some meetings seem deeper and fuller than others. If that makes sense. It does to me.

"Raw honesty. That's what stood out for me," she added.

I wonder if I take for granted what only daughter saw as incredible?

PS. I wrote this post way back in the summer and forgot about it. The photo is for only daughter. For once she woke up to the first snow of the season today while we...cough....cough...um, didn't. That may never happen again.

Try

2010-10-13T20:36:00.003-06:00

I'm beyond weary.
Had one of those days where I was sure I'd left my brain somewhere.
Maybe by the side of the road.

A good sleep will help.
I hope.

Ironically early this morning a line from a song went flitting through my head:

"Today I'm going to try and change the world"

I even talked to God on my way to work about doing just that.
Then I had the first day ever where I hated my job.
Before a co worker had much more time than to say good morning to me I vented my feelings.
Not really the kind of first I'm proud of making.
It didn't take long for me to see my ego in the midst of it all.
It's too long and boring and perhaps not fit for my blog, even anonymous as it is, but most of my life's frustrations usually boil down to ego of some magnitude or other. My job has given me numerous opportunities to see this.

Earlier this morning I turned on the TV and watched some of the miners being rescued.

What is it that makes the tears just flow unbidden while watching something like that? Do times like that make one know at some deeper level just how connected we all are? I have no idea.

Ironically my boss told me today that that Johnny Reid song above is her life's motto. I hadn't mentioned it to her at all.

She then said that the news of the miners was a wonderful change from the mostly doom and gloom one hears instead.

Those miners, in some way, did change the world today.

To Be Witness

2010-10-10T13:02:00.003-06:00

The leaves are gone off the trees today. A hard wind came along and away the last of them went.I don't know what fits a death more - grey skies and bare trees or a sunshiny blue sky.

This is Thanksgiving weekend here. I came home mid morning and put a pie in the oven and made the cranberry sauce. The turkey was slipped in to the oven to roast just a few minutes ago. Dearest one was gone when I came home. I thought maybe he'd gone to have coffee with a friend. Nope. He was at the hospital with his dad, who had been feeling ill enough that dearest one's mom called and asked for help. He is okay, no heart attack as was feared. Dearest one will be home as soon as he can. It's been that kind of a weekend.

I am beyond grateful that I am sober and emotionally healthy. Otherwise I would not be in this place of accepting life on life's terms today. I don't do it perfectly of course. I'm just grateful for those times when it is so clear what the right thing to do is regardless of what my idea of the day was going to look like. Thy will be done is a really brave thing to pray some days. There is a bigger plan than I can see. That sentence doesn't answer all the questions. I don't think faith needs every question answered in order to be real and vibrant. Maybe just the opposite.

Last night my sponsor and I settled into her hot tub after everyone had gone home. She reached both her hands out to me and under an inky black sky with pin pricks of stars trying to shine through, we prayed together. A first for both of us. The first words out of her mouth were ones of gratitude. We then sat and talked and even laughed a bit. It is a privilege to be witness to someone else's journey.

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Think Of Her

2010-10-09T17:34:00.002-06:00

I'm just home for a moment.
This morning I phoned my sponsor to see if she wanted a ride to the meeting.
That's when I found out her husband had passed away a few hours earlier.
She'd tried to call me but in her distress dialed the wrong number.
I've been with her all day.
Just came home for stuff so I can spend the night.
Within the next few days her 'other family',
those in recovery will come together and grieve with her.
Please pray for her if you will.
Thanks.

Roadie

2010-10-04T18:52:00.004-06:00

I'm off on a bit of a road trip tomorrow so I might be scarce around these parts for a few days. I've been sick all weekend so I'm not looking forward to a 500 mile drive but all things considered I'll be glad at the other end of it. And the fact that I have the money to put the gas in the tank and food in my belly is not being taken for granted. I hope.

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Live and Learn

2010-10-03T08:31:00.007-06:00

"People do it differently." She says it without judgement, without her normal exasperated know it all attitude. Then she tells me that one shouldn't cut into the carrot to cut the tops off and shouldn't leave them to dry out either. If I'd left a little of the green top attached and put them in the fridge right away they'd stay crisp until the New Year. She tells me this in a tone that sounds as if she has bad news to tell me and wants to let me down gently. I tell her "oh, well, I'll know for next year" thinking of the bald headed carrots wilting in the fridge, hours of unnecessary work that will most likely end up in the compost bin. Live and learn.

Last night as I lay in bed reviewing my day I thought about the kindness of my mom in our conversation about my freshly stored carrots. I never felt welcome in her kitchen growing up. The rule was I could experiment all I wanted if I got up early Saturday while everyone else slept and if I cleaned up after myself. So I did. Dark winter mornings found me (and everything around me) covered with flour, managing to dirty more dishes than necessary. I don't have memories of my mom teaching me to cook. We were rarely in the kitchen at the same time and never cooked together. Once she slapped me across the face at the kitchen sink.

Still, she was patient from a distance. She made cooking look so easy but without her side by side instruction all I could go on was what I observed from afar. That led to one episode where I tried to make pie crust and gave the recipe a try five times in a row. First I covered the little counter with flour and dough and frustration. Then I went to the dining room table. Eventually my mom came home from town to see flour on every flat surface and I still hadn't managed to duplicate her ease at what seemed like zip, zip, zip and there was a beautiful crust in the pie plate in one piece! Without her guidance how could I know about using ice cold water and handling the pastry as gently as possible? About rolling it out from middle to edge with feather light fingers? I couldn't.

Anyway I lay in bed last night and cherished a simple conversation on a Saturday afternoon reminded that sometimes a kind heart gets buried underneath a lot of pain, but still it remains.

Danish? Norwegian?

2010-10-03T08:26:00.003-06:00

Being Danish and Norwegian myself, this little video makes me smile.

All Crinkly And Bright

2010-10-02T13:41:00.011-06:00

"How's my girl?"
That's how she greeted me, both in person and on the phone. I loved being her girl.

One day she greeted me while sitting at her kitchen table, a red rimmed white enamel bowl on her lap. It was full of the tiniest carrots and she was cheerfully scrubbing them clean.

When she smiled at me her eyes went all crinkly and bright.

"What a boring job. I'd never bother with carrots that small." That's what I thought to myself as we visited. She would've been shocked had I voiced my thoughts. I think it was that day I asked her what she did when she got cranky. She stopped and thought for a moment and told me she didn't get cranky. I would've thought she was lying except I'd never seen her get cranky. She had the kind of attitude that made the best out of everything.

I met her 20 years ago. I hadn't lived in this community as a sober person and when we moved back I went to a meeting in a town down the highway. An elderly woman there told me there was someone living in my community in recovery. I was lonely. I didn't know how to relate to people in sobriety. Many of my relationships had been built around partying and without the booze we found little in common.

So I called her up. Her of bright crinkly smiling eyes. She sounded gruff on the phone. Very gruff. Short, staccato bursts of words came out of her mouth. Oh my Lord I thought. She's needs help. I'll be her help. I'll be her saviour. That's pretty close to my original thoughts, too. I knew she was in Al-Anon. I thought whoever in her life drank must be drunk right this minute for her to sound so gruff. I pictured her as a tough old broad in camouflaged clothing wearing hiking boots.

Well, didn't I get the shock of a lifetime when she came out on her step as a stooped white haired lady wearing a pretty dress with an apron over top. She dried her hands and greeted me with a brilliant beaver toothed smile. She took me in as her own instantly. Her husband had died the previous winter and she was alone except for a grandchild she was raising. We sat on her musty blue sofa and chatted over china cups of tea.

She never dwelt on the past. But what I learned of it still amazes me. I live what most people would think of as remote. For me, it's normal. When she reached out for help in Al-Anon she wrote a letter. Eventually she learned of a meeting in the town down the highway. She had to walk several miles to the highway to catch the Greyhound Bus if she wanted to get to a face to face meeting. She did this regularly until the day came when she had a car of her own. It was a big yellow boat that glided down the highway. She could barely see over the steering wheel. We did a lot of laughing in that car.

The only mention she ever made to me of life before recovery was that she once went through a winter where the only company she had to talk to pour her heart out to during a 3 month time span, were her chickens. There was a certain grimness in her remembering. And also a thread of hope. If you can make it through three months without another living soul to talk to you can make it through anything.

She passed away quite a few years ago now. I miss her. We were privileged to take a road trip together once. Sometimes I'd take her to town. We went to meetings together occasionally. She took life as it came. She was up for any adventure. Our age difference of 50 years never came into the picture. We mattered to each other.

Yesterday I pulled the last of the carrots from the garden. You can see some tiny ones there among the bigger carrots. I thought of her as I trimmed their tops and decided which ones to keep and which to toss.

I kept many of the smallest of carrots in memory of that day she held a red rimmed white enamel bowl on her lap full of tiny carrots.

Grace

2010-10-01T09:26:00.003-06:00

THE BREAD OF LIFE
October 1
St. Thérèse of Lisieux

Saint Therese of Lisieux, toward the end of her life, had a beautiful image of salvation. It’s not in her autobiography, so many have not heard of it. She describes salvation in this way: All of her life she is a little girl. She is proud and happy to be a little girl. Her heavenly Father is standing at the top of a great staircase, always beckoning her, “Come, Therese! Come! I ask more of you!” She lifts her little foot again and again by all the actions of her Catholic faith and religious life, trying to please God. She is trying to climb up to God.

God watches Therese and sees her desire to come. Then in one moment that we call grace, God rushes down the staircase, picks her up and takes her. She knows afterward by hindsight that God has done it, from beginning to end. But it was important for her to keep lifting up her little foot. Our struggle, our desire, our “yes” is significant and necessary. But in the end it is always grace that carries us up the staircase.

Richard Rohr in Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, p.324, Day 336

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To Read And Remember

2010-09-27T16:45:00.007-06:00

I'm writing this from a bank of computers at the public library. My favourite librarian with her familiar right sided limp, just stopped to chat for a few minutes. Libraries have always been a haven for me although this big, new library is not as comforting as its crowded older edition. I like to feel hugged by a building and it just doesn't feel that way when the ceiling is 25 feet high above me.

It was a slow kind of day at work, the first of its kind since I started back to work last month. It was a nice change. There are times of the year when I can sit at my desk and read. This isn't one of them but it will come around again. Then I will be wishing for something to keep me busy. I'll take busy over bored any day.

In a little while I'll go look through the children's section of books. I have many favourite illustrators. One of my favourites is Tomie dePaola. I like children's books just as much as adult ones. Somewhere out in our shed I have a plastic container full of children's books. Dearest one wanted to chuck them because we haven't seen them for 5 years but I got all defensive and owly about it because I might not have room for them now but I will some day.

When I was a kid I used to bring home a stack of books from the library. I was so disappointed when I'd gone through the entire young adult section of the library. I think my biggest take home stack was 25 books. My mom was not impressed. She was the one who got the phone calls about overdue books. She was the only one of us who wasn't a reader. I remember once reading a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay in a weekly paper and being so struck by it that I wrote her a letter. I was only 15 years too late. Her name went on my list of must read books.

I still keep such a list. Books I hope to read one day. Wish lists online, too. I have a stack of books balanced on my knees as I type. Pity only a few will fit between me and the computer desk. Ah, there isn't time to read many anymore but lately I've had the pleasure of reading a few. I hope you have, too.

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Crazy On You

2010-09-25T20:50:00.003-06:00

"...crazy on you......let me go crazy, crazy on you...."

I was in a grocery store this week when Crazy On You played across the speakers. I stopped and just listened, transported back to my teenage years lying in bed with my ear to a radio. Funny how music can make one feel like they've time travelled.

Most of the music from those years holds no appeal to me now but every now and then a song comes along that makes me feel 15 again.

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A Gazillion Times A Day

2010-09-24T09:04:00.005-06:00

I was taking minutes in an all day meeting this week and had to remind myself that I wasn't being paid to offer my opinion. I was being paid to record what others were saying. I thought I was less opinionated than I used to be but really I'm continually learning that the world will survive without me voicing my opinion, that's all.

Group dynamics are an interesting thing to observe when all you're there for is to observe, not contribute. Watching one person take things personally and confuse the issue with their very own selves gave me food for thought because I am much more like that person than like any other person in the meeting. I felt both compassion and irritation at her lack of awareness. What is that saying? There's how you see yourself, there's how others see you, there's how you think others see you and there's how you are.

I have two friends who drilled it into my head for years before I believed them, that what I thought of myself was far more important than what others thought of me. When I realized how much negative self talk I had going on I started to believe them. When you hear someone say out loud that they are such an idiot, stupid,......fill in the blank, then you can be sure what's going on in their head is much worse and more insistent. And they probably don't even know it. I had to train myself to recognize my internal negative self talk and re frame it or discount it altogether. In the beginning it was like being interrupted a gazillion times a day.

I'm of the belief that only when we get honest about ourselves can we like ourselves. For myself, personally, going to Confession has been the biggest gift in learning to like myself as I am. Which most likely makes no sense to some people who mistakenly believe that confession is a guilt trip, shame inducing, totally pointless thing to do because after all, Jesus has already forgiven us.

And really that`s the point. Knowing I was already forgiven (because if it`s up to me and not in the Hands of Mercy then I`ll quit trying right now) didn`t help cause that was a head knowledge thing. But process, the gut honest things I have said in Confession and received absolution for, has been so freeing and helped me own who I am in my humanity. It made it a heart thing. My shadow side doesn`t freak me out so much anymore. It`s just there. And always will be, so I can stop pretending that being a Christian makes it go away.

We all need someone, somewhere, to hear who we are at our worst and still accept us in order to even begin to change at a heart level. At least I did. Before that I was too busy spending energy on denying what I was capable of doing, what I had done. And if I didn't believe underneath it all that God loves me exactly as I am then I wouldn't even try. Man, I have cried some gut wrenching tears during absolution, God`s love so tender and full of mercy and impossible to comprehend.

(My apologies to Catholic apologists if I am slaughtering Church teaching. There was a time when I could and wanted to get all technical about all things Catholic (as in wanting to memorize the big green Catechism of the Catholic Church so I could have an answer to everything) and eventually I decided I just needed to live my story and hope to love in the process. People`s eyes tend to glaze over when I get technical or I get on my high and mighty need to be right horse and so far I haven`t learned how to be gracious and technical.)

Okay, time to chuckle, because this post is all about my opinion. It has to land somewhere. My head would explode otherwise.

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Ten Things

2010-09-19T14:17:00.004-06:00

I need some kind of topic and this will have to do. If you have any questions for me that would be suitable for the blog leave them in the comments and I'll answer them in a future post! I am out of ideas!

Ten things about me:

1. If it was socially acceptable to wear pjs everywhere, I would. I most often clean house in my pajamas. Which explains why, when my MIL and FIL knocked on my door yesterday afternoon, I was still in mine. I had just finished cleaning house and was trying to decide between a shower and some computer time. Had I chosen shower I would have been much more presentable.

2. Making commitments to sit on boards and committees is not on my fun list. Even so I've been on several and am just wrapping one of those up this weekend. The amount of internal and external whining I am doing, reminding myself just how glad I am to be done, done, is embarrassing.

3. While memorizing numbers comes easy to me, keeping track of money makes my anxiety level rise. But I bit the bullet this morning and spent the time it took to record the last two weeks worth of purchases, bills paid, etc. into the spread sheet. I am always so relieved when it's done. Makes me think of a line by M. Scott Peck about the greater amount of energy it takes to avoid doing an unpleasant task than it does to just do it. So true.

4. I used to have the book that thought came from but who knows where it is now. I have bought more books than any other single item in my lifetime. Even when I was a poor college student I had a shelf of books. I am much pickier now about the books I shell out money for. I go into bookstores with a pen and paper and then order books I think I might like from the library. Rarely do I then buy a copy for my personal library. My dad says that makes me his daughter.

5. My arms are covered in freckles. I have never been embarrassed by freckles. They really aren't that common. Just me and my dad have them in my family of origin. I passed them on, too.

6. I strongly dislike being a passenger in any vehicle unless it's dearest one driving. Otherwise I am a bundle of nerves the whole trip. That's not too much of an exaggeration either. Just ask my kids. One of them had a driving instructor who told them I was banned from being in the vehicle while they were learning how to drive. The other two probably wish I had been.

7. I do like road trips though. I've been on the go far too much lately so it doesn't appeal to me at the moment. I am going out of town for work this week though and then making a longer road trip early next month. That one has a bonus of seeing a dog and a girl at least!

8. I find exercise a chore. I am always glad when I'm finished, glad I did it. My two favourites are walking and yoga. I used to play sports when I was younger. My mom put up with a gazillion basketball shots hitting the outside of the house right above where she sat inside in the living room, for years. I have no idea how she didn't scream out the window at me to stop. But she never did. That is medal worthy. Especially during PMS. When I used to get that I couldn't even tolerate the noise of cutlery scraping on plates at the dinner table. It sounded so loud. Basketballs would have sent me around the bend.

9. There were 41 robins on the lawn the other day. I was in town so I missed them. I grew up in a bird watching house and paid little attention to it. I regret that now. I have a 40 year old bird book from my grandma that sits on a shelf in my living room. The basics I can identify but the difference between this and that sparrow? Not a chance.

10. With dearest one being laid up this week I am finding out we share many more of the household tasks than I'd realized. It's taken one of us out for the count for me to see that. That is such a long ways from where we started and something I quite like. I think he does, too. After all, it means his socks don't go missing in the laundry any more.

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Another Family

2010-09-16T08:17:00.004-06:00

Thursday already. I woke up as tired as I went to bed. Hopefully that will dissipate as the day goes on.
Yesterday I rushed around like a mad woman to get out the door on time only to sit in my car, double check my appointment times, then realize I had the wrong day altogether! But I had already made some commitments around my appointments so I went anyway. It meant that I got to my mid week home group meeting and that was a really nice change. Work has been too busy for me to slip away for an hour.

Dearest one is recuperating nicely from surgery. Just stubborn. So we are having a match of the stubborns. He is the kind of person who has a hard time sitting still at the best of times. Now, when he has to, I can see why it is so hard.

When he was in surgery I came down to the main area of the hospital and there sat someone I recognized from the program although I had never talked to him. I sat down beside him and we had the greatest conversation. I love when conversations go deep immediately. Maybe it was the setting we were in. Another member was recuperating from surgery and all day I saw members coming to visit him. How blessed we are to have another family to surround us in times like this.

The threat of snow hasn't materialized yet so that is a gift. I'd at least like to see the Harvest Moon before I see snow. Wouldn't you? It did freeze the night before last though. Ice on the windshield in September. Welcome to northern Canada.

Today is a busy day full of appointments. All self care appointments which makes me feel spoiled. Tonight is a bridal shower for a relative. Happy things to keep me busy.

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A Good Day

2010-09-13T20:34:00.005-06:00

"Today's gonna be a good day." That was the lyric going through my head this morning as I woke up. I'd made my way to the bathroom hoping it was still the middle of the night but when I looked at the alarm clock it was only minutes until my alarm went off. Nevertheless that song lyric popped into my mind as my day started.

And it was.

My coworkers got together and showed their appreciation for all the hard work I've done the past few weeks by gifting me with a certificate to a local Spa. I'm not good at opening cards or gifts in front of others so for a moment I turned my back on all of them while I opened the card. Their kindness really touched me.

It was one of those work days when the work kept piling up and I felt like I wasn't even treading water at points. In the middle of that, in a lull, dearest one called to let me know someone had phoned me at home needing to talk about their problem with alcohol. I was able to slip away in private and return her call. It had to be Divinely led because of how that call went and how my story and hers intersected. You know when things pop out of your mouth and are unplanned and unexpected? The kicker was when she told me she was putting my number away for safekeeping right next to the word hope. Kind of gave me goose bumps, that did. I offered to stay in town and meet her at a meeting. She took me up on it only to call later and cancel. I hope to hear her voice again. I had to remind myself that we carry the message not the person. I so want today to be her bottom.

If you are the praying type please remember dearest one tomorrow in your prayers. He is having surgery tomorrow. He'll be off work quite a while recuperating. While it is not life threatening I think any time one goes under anaesthetic one faces their mortality. I am hoping he is pain free soon. I doubt he knows what that feels like anymore. It's been years.

Tonight we went out for supper to celebrate it being nearly 30 years since we got engaged. I was a teenager back then. I thought I was so grown up. I want to be a ballet dancer when I grow up. I've said that since I was a young girl. My mom used to laugh at me when I told her that. I probably said it the most often when I was in that awkward stage of adolescence when ones limbs are gangly and don't seem to fit the body they're attached to. I said that as often as I told her I wanted a nose job for Christmas or my birthday. I said it for years. Today I never give my nose a thought. It still looks the same as ever but I've changed. Today I take my wish to be a ballet dancer as having its roots in being about the beauty of the movement and about the inherent grace in it as well.

And today I feel beautiful and graceful so maybe my wish came true after all.

Treasure Trove

2010-09-10T08:29:00.006-06:00

"You know, Hope, just live in this moment. After all, you could be dead before tomorrow."

"Hey, that's right! I could be dead and then I wouldn't have to deal with this would I?"

Oh, lovely thoughts that come into my head when I am feeling stressed to the max. Thoughts that sometimes make me laugh right in the midst of gut churning and heart racing anxiety about something I have no control over and have no idea how it's going to turn out.

I am very grateful to be in recovery.

It helped me delete an entire paragraph in an email where I had been trying to deflect my stuff by pointing out someone else's. I sat here and told myself that all I could do was own my stuff. End of sentence. So I deleted a paragraph that I'd thought might work in my favour in the situation. My side of the street. That's what I'm responsible for.

It doesn't absolve me of consequences. It doesn't even make it turn out pretty. But even in the midst of it all I feel clear about what's mine to own and what isn't.

I wrote the above about an hour ago. Then I made a phone call and found out that the gut churning, heart racing anxiety had not been founded in the reality of the situation. There were no dire consequences. There weren't even any consequences. The situation had been resolved by my email and then the whole thing vanished like a thin puff of smoke. The other person laughed and waved it away as it hadn't been a huge concern to them in the first place.

Yesterday, when it all started, I asked myself if this bodily reaction was what I felt as a child growing up in an abusive home. Instantly I knew I spent most of my childhood with my gut churning and that high level of anxiety running through my body. I felt a deep sorrow about this because I'd never recognized it before. Even typing that makes me teary. I can't remember the last time I thought I was in trouble and that bodily reaction came so instantaneous.

It took a lot of talking and praying to separate my childhood reaction from what was happening yesterday. It really bothered me that once I was clear in my head my body was still on high alert. For hours.

I spent the evening with a group of friends and talked it out. As the conversation shifted to the rest of the group and I sat quietly listening to where our journeys intersected my body relaxed enough that I was left with perhaps 5% of the original anxiety.

I prayed before I went to sleep. I didn't sleep well. The situation was on my mind the moment I woke up. I went to sleep and dreamed about the person and the situation. I woke up with more than a touch of gut churning and heart racing. Dearest one prayed with me and then lit prayer candles before heading to work.

And then I made the phone call and everything was okay.

I've been reading this book a little bit every night before I go to sleep. Last night I read:

"....you can use anything - everything - as a wake up call; you can find a treasure trove of information about yourself and the world in the big trials and the little annoyances of daily life. If you turn around and face yourself in times of loss and pain, you will be given the key to a more truthful - and therefore a more joyful - life."

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Meditation Song

2010-09-08T20:55:00.004-06:00

I like most everything this singer/songwriter produces. His songs have often been a comfort to me. I'm not a big fan of Christian music (the term Christian is not an adjective. grrrr) as much of it seems to have cheesy lyrics not based in reality. But songs like this one do. I came across this song online tonight and remembered it being a balm to me more than once.

Lit For You

2010-09-07T20:48:00.006-06:00

These are our prayer candles. If you've ever asked for prayer or if I've prayed for you then there's a good chance one of these has been lit in your name. Sometimes I have one candle just for people who have lost their spouses. I told God not too long ago that I was sick of lighting that candle. Not that I was tired of praying for them but I felt overwhelmed by how many people I knew who were widowed. Sometimes I light one and ask prayers for all the bloggers I "know".

For some people ritual is frowned upon but for me it is comforting. The ritual of lighting these candles can be both comforting and disturbing, depending on the needs of those I pray for. And sometimes there are just no words to pray. Which is in itself a prayer.

Lord have mercy.

The Answer Would Be "No"

2010-09-05T08:57:00.005-06:00

"I wish I could go home and have a drink to relax."

That's the thought that went through my head on the way home every night this week. I didn't freak out at the thought, because a drink was not what I was after, but I did let myself sit with the thought. I wondered what was it beneath it that I was looking for. What was it about the scenario that was attractive to me? The previous week I had sat in a bar with coworkers as they closed their evening with a drink while I sipped on peppermint tea. I found the scene such a foreign feeling that I excused myself early and went to bed. I wonder if being in that setting had prompted my thoughts.

This week I have worked double and a bit more hours than I normally do. By yesterday late afternoon I had handled 350 pieces of paper. Most of them 4 times once you include photocopying, scanning, signing, double checking. They are still in a pile waiting to be filed now. All that to say it has been a very busy week. I have driven home exhausted every evening. I have never worked a Saturday in this job until yesterday. It was wonderful to leave my desk finally cleared of papers yesterday afternoon and go home.

The second night that thought above went through my mind I realized what I was looking for was some way to reward myself for the hard work I was doing. I was craving recognition and reward. So I got creative. I wanted a beta endorphin boost. I went and picked fresh veggies in my garden and dug potatoes for supper. An hour from ground to table. What a treat! Another night I got home and forced myself to put on my running shoes and went for a walk. That helped. I spent an evening with a group of friends. We did a lot of talking and belly laughing and ended the evening in prayer. By Thursday, when the thought was still rattling around in my head, I booked a massage for yesterday. A treat I have not had in several years.

And then came Friday. As I pulled to a stop at a red light there was that thought once again. I asked myself what was it I was looking for. Out of nowhere came a question,

"Has going home and relaxing with a drink ever been your experience?"

I started to laugh. Um, the answer would be no. It was never even a goal. I can't relate to it one bit. I can relate to drinking to get drunk. Drinking as fast as I can guzzle them. Drinking to numb the feelings.

But relaxing and having a drink, no. I had been romanticising an experience that was foreign to me. And with that the thought stopped harassing me. It still makes me laugh.

Yesterday I went to work early and then stopped part way through my day to have my massage (it was wonderful,I booked another one) and then went to my home group meeting where I shared this week's experience. I was so grateful to have a place where I could go and be honest and get understanding in return. I went back to the office with a lighter heart.

Now I have two days off to relax and refresh. I slept past 6 AM and soon family will be here to spend the day with us. Tomorrow I will tackle things that need to be done before work comes around again. I have a garden that needs cleaning out. There are simple every day chores to be done. Life is good.

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Giving My Head A Shake

2010-09-01T18:32:00.006-06:00

"How about I forget to send it in the courier and by the time it eventually gets there all will be good?"

I'd gone into her office and shut the door behind me to ask her perspective on my newfangled plan to help someone through a loophole I designed myself.

"But if they ask me on the other end I'll have to lie and say oops, I forgot. I'll know I conveniently forgot,not accidentally forgot. Okay, so that's not going to happen. Scratch that plan. I have to sleep at night."

My boss smiles at me. She knows that I'm a stickler for having my integrity intact at the end of the day. Not sure why forgetting on purpose became a viable option in my own mind to begin with, although if I told you the whole story you might see why, but the bottom line was it instantly became a non option when I realized I might have to lie to cover my butt down the road. If I hadn't thought it through out loud with my boss I might not have seen that and then would've slipped through the loophole only to fess up when I realized what I'd done.

I know in the whole scheme of life most people would look at the situation and think what is the big deal. So a piece of paper gets sent a week late and it helps someone out. On the other end that slip of paper being a week late is really not a big deal. It wouldn't make a difference to them in the long run. But I'd know my motivation and intention and well, there you go. I was grateful for some clarity before it all potentially blew up in my face.

I handled so many pieces of paper today that I left them in a stack on my desk to deal with tomorrow. Although tomorrow will see another stack as high to add to it. By day's end I couldn't think straight and instead of spending any energy on getting tomorrow's day ready I left the papers on my desk, locked the office and came home. I am once again counting the time until I can go to sleep. I am grateful this weariness is temporary.

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Learning

2010-09-01T00:04:00.005-06:00

It's just after midnight.
I was in bed shortly after 8 pm , sound asleep in no time and now I'm not.
I hope sleep comes back soon.
Tomorrow will be my busiest day of work for the year.
I look forward to it and will be glad when it's over.

When I went home a few weeks ago
to celebrate my dad's milestone birthday
I visited with two of his cousins.
My dad's cousins can be counted on one hand
and I don't remember meeting but one of them
in all my growing up years.

These two cousins and I sat and visited for nearly 2 hours straight.
The first time I'd had a more than surface level conversation
with anyone from my dad's side of the family. Ever.
It was wonderful. A real gift.

It's been a painstaking journey for me learning how to make small talk.
I have to work at it. Social courtesies still seeem like a mystery to me much of the time. Below the surface level conversation comes much easier.

I also have to work at remembering to ask about the other person. It's literally a mental note I think in nearly every conversation I have. "Ask them how they are. Ask them the question they just asked you."

One of the gems in the conversation with the cousins was that one of them told me she thought it was a common family trait to struggle with being socially adept. Which strikes me as funny right now, seeing as we share the same last name and had to get to a certain level of social adeptness to even have that conversation.

But have it we did and were both blessed because of it.
I love it when an unexpected blessing is plopped in my lap.
I love it when I have eyes to see it and an open heart to receive it.

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Worth It

2010-08-30T18:02:00.006-06:00

It's been a day.
This morning I asked God to direct my thoughts and my actions.Youngest son left for a city far, far, away before I left for work.I waited until he was gone to cry.

Work was crazy busy.
I am glad I like my work.
There were many interruptions and work left undone.
Which means tomorrow is a work day not a day off.
I could have been done except I chose to take some extra time to truly listen to someone who had a heavy heart. We are just not meant to carry burdens alone.

I used my litebook this morning in hopes of it helping me feel more rested in the mornings. We'll see. Last winter it helped my mood considerably.
I've been grumpy for a week now.
I haven't been grumpy much in the past three years and it feels uncomfortable.
I'm trying to be gentle with myself while being proactive about it, too.

This video gave me instant perspective.
Perspective is a great antidote to self pity.
Sometimes it makes you cry, too.

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Diddly Squat

2010-08-28T18:19:00.006-06:00

I didn't feel like going
to my meeting today.
I wanted to stay home.
A place I have yet to be for more than a night's sleep,
and sometimes not even that,
in nearly 2 weeks.
But you know what?
I went.

I went because I could and this is my home group
and I made a commitment when it became my home group
that I would show up when possible.
And today it was possible.
I just didn't want to.
There are some times when what I want doesn't matter diddly squat.

All this to say that I had an unexpected epiphany
while listening during the meeting.
It wasn't something anyone said.
I was simply sitting there, opening myself up to
whatever God had for me,
when into my head came an answer to something I wasn't even looking for.
I had to gulp so I wouldn't start sobbing.
It felt like that much of a gift.

Later dearest one and I stopped in to visit a fried who most likely does not have a whole lot of time left to live. We don't know for sure but we wonder.
And we visited with him and his spouse and had a lot of laughs.
Belly laughter.
A gift.

I marvelled at our friend's merry face in the midst of pain and suffering.
It was as if his face was lit up from the inside.
Part of me wanted to take his arm, matchstick that it has become,
and shake him while asking why the laughter, why the light when
death seems to be creeping in? How is it possible?
But today was not a day for those kind of questions.
At least not of him.

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Privileged

2010-08-27T20:11:00.003-06:00

It is good to be home.
It is cold and rainy and the perfect weather for lying on the couch under a blanket and watching TV or reading a book.
Tomorrow we'll go buy groceries and replenish the cupboards.
I try not to take that privilege for granted.
Because it is a privilege.

One of the Puglies didn't recognize me when I came home and it took several seconds of talking to him before he did. I think that means I've been gone a bit much lately.

Today one of my coworkers said that getting older sucks.
I may feel 80 today, exhaustion still hanging around,
but I have to say that getting older is a gift.
It means we are alive.
I told her that.
Normally I wouldn't.
I'd just think it.
But whatever life brings, it's still life, ya know?
As my Dad would say, "It's better than the alternative."

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It Is What It Is

2010-08-26T07:34:00.004-06:00

How many days can I write about exhaustion
before you get exhausted reading about it?
C'est la vie.
I am going out of town for work this morning.
Which meant I could sleep in.
I managed a whole 11 minutes worth.
My body, once it gets on a schedule, really wants me to stick to it.

My heart rate has been elevated all week plus doing flip flops.
It does that every so often and I'm sure it adds to the tiredness.
After being thoroughly checked out regularly by cardiologists
over the years it is what it is.

Yesterday I had an opportunity to be actively compassionate towards a coworker. I took it. I can't come up with those ideas on my own. On my own it's all about me, me, me. So I am grateful for the grace to follow through, on the days when I actually hear a nudge. I'm sure I am given many more opportunities a day that don't even register on my consciousness.

My coworker is grieving a very difficult loss. Sometimes you just need to hash out the details again and again because they are really too horrifying to let roll around in your brain unspoken. I made a commitment to her yesterday to listen for as long as it takes. I managed to zip my lip and not say one pithy statement either.

I doubt there is a thing you can say to a grieving person that helps. There are lots of things that get said that are damaging. Someone once told me after I miscarried that I was never meant to have babies anyway. I never really grieved that loss (not because of what the person said, it wasn't their fault) until years later when my body was threatening to miscarry again and the ultrasound technician showed me the tiny heartbeat of my 7 week old son. Who is now youngest son.

Well, it is time to eat breakfast and pack.
I have a great group of people to travel with today even though I much prefer to drive by myself. That isn't an option so I am going to make the best of what is today.

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My Goal

2010-08-24T21:52:00.009-06:00

I should be asleep. I am beyond tired. I know that sounds dramatic. Overly so. Everything sounds that way when I am sleep deprived. I don't know why sleep won't come tonight but so far it hasn't. It will. In good time. Maybe in time to go to work tomorrow. Sarcasm is not my friend anymore so when it pops up in my writing or talking it's not good. I do not miss sarcasm being my friend. I spent far too much energy over my lifetime being proud of my sarcastic, cynical mindset. I thought being that way meant I was enlightened. You know, grounded in reality, instead of being airy fairy like those positive people were. It's been such a shock to realize what I once thought was THE TRUTH wasn't. Very humbling. Makes me wonder what else I'm wrong about although I'm alternating open to finding out and not. That's better than not all by itself.

I touched base with my sponsor tonight. Maybe if I think about that conversation it will help. Sometimes I am astounded by what people have to go through, living life on life's terms. It is not for the faint of heart.

Today I thought alot about a close family member on her way to a funeral on the other side of her family by marriage. Second one this year. I wouldn't blame the remaining family member one bit if they are cursing God because they've lost their spouse and a child within 6 months of each other, both in tragic circumstances. Who wouldn't? I doubt God blames them one little bit either. I just hope they are given the grace to not stay there and the grace to stay there as long as necessary to really scrape the bottom of the pain. Imagining what they are going through could make me feel a little crazy.

I used to cringe when I heard the Lord's name taken in vain, whether out of someone else's mouth or my own. Then I read somewhere that every profanity is in itself a prayer, even if the person saying it doesn't see it that way. Why else would they say that phrase instead of something benign? We all cry out to God in different ways.

Man, there is so much pain in this world.
My goal tomorrow is not to add to it.

PS: Remember in my last post how I'd hoped I hadn't hung up on my supervisor? Yep, I did. We were all standing around discussing that incident today when we both put the pieces together. I looked at her and said, "I bet you just thought you had crappy cell phone reception." And she looked at me and laughed and said that was exactly what she'd thought. God bless bosses with their humanity intact.
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A Little Sleep Helps

2010-08-23T19:39:00.004-06:00

It's just past 7:30 in the evening and I am in my flannel nightgown ready for sleep.
My plane was delayed so long last night that it didn't land at my home airport until after midnight. An opportunity to offer a ride to a stranger in order to save her a forty dollar cab fare presented itself.

After the initial internal balking, because I was nearly too tired to drive myself anywhere let alone someone else, I offered and she accepted. There aren't too many strangers who will offer nor others who will take one up on a ride like that but we both did and I met a lovely woman out of the deal.

Afterwards, when I arrived at a friend's house (to save myself an hour's further drive yet), it was wonderful to crawl into the guest bed's clean sheets and heavy blankets. I share that good deed to remind myself that I am capable of being a little less self centered some days. It is always a relief to find that out. I have to work at it because it doesn't come naturally. Dearest one thinks of others naturally. His generous nature is a really beautiful thing to learn from.

The alarm clock went way too early this morning, my first day back at work after 7 weeks off. I did not plan on working all day because I was so tired but I made it through and made it home. There was a point in the day, though, where a coworker and I had an attack of the giggles. You know the kind where you are laughing so hard you aren't making any noise? Ya. That kind. It happened just as I picked up the phone. I have never intentionally hung up the phone at work but all I could do was place it gently back on its rest. It seemed the kindest thing to do. I hope I didn't hang up on my supervisor. Not very professional. It was then that I knew I really needed some sleep.

Night.

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Walking Blindly

2010-08-23T05:27:00.000-06:00

Memories are such a weird thing.
The other day I was folding laundry.
A harmless task, right?
Just as I brought the edges of a towel together
into my mind popped a conversation I'd had
with a married couple many years ago.
In it I was as graceless as can be
while trying to point out a flaw in their religion.
I was so proud of myself at the time
for putting them in their place.
Dearest one and I were never invited to their house again.

I stood there with the towel in my hands, full of remorse.
Because it wasn't until that moment I realized how unkind I had been.
Often that little bit in the Big Book that talks about being quick to see where religious people are right pops into my head.
Sometimes I want to beat people over the head with that sentence
because I am one of those religious people.
It's okay, I don't see that term as a swear word.
But I understand that many people do.
Probably because they encountered someone like me
behaving like I did on that day many years ago.

But what struck me most about that memory
was how right I felt in the moment.
Shouldn't they thank me for enlightening them?
I truly thought they should.
Totally blind I was.
Totally blind.

I have a little sticky note I sometimes
paste to my computer screen at work.
It says, impulse ------- action.
When I see it I hope to remember
the gap between the two,
especially when it comes to opening my mouth.

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She Is A Keeper

2010-08-21T05:28:00.001-06:00

"We should be home early."

That's part of a text message my mother-in-law sent dearest one a few days ago. I laugh every time she sends one. Not laugh at her but laugh out of pure joy. My mother-in-law. She is a keeper. She tried to talk dearest one out of marrying me the night before we got married. The day after the wedding (we eloped, sort of. no family present) she welcomed me as a daughter even though her heart was breaking at the choice her son made. She showed me what grace looked like and I will be forever grateful to her for that.

I was an atheist. I hated Christians. I mocked them mercilessly. To their face. Especially these ones. No radio. No TV. Women wore dresses. No makeup. It was almost like living on a different planet. Archaic. We lived down the road in a little bunk shack with no running water. People still did that then and considered it normal.

Fast forward to 2010. We have a great relationship (thanks be to God. seriously.) A few years ago I was giving her a hug goodbye before she left on a trip. When I whispered in her ear that I hoped she got to at least one book store she whispered back that I knew her better than some of her own children did. We gave each other a squeeze like it was our little secret.

My mother-in-law still has no radio or TV. She'd get kicked out of her church if she did. But she got a cell phone so that she could send text messages to her children and especially her grandchildren. She loves keeping in touch with them this way.

I laugh every time at the idea of my mother-in-law typing out a text message. This is the way her grandchildren communicate and be darned if she is going to miss out. How can you tell relationship is first and foremost in her heart? How can you not love her? She is a keeper. Her birthday is this week. She'll be eighty-one.

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Making A Difference

2010-08-19T05:09:00.004-06:00

When you read this I'll be on a plane, going to visit my family. My dad is having a milestone birthday and my sisters and I decided we needed to celebrate it. My poor mother is not in control of the gathering but we promised we'd do all the work so that all she has to do is show up.

Not too much has happened in my home of origin that was not my mom's idea. Excluding the stuff we snuck around behind her back to do. I was so convinced that she knew my every move that when I moved clear across the country once I turned 18, I sometimes thought she knew the shenanigans I was up to and semi consciously braced myself for the shit storm that never came. Turns out she really did not have eyes in the back of her head nor telepathy nor could she see all the way across the country. It took me many years to realize that.

My older sister and I had a comedy of communication errors and so my dad's celebration is two afternoons in a row, depending on which paper you read the announcement in.

I volunteered to be the one to tell my mom we had planned a party at their house, weather permitting, and were inviting the whole community. It was easiest to volunteer because I'm the daughter who lives far away.

The land my dad lives on has been in the family for nearly 100 years. Chances are there are not too many people in the surrounding communities who do not know of him, if they don't know him personally. We want to honour our dad because well, you only live once. And we don't want to wait to gather the community in his honour until after he's dead.

We want him to know he made a difference.

That probably pisses my mom off. I told her we wouldn't throw her a milestone party unless she wants one. She won't. That's okay. People are different. I just wish she could be happy for my dad. I need to let go of that expectation. People can only do what they are capable of doing/being. Myself, included.

One of my sisters came up with the idea that all the grand kids could write a note to their grandpa about what he means to them. My older brother wanted to be in on it, too. That lead to all of us being invited to contribute.

My dad was the nice parent. We used to talk as kids that if they got divorced (and could they please do it so we wouldn't have to wake up at 2 AM listening to their fights anymore?) we'd all want to live with him. They are still together. Had they divorced and had we gone to live with him he would have let us do whatever we wanted while he buried his head behind the newspaper. I doubt that any kid really wants that kind of nice. It's great in daydreams but not in real life.

And so when I got the email inviting me to contribute a note I came face to face with a whole whack of resentment towards him that I didn't even know was there. It just about convinced me not to write a note at all. As if the resentments cancelled out all the good memories.

They don't.

My earliest memories are of my dad. I was two years old and was coming home from the hospital after a serious surgery and my mom took me to his shop. I remember being happy to see my dad. All the men were really kind to me because I'd just about died.

When I was five I was in the hospital and my dad came to see me on his lunch hour. My room was several stories up and we pulled two chairs over to the window and my dad read me a book. I wanted to be on his lap but was too shy to ask. My dad was not cuddly and all that. But he showed up. That counts.

When I was six I broke my arm. It's really hard to change your shirt, (have to have a clean shirt on to go to the hospital you know), when you've broken your arm right near the shoulder. But change it I did because I was told to. I changed into a red shirt. At the hospital a nurse put me in a change room to get into a gown. I got locked in. To this day I still get a little panicky in change rooms that lock. My dad took me for ice cream after I was all fixed up. He bought a green ice cream cone and a pink one and I got to pick which one I wanted. I didn't have many choices as a kid so maybe that's why that one sticks out in my mind.

When I was learning to drive I once took a corner way too fast, so fast that my dad slammed up against the door on the passenger's side. He was brave enough to continue to let me drive after that even though he turned very pale as I careened around that corner. It's hard to keep a vehicle on the road once you turn a corner at 40 mph. We fishtailed for quite a ways and he never even raised his voice. Did you know my dad was prematurely grey?

Some of these things I will write down for him.

Fifteen years ago when he was having a different milestone birthday I wrote him a letter to tell him I wanted a relationship with him. That if he died tomorrow I've have to tell my friends I didn't know him; didn't know who he was as a person. I enclosed a little book with questions for him to answer that would help me get to know what goes around in that head of his. I was crushed when he didn't answer my letter and put the book on the shelf where it still gathers dust.

It took me many years to realize that I was asking something of him that he didn't have the tools to do. He had no tools to navigate the intimacies of below the surface relationships although my sister said once, when they were having an in depth conversation about how things were for us as kids, that she could tell by his face that he wanted to, he just didn't know how.

I thought realizing all that took care of the resentment but I can see now that it didn't. I am grateful to have the tools to know what to do about that.

I wrote this post over a week ago. I debated not posting it because of my obvious issues surrounding my parents. I alternated between wanting to pretty up the post and leaving it as is. Today I decided it is what it is. I am where I am on the journey. They are where they are, too. Lord have mercy on us all.

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Lightening Up

2010-08-18T05:18:00.000-06:00

"Shut the lights off!"

My mother hollered that down the hallway more times than I can remember when I was a kid. I was 11 years old during the Energy Crisis. She also turned down the thermostat and the only way to truly feel warm in our house was to sit on a blaring heat register. I was always disappointed when the furnace shut off and my flannel nightgown went cold instantly.I still hear her voice going round in my head if I leave a room without switching off the lights.

Dearest one and I often think we are oddities because if you come to our house and we are in the livingroom, well, that's the only room that is has light. If we go to someone's house and all the lights are on we can get critical lickety split. Dearest one grew up without electricity for much of his childhood. He still loves the light and smell of a coal oil lamp. I have no reference point for them so I don't. They stink. And make me squint if I'm trying to read.

All this to say it is a grey, cloudy day outside. I hope it brings rain. We need it. The cows will be going home in a few weeks because they are eating our pasture faster than it can grow. Dearest one says they should be able to be on pasture until the snow flies. Okay, so the snow could fly in two weeks here, that is not unheard of. But usually it holds off to stay until the end of October.

This morning I went past the kitchen on the way to the living room and realized just how grey and dismal it is outside. On a whim I turned on the lights in the kitchen and dining room just to brighten things up. Light is a hopeful thing. Maybe that's why people have lots of lights on in their houses. I've been critical of something that most likely brightens their mood. I would have never even considered that had I not flipped on a switch unnecessarily this morning.

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Silence

2010-08-16T05:22:00.000-06:00

(written two weeks ago)

The silence is hard. I've been on self imposed silence since yesterday when dearest one left on a trip. I don't consider myself much of a tv watcher but reached for the remote many times today until I remembered my vow. No music.
No radio news. No tv.
Just me and the puglies.

The only exception I made was to listen to this album while I work on my novel. Many of its lyrics lend themselves to my work, evoking emotions in me that in turn trickle down to my characters. I just finished writing for the day and realized I'd forgotten to turn the music on while I typed.

This morning I had to push down the pile of paper to see the bottom of my computer screen. Tonight my desk is shiny clean. So is the floor. It feels good.

The silence was both disturbing and soothing.

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Do I Know You?

2010-08-14T05:54:00.000-06:00

He sat across from me, the cannula in his nose snaking its way to the oxygen bottle that rested against his leg. He had puffy patches under his eyes and looked a bit frail. I wondered for a moment if I knew him but dismissed it. I've asked strangers before, "Do I know you?" and only occasionally have I been right.

Instead I picked up a magazine and waited. A few minutes later someone hailed him from across the room and made a beeline in our direction. An old friend. A good, old friend. They gabbed back and forth in the comfortable way that showed they had a lot of history together. Bantered about which golf courses were their favourites. Compared notes on committees they had both served on. Spoke to each other with a gentle air of knowing that life is really just a pouf of time and then it's over. A warmth between two (not even grumpy) old men.

I half listened and half looked at my doctor's office magazine. After a time his friend bid goodbye and then it was just the two of us sitting across from one another, the chairs so close our knees almost touched. When he looked up and smiled my confidence increased. Even at that I had an argument inside myself.

Eventually I won.

"Are you Karen's dad?"

His face broke into her smile, removing all doubt.

"Yes, I am."

Instant tears for both of us at her name. Then we talked. Kindness in his questions. Kindness in his responses. I kept studying his face as if I could pull Karen right out of it. Talking to him made me feel like I could almost reach out and touch her. In his smile I saw her so fully that I just kept wanting to keep him smiling.

"I think about her every day." He welled up as he said it. I did, too. We were quiet then, no segue into a place that knows no sorrow. We just looked at each other with tears and said nothing.

Eventually I asked him about his oxygen use. Sometimes when you are sick it is so nice to have someone understand the ins and outs of what you are dealing with. We talked about how many liters he needed when he sat and when he walked. I knew Karen would have grilled him about this. She would have been worried at the high number he needed to walk.

I'd been thinking of her just a few days ago. Out riding the lawn mower I'd remembered her tale of being so weak that she fell off hers while trying to cut grass in a ditch. She never got on a lawn mower again.

She would be so happy for me that my health took a turn for the better. That I am in a remission of sorts. At least that's what I call it. The geneticist says this is a syndrome of peaks and valleys and I've been mostly on the peaks for several years now. Karen was my main support group while I struggled through many years of debilitating health issues.

Grief feels like an awkward friend to me. Yes, I know it but I don't know what to do with it. Several few years ago when I was in a grief and loss workshop I stood up to present my collage of losses to the group. Other people got all teary explaining theirs but I pointed out this baby lost, that baby lost, plus that baby lost, this brother, that friend like I was reading statistics from a Mathematics manual. Since then I've read that when you cry over one death you are also crying over every death you haven't fully grieved.

I'm getting better at crying although I still haven't wrapped my head around that Karen really is gone. A few days ago was the second anniversary of her passing.

Postscript: I asked him that day about his wife. Tentavively, unsure of whether it would be okay. She had been going through cancer treatments at the time of Karen's death. Although I tried to keep an eye on the obits I didn't know if she was still alive. I didn't want to add to his pain.

"Oh, she was having a few issues," he said.
Was in seeing the doctor right now as a matter of fact about biopsy results.

She was in there a long, long time.

I wondered at the dynamics of their relationship that he was in the waiting room and she was in the doctor's office. As if reading my mind he told me that one of Karen's siblings was in there with her. In the midst of our warm conversation crept the strain of the unknown.

At one point I debated excusing myself and going to the bathroom because of my rising anxiety at the reality of being there when she came out of the doctor's office. What if it wasn't good news? I didn't want to be there to witness it.

But instead of running away from what might be, I stayed.
The longer we waited the more our conversation dwindled and the tension increased.
But he kept asking me questions, turning the conversation my way. Karen did the exact same thing. She might have had to gasp between words but still she would ask how I was. No matter how many times I tried to turn it her way she never forgot she was in relationship right in this moment. She taught me much.

Forty five minutes after I first sat down across from him my eyes became glued to her face as she came down the hallway. She smiled at him immediately. Not the smile of the triumphant. But nevertheless, a smile. I felt myself relax. Good news then. She called out to him to say the results weren't back yet. Arrangements were made for the nurse to phone her when the results came in.

Karen didn't talk about dying very often. But once, a few months before she died she said, "What will my husband do when my parents and I are all dead in x amount of time?"

I wonder if her mom ever got the phone call about the test results.
Not that it matters in the end.
When I opened up the obits today there she was.
A week and a day after I saw her in the doctor's office.

I am sitting here feeling stunned.
That poor, kind man.
Lord, have mercy.

On Hiatus

2010-07-20T20:06:00.005-06:00

This is my 1249th post!
I'll be on blog hiatus for several weeks.
My desk is piled so high with papers I now have to look over them to see the bottom of the computer screen. Hopefully in the next few weeks I will find my desk top.

See you in my 1250th post August 14th!

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Grateful

2010-07-19T12:27:00.005-06:00

"I should be like Jillian and tell you to suck it up."

Dearest one is helping me get through my Ten Minute Workout by keeping track of the stopwatch. Meanwhile I am belly aching about my thighs being on fire and I've only been doing the first pose for day one for 30 seconds.

I've been looking for something I could do on work days that wouldn't take a lot of time and would get my exercise in. My parents are both on diabetic meds and I don't want to follow in their footsteps. If I exercise every day it seems to help my blood sugar levels stay within normal range. The first day I miss they start going up. I only have one kidney and as diabetes is not a kidney friendly disease I am determined to keep one step ahead of it. Exercise is not the whole answer but part of it. Among other things, eating too much of certain fruits seems to affect my blood sugar levels, too. I do like cherry season but it doesn't like me!

I've been trying to figure out a morning schedule that will work for me once I start back to work next month. Getting up at 5 AM used to work fine. Then the time change happened this past spring and I just couldn't seem to get rested enough to get up that early. I'm determined to get up at 5 AM for several weeks before I go back to work and fine tune my schedule. Cutting down my exercise time on work days makes room for writing and centering prayer; two things important to my well being.

This morning I went for a walk and remembered the days when going for a walk, fine tuning a schedule or considering a work out regime were out of the question for me. I was instantly filled with gratitude. Yesterday, as I was painting our bathroom I caught myself with the brush above my head and was grateful I could do it. There was a time when lifting my arms above my head to shampoo my hair was the sum total of my ability to exert energy some days.

I am ever so grateful when I have some perspective.
Today is one of those days.

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Quotable

2010-07-17T21:46:00.005-06:00

Best line I've heard misread at an AA meeting:

"Probably no human power could have revealed our alcoholism."

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It's All Connected

2010-07-16T20:13:00.004-06:00

The rotten floor led to new flooring and new vanity, lights, cupboard and mirror.

We both were relieved when the actual rotten part was considerably smaller than it could have been.

Dearest one and I have lived in rented houses most of our married life.
This is our first ever remodelling project in our very own home.
I feel totally spoiled.

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The Leg Bone's Connected To The.....

2010-07-15T21:46:00.004-06:00

It's been a full week. Only daughter was here looking after our place while we were gone and then stayed a few extra days to visit. I got very teary after saying goodbye to her at the airport. It's been a wonderful week.

There has been so much sunshine these past few weeks that I asked myself today if I was a little bit off kilter for being continually grateful for sunshine. Because I am. I can't seem to get enough of it. On second thought that's a little like being too grateful for life itself. That's impossible. I'll continue to be grateful for the sunshine. No questions asked.

Tomorrow will come a dose of daily reality. Back to dishes and housework and writing. I look forward to the routine.

Dearest one will fix the leaky toilet. We hope it hasn't rotted the floor to kingdom come by now. We discovered the leak just before we left on holidays. We know we need to replace this 40 year old trailer we call home but we hope we still have a few years yet to do so. It may be a toilet that decides our fate. You know that ditty about the leg bone connected to the hip bone and so on? Well the floor beneath the toilet is connected to a whole lot of other floors. And walls.

Last night we welcomed friends over for the evening. We sat around the camp fire and the 6 of us laughed and talked and hashed out life as it is. I am so grateful for friends with whom I can be gut honest with and who will journey with me no matter what. We've been meeting in one another's homes on a weekly basis for 10 years now. I hope to grow old with them.

We always end our evenings together with prayer. I don't like praying out loud among other people. It's just not my thing. I can't seem to get my ego out of the way and so I stay silent. It feels like the most honest thing I can do. I rarely feel like I'm talking to God in those situations. Mostly I feel like I'm trying to impress someone. If I were to talk to God in front of others like I do on my own, well, it just seems too private of a conversation. So I don't. There are other situations and times though, when it seems the exact right thing to do, to pray with someone and so I do. I don't even know why I'm talking about this here. I feel like I'm the only Christian who has an aversion to praying aloud with others.

At an AA meeting once we had someone from the US there and we all got fouled up on the Lord's Prayer at the end of the meeting. Afterwards he informed us that we Canadians didn't have the right rhythm when we prayed it. So of course I'm as curious as anything about that. As it is now there is one guy who is often at my home group and I have to block his voice out when we pray because I lose my place. What a funny thing to do, have private pissing contests as to who is praying the Lord's Prayer right.

Lord have mercy on us all.

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Stinkin' Thinkin'

2010-07-12T09:26:00.006-06:00

It is good to be home.
It took a while to get here.
On the third leg of our journey
the plane turned around 10 minutes into the flight because of mechanical problems.
As I listened to people complain
all I could think of was
that we were alive to bitch about it.
(So quit yer bitchin' people.)

As I sat waiting for our luggage to start
making its way around the carousel I watched
people reunite.
Tears lurked around the corners of my eyes
several times as I saw people so happy
to see each other.
Everybody needs somebody to miss them.

****

Dearest one and I walked miles upon miles
along the sea shore. To see mountains and ocean
in one view was incredible.

One day I left dearest one on the beach
and went back to our hotel room to get ready
to walk to an AA meeting. The cleaning lady
was in the midst of cleaning our room
but I really needed to go pee.

If I had any doubts that I needed a meeting
they disappeared as I went to yank some
toilet paper off the roll and the whole thing
went flying across the room.
My very first thought was that
the cleaning lady was being passive aggressive
and had positioned that roll just so
it would go flying when I yanked on it.

I know. Total insanity.

How grateful I am that there is a place
I can go and tell that story
and people nod in agreement
because their thinking
is just as fucked up some days.

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Tiggerin'

2010-07-05T20:28:00.005-06:00

"It's okay, I'm not passing judgement on you."

I don't know if I'm saying it more for her benefit or mine although I do know I mean it. Saying those words I needed to hear when I was her age but never did. Never heard or saw it in action, either. Still don't. I've accepted that to expect attitudes and actions from people unable to deliver them is crazy making. I don't long for it like I once did. Eventually I learned to give it to myself and there have been a host of people who have modeled it for me until I was able to receive it.

In any case I say it upfront and it feels good to do so. Part of me thinks that if I'd really evolved I wouldn't have to say it at all except only daughter and I both know I have too many years of judgemental attitudes under my belt for that to be the case. She moved away from home while I was still majoring heavily on passing judgement and spouting opinions without much of a valve on my mouth.

Only daughter is here to house/Pug sit for us while we fly away on an airplane this week. She has her own cute little puppy who is in the house training stage. That puppy bounces on her feet like Tigger. What energy.

When I was only daughter's age I had three preschoolers and I put all my energy when I was visiting my mom into gaining approval and avoiding disapproval. The only problem was that I couldn't read my mom's mind but I sure thought I could read both her mind and body language. After all, I had had 25 years of practice already. And it was all about me. She frowned? It was something I did. She showed any hint of exasperation? It was my fault. This went on for the whole time my kids were growing up.

I was 38 when I stopped looking to my Mom for the lowdown on how I was doing as a parent. It only came after a nervous breakdown and a pain filled year where I cried an awful lot. I would never sign up to go through that kind of pain again. I would never trade the growth either.

I can't speak for my daughter although I doubt that hers has been any less painful of a journey to individuation. I do see her as miles ahead of where I was at her age. I don't hold myself in judgement over that either. It is what it is.

I am grateful for the open communication we can have about this stuff though. It's not all serious either.(Rule 62) When I asked her to come read this before I posted it I told her that I had written and deleted a sentence about how having a puppy is like having kids. Don't gasp, it is. She then said at least with a puppy she didn't have to feel bad about putting it in its pen and walking away when she'd had enough and how it wasn't going to end up in puppy therapy years down the road because of it.

Thank God puppies don't pass judgement on us either.(Adds only daughter.)

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Trippin'

2010-07-04T11:01:00.008-06:00

In a few sleeps dearest one and I will hop on a plane and go for a bit of a holiday.I'm grateful our idea of holidays mesh.A remote cabin on a beach being ideal. Going where we know no on is a must.

Last night we sat around a campfire
with many of dearest one's siblings.
The women gathered in a circle together,
the men in another.

When the women found out where we were going they had all kinds of advice as to where we should go and what we should see. I sat there and wondered if dearest one would be interested. I didn't tell them that touristy things don't appeal to me much. I would make a scowly tourist on one of those bus tours. I just want to be left to meander on my own.

This morning when I listed off all the "must sees" of the group to dearest one he looked a little horrified. He then told me all he wanted was to relax and have fun. He didn't want to trade one kind of busy for another.
I was relieved.

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Perfect Timing

2010-07-02T21:17:00.005-06:00

Someone from my AA home group is in San Antonio. It was very hard not to ask her to walk around with a placard, shouting out for Mary Christine and Pammie and a score of other bloggers. But you never know, maybe their paths will cross anyway.

A few weeks ago I went to a work related event full of hundreds of fellow employees. Most of my work communication is done by email or phone and I never meet these people face to face. I always like putting a face and name together. Dearest one was scrolling through my work site and recognized a name. Sure enough, when I contacted the person the next time, someone I email regularly, I asked if so and so was her dad. What followed was a flurry of emails about her dad, who passed away 20 years ago and memories of dearest one and I spending a lot of time with her very young sisters when we were newlyweds.

So the morning of the big work related to do I told God, "It's up to you if she and I are going to meet. I won't be able to find her in the crowd." I signed into the meeting and slapped my name tag onto my shirt. My vision is getting worse and I'm sure at my next checkup I'm going to go from wearing reading glasses to bifocals. I resisted the urge to squint at every name tag on every woman I thought might be her. Eventually I forgot about my email contact altogether.

Her eyesight is better than mine. Part way through the day I mosied along a hallway looking for a certain conference room. She was standing right outside it and recognized me from my name tag just as I was going to walk past her. Although she wasn't wearing her name tag I knew it was her instantly. As we hugged and talked I thanked God for doing His thing.

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Feeling Angry And Sad

2010-07-01T08:27:00.007-06:00

There are two Pugs who will howl unabashedly when dearest one comes home tonight. One little Pug has had to be carried to bed lest he look out the window all night in hopes of dearest one coming home.

Yesterday morning I watched a doe and her two bambis, complete with spots, walk tentatively across the lawn. Later in the day a bird stopped atop a fence post and serenaded me. That was a nice antidote to the dead mouse I had to deal with earlier in the day.

Today housework and writing will fill my waking hours. Every morning I wake up thinking about the family member who committed suicide last week and how he is missing out on this brand new day. I feel angry and sad both. It's been 30+ years since I've had a suicidal feeling. I've done a lot of reading online the past week about suicide and this post has helped.

I think any time there is a death it brings to the surface all the unhealed grief within me. In all selfishness I hope I don't have to buy any more sympathy cards for a while.

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Dealin'

2010-06-29T11:42:00.006-06:00

When my kids were little I worked hard not show fear of any spiders, bugs and all things creepy crawly, including hamsters. That came about because of a memory of a neighbour when I was a kid, who had to come to our house until her husband got home, because Barn Swallows had built a nest above her front door and she was terrified of them when they came swooping down at her. She had three kids who took in her every fear.

So when I had my own kids, I took a deep breath and pretended that that Daddy Long Legs crawling on my hand was my new best friend. Lord knows I was screaming my head off inside myself. Did you ever hear that urban legend as a kid about the woman who never brushed her hair and a spider laid eggs in it and all those baby spiders came crawling out of her head? That story didn't help me get any less fearful. Are you scratching your hair right now? I am. But honestly? The little pitter patter of hamsters feet across my skin made me want to crawl out of my skin. I'm getting freaked out just thinking about it.

One day, when my kids were all teenagers and had proven fearless when it came to every living thing (well, except maybe for their mother) I told my daughter that no, actually I had no desire to hold her hamster and that I actually didn't like them. This after having cages of hamsters that I took great interest in. I think she still feels like I was a traitor, lier, what have you. (Do you daughter?)

Between last night and this morning we have caught 5 mice in traps on the counter. Sometimes they are still alive. Makes me shiver just thinking about it. Dearest one went on a road trip this morning to a family member's funeral so either I wait until he gets back to deal with the traps/mice or I will have to deal with them myself. I bet any one of my kids could do it without getting freaked out at all. Is this one of those things they'll thank me for later?

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A Worthwhile 10 Minutes

2010-06-27T20:26:00.004-06:00

I found this video link through clicking links on another blog. My thoughts today have been on those who have died recently and those who are fighting to live. I love the mother's countenance especially.

Sleep Tight

2010-06-26T21:06:00.006-06:00

It's been a long day.
I write that as a starting sentence to most of my posts
and then I delete it because I think it sounds whiny.
Tonight I don't care because I am bushed.

Last night I made myself up a list of things
to accomplish today.
Every third item was "write."
I had grand plans to get many words written today
on the second draft of my novel.
Tomorrow is the deadline for another 2500 word rewrite.

But you know, I couldn't get rid of the nagging thought
that I needed to phone my sponsor and offer to help
her with her garden today.
She has been away in city far away as her husband
gets radiation treatments for his inoperable cancer.
She stopped in last night on her way home
and it was so good to connect again.

So there I was weeding in her garden when I said to God,
"My back and dearest one's knee are going to hurt like hell
tonight because of this. Could you like, you know, make the pain go away because we're doing a good deed here."

And into my head came the thought that um, sacrifice isn't really sacrifice
if it doesn't cost you something.

Oh, right. And I chuckled to myself.
Tonight I feel a good weariness.
The kind that comes when you've done
fulfilling physical work.

I sat at the computer tonight without the foggiest idea what the next sentence in my book was going to be. I just about decided not to write at all because I was too tired to think straight. I had no idea how I was going to solve a dilemna in the story when I closed my eyes and put myself into the scene. And what should happen but one of the characters said something to another character and the dilemna was solved. I know that sounds weird. It sounds weird to me, too.

Close To His Heart

2010-06-24T21:58:00.008-06:00

It's been a long day.
I made a three hour round trip
to see my spiritual director.
From the first time I saw him
nearly 5 years ago, he has talked
about putting together the
pieces of my puzzle, my story.

Today another piece slipped into place.
It caught me totally offguard.
Snot nosed tears gushed.
I've worked hard to keep my tears to myself
most of my life although these past 3 years
I have become more willing to honour them.

Sometimes tears catch me unaware with
the force of vomit.
Today was one of those days.

Then this evening came the news
of a suicide of one
of dearest one's relatives.
Caught us offguard.
The fourth suicide affecting
us or people we know in
the past few weeks.
This week is the anniversary
of this friend's suicide.

I am so grateful that even in this there is no need to drink.
The only way I've been able to come to terms with the suicides over the years that have affected me directly, from my granny's at age 90, to my friend Ron, to this latest suicide, is that there is no understanding the why of it. It just is.

As I was in my spiritual director's office today I happened to glance at a paper on the floor beside my chair whose title stated something to the effect that God holds the souls of those who commit suicide close to his heart.

Amen.

Twelve years already.

Hello World

2010-06-22T20:00:00.005-06:00

I've been listening to this song on the way to work every day these past few weeks. I get like that sometimes. A song gets stuck in my head and it's on repeat for a very long time. I can hear my family groan at the familiarity of that habit of mine. This morning I had a moment when I was overcome with awe at creation and how we are both created by the Creator. I had to swallow back the tears as I was pulling into my parking spot at work.

I'm on the home stretch as far as work goes. Another day in the office and then I'm done for the summer. I am ready for a break. I've been reflecting on my attitudes/actions at work this week as I drive. So much room for improvement. I sure can have an attitude in a heart beat. I'm trying to remember that a bad attitude does not make me a bad person. I am grateful for the grace to look inward and upward.

Crazy Shit

2010-06-20T11:04:00.012-06:00

I was driving to town yesterday feeling incredible gratitude for this beautiful summer convinced I've never appreciated it like I do this year. The thought flitted through my head that such gratitude and awareness must mean this will be my last summer. That's how my brain works.

I know.
Crazy shit.

This morning as I was watering my flowers (aren't they pretty?) I was thinking about that again and realized it was just a different take on that belief which drives me crazy ~ that life is so good, too good, so it must surely come crashing down soon. Whenever I hear other people talk like that I run around in circles in my head screeching NO at the top of my lungs. It's shitty theology to believe that God will surely heap misery on their heads because they're enjoying life as it is. It was a good come uppance to realize I still think like that, too. It had just shape shifted a bit so I couldn't recognize it as easily.

So I'm going to enjoy my flowers and the summer and leave it at that. There are people close to me fighting for their lives this summer that I am hyper aware of the gift of life and shitty theology. I am so grateful that AA teaches God is a loving God.

I chaired a business meeting yesterday and watched as it triggered my need-to-keep-everyone-happy button. I didn't realize it was still so present and willing to take front and center stage. Someone seemed offended at a group decision and shut down instantly. So instantly that they never said another word all meeting nor in the meeting after that. When they left as soon as we were done saying the Lord's prayer I had to stifle the urge to run after them and try to make it okay. I wanted to take responsibility for their shutting down. The anxiety I felt at not making it all better escalated somewhat and I had to really work at letting go of it and keeping to my side of the street. Chairing business meetings is not my favourite thing to do. I realized yesterday that I consider I've done a good job only if there is no conflict.

I know.
Crazy Shit.

It is a gift that we keep getting opportunities to recognize crazy shit. And hopefully the pile of it gets smaller every time the same shit appears on my radar screen. Once I told Fr. Charlie that it seemed like I kept dealing with the same shit different pile and he told me that I was further along on the journey and seeing it from a different perspective now. At that time I thought the goal was to eliminate crazy shit altogether.

I sat here this morning and enjoyed my breakfast while listening to a chorus of song birds greet the day. When I went to sleep last night after midnight there were still remnants of the setting sun filtering through the trees. Now that is not crazy shit. To me it's a piece of heaven.

Flippin'

2010-06-17T09:47:00.008-06:00

"Is having a drink going to change anything or will it all still be the same tomorrow when I wake up?"
That was the question I asked myself in a dream last night.

I can't remember the last time I had a drinking dream but in this one I had 20 containers that looked like miniature oil lamp vials you see in restaurant center pieces. They were filled with vodka which I have no idea how it tastes. Once my sister and I found my mom's vodka stash under her bathroom sink and poured most of it down the drain and filled the bottle back up with water. I bet that pissed her off the next time she took a drink. It may be why vodka held no interest for me.

There was no one in my dream who cared I was going to blow my sobriety except me.
And once that question at the top of this post went through my head I put the vodka down without taking a sip, and shoved the tray away that held all the rest, too.

Dreams are so weird.

*********

It is beautiful and sunny here today.
I am looking forward to mowing grass and doing some writing.
My instructor says my novel has great potential to be saleable.
I am loving and hating writing it
as it has taken on a life of its own
that I feel I have no control over.
It's totally pointless to tell a character
"Hey, get back over here right now and do as I say!"
My main character may be living in 1912
but she still knows how to flip me the bird.

***********

By the end of the summer all my adult children will most likely
be living in towns far away. I feel sad about that although I
am happy they are making their own lives and are functioning
as fully independent adults. I never realized that was the goal
while I was raising them. Not kidding. It didn't occur to me.

I am grateful that I have learned that life after kids means
living my own life to the fullest.
I didn't manage to learn that until after they were grown.
Bafore that I was too busy telling them
to get back over here right now and do as I say.

There was a point when it would have served us both well
if they would have flipped me the bird.
It took me until I was 38 years old
to individuate from my mother.
I am grateful they have started that journey
far sooner than I did.

The Little Things

2010-06-14T21:15:00.005-06:00

Some days I think there is just too much sadness in this world.
I feel like bad news is piling up,
bad news of all kinds of people's lives.
Unexpected illnesses and deaths especially.
I feel like ripping off the grip of death
and it makes me feel so powerless to not
be able to do a thing to change the outcome.

That kind of thing puts life into perspective for me instantly.
Like a jolt of caffeine it makes me wake up and take notice of the little things.

There is one flower in bloom on my Evening Scented Stocks. I pick up the container every time I walk by it and inhale as deeply as I can. It smells heavenly. In short order there will be dozens of blooms as you come up my walkway. Smelling its perfume is like having your senses serenaded. That one little bloom makes me feel like all is right in the world even when it isn't.

At The Crack Of Dawn

2010-06-14T05:36:00.005-06:00

It looks like morning at 4 AM here now.
We've had two yearling deer meandering around the yard in the early morning.
They step tentatively, ready to flee at any moment.
It must take a lot of energy to live in such a state.

I am not at all ready for work this morning.
We're into the home stretch before summer holidays start.
It's difficult to get motivated
when you're counting the days to an 8 week break.
I know, oh poor me.
Suck it up already.
What a gift to get such a long time off.
Even without a paycheck.
I know that.

I've been plugging along at my novel,
rewriting it in First Person.
Every time I submit an assignment I receive
increasing hope that I really can do this.
I've let go of having a manuscript ready for
the end of August to send to a publishing house
that still takes complete manuscripts.
I have hopes that mine won't end up in the slush pile.
I have a 35 year old bet with my younger brother
to have a book published by the time I hit the
big 5-0. I have two years to see my name on the cover of a book.
I have mulled over big time how I will feel
if I lose the bet.
Dearest one tells me it will be an exercise
in wishing I had started earlier.
Yep.

I have spent much of my life stepping tentatively
just like those yearling deer do in my yard every morning.
Somewhere along the way I lost my need to do that
and I am grateful.

Opportunities

2010-06-12T06:25:00.006-06:00

Summer seems like such a miracle.
I can't remember being so thankful
for sunshine and warm weather.
Chances are I was last year
but it seems impossible.

I wrote the above this morning
and then got on with my day.
Today was my birthday.
It didn't feel like it
which is weird
but it didn't.

I went to my home group meeting this morning.
I very clearly heard, or at least think I did,
from my HP this past week,
"You need to listen more (in meetings)."
For all I know I imagined I heard that
but it did come out of the blue when I was talking to God
about me in meetings and some troubling things
about myself that I see in relation to all that.
So I didn't call attention to the fact that it was my birthday
although someone in my home group gave me a birthday card
which was nice.

I spent the afternoon at a graduation.
As the sole support staff for this little school
I sat with all the teachers.
When I saw they were going to give out thank you gifts
I was confronted once again with my feelings of insecurity
around stuff like this. That I will be forgotten. It's an
insecurity that has its roots in my toddlerhood,
an incident that obviously still affects me.
One Christmas at my grandparents.
My older brother and my cousin are
running around the livingroom with new cowboy hats
and shiny new toy guns complete with holsters.
I tug on my brother's pant leg and ask where my gift is.
He stops firing off his gun long enough to tell me
I'm too small to get a gift.
I feel invisible.

This afternoon I worked through in a few minutes,
how I would feel if the students
had only bought gifts for the teachers.
I decided I wouldn't take it personally.
I asked myself if I would be okay and the answer was yes.
And before the teachers went up to receive their gifts
I reframed the whole situation as a gift from my HP
to work through this issue again.
I'm grateful I didn't freeze with panic.
That I was able to separate out today
from that day long ago despite the old feelings surfacing.

I wanted to tell one of my coworkers
that today was my birthday
but I recognized that this day,
the reason we were all gathered,
was for the graduates.
That if I mentioned it
she would get the whole crowd
to sing happy birthday to me
and I knew instinctively
that I needed to let this day
have its proper focus.

That was hard to do.
But, by the grace of God, I did it.

Those two things, the gift issue and the birthday one
might seem like little things
to some people.
But to me,
it's huge growth for me to sort and filter
and not let my ego run the show.
I know I'm not alone in this.
That most likely all of you struggle with ego, too.

I stopped at my sponsor's house on the way home.
Her partner is seriously ill with inoperable cancer
so I hadn't said anything to her about my birthday.
When she noticed my new silver crucifix necklace
I did tell her it was a birthday gift.
Stopping by to see her was my gift to myself today.
I usually do that every year. Do something for myself
that is a gift. We spent an hour together in a comforting
conversation. There is part of me that doesn't
want to walk with her through this time of her life.
It's too hard.
I also recognize it for the sacredness that it holds.

As we walked to my car she took my hand and
we walked hand in hand for a while.
I felt like a little girl
holding hands with one of my best friends.
It was very precious to me.
I know of no other woman I could be okay
to do that with.
Sometimes those little gestures
say so much.

I Could Be Wrong

2010-06-09T22:21:00.006-06:00

"I'm sorry."
She said it three times within a few minutes as I asked for papers that not two minutes before I'd given back to her and said I was finished with. It was me who needed to apologize. Three separate pages, three separate "I'm sorry's".

The paperwork got sorted out and she went on her way. I sat there and thought about our reputation as Canadians to apologize for things that aren't ours to own. If I accidentally bump into someone in a store they are most likely to apologize and I've found myself doing the same thing many times. Apologizing for being in the way of someone who isn't watching where they are going is ridiculous.

While other people might need to learn to stop apologizing and realize when they are right, I have most needed to learn how to say, "I could be wrong." At first it was really hard to get those words out of my mouth as I had prized myself on being right about most everything. Even when I was wrong I was still right in my mind. Dearest one and I would be talking about the most mundane things and I had to learn that my opinion was not necessarily fact.

It took a while for me to believe I could be wrong. Every so often now when it rolls off my tongue (not that it only rolls off my tongue every so often, more like daily) but, once in a while when I hear myself using that phrase, I am amazed that I came to own it and believe it; that I came to be at peace about being wrong. And there are times when I don't want to say it, don't believe it possible. Of course there are. But that it's not my default setting is nothing short of miraculous. Really.

These are the kind of changes that make me teary. The kind of changes that are impossible to make on my own strength. I didn't learn this in church. During most of the last 20 years of being in faith communities I learned to stand firm in my rightness. No, I learned to accept that I could be wrong, am often wrong, through the fellowship of AA. Through working the 12 steps. Through watching people who I admire in the fellowship conduct themselves with a humility that is impossible to possess if they are expending all their energy in being right. I wanted what they had. I still do.

Carrying The Message

2010-06-07T19:33:00.005-06:00

"Your phone system is a piece of shit."

I'm standing in the grocery store
returning a phone call to a stranger.
I listen as she tells me how no one answered
their phone when she'd called for help the other night.
She spits out words in rapid stacatto
like high heels echoing on a wooden floor.

I take a few deep breaths.
I'm not good at reading between the lines but I try.
I hear fear and anger and more fear as she talks.
I know I'm not really the target of her feelings
and while I won't take shit from her
I also won't take her anger personally.
This might be the first time she has ever reached out for help.
I hope it's not the last.

I offer to pick her up and take her to her first meeting tonight.
She says no thanks.
We chat some more and as she goes to say goodbye
I tell her to call again if need be.

I feel inadequate even though I know I have no control over her decisions. That it's truly not about me at all. This is the fourth phone call from a stranger in a short period of time. I'm new at doing this. I still find it unnerving. It always reminds me that I'm not God.

As I put the phone back in my purse and pick up my
grocery basket, I remember what a good friend of mine says,
"You carry the message, not the person."
Even though I know it is insanity to think it, sometimes I wish one could do both.
Just a little ways.