A Toddler, sibling rivalry and my ear

Usually I am a pretty affectionate, physical person with the people that I care about.  I am careful about who I hug as I know that some people are not as physical and that is ok.  The last little while, I have been feeling clausttophobic.  Miss Pumpkin has been marking her territory (namely my lap and ear) in order to teach her younger sister Miss Heddy the natural pecking order of our house.  This is fine, except that Miss Heddy HAS to be in my arms/lap as I am breastfeeding and she, like the rest of her family, likes food.  The result – one baby on the nipple and a toddler on my ear.  I can’t tell the one on the nipple to scram which means the toddler has been hearing it.  This of course, has meant that Miss Pumpkin is even more insistent that she needs to be in my lap AND holding my ear AND of course dancing, singing or whatever activity in which she is presently engaged.  In fact, Miss Pumpkin has been asking for my ear A LOT and at the oddest of times; putting her in her carseat for example.  I am sure that you can understand why my ear would be unavailable to her while I drove – she,however, did not.

The ear pulling has been Miss Pumpkin’s thing since she could grab on to it.  As far as I can understand, the ear pulling provides her comfort and stability.  It as though she needs a physical connection to a person who loves her.  This is fine and usually I am ok with it, except that I have been feeling the need for more physical space.  This, combined with my being dsistracted with the unexpected death of Ryan’s grandma,a trip to Thunder Bay and before that simply adjusting to life with two children under 3, meant that I didn’t pick up her signals.  I think Miss Pumpking is feeling overwhelmed and when she has reached out to the person who is supposed to be her stable place, me, she has been getting told “not now, no, later, stop…”  Hmmm, I wonder why her behaviour has been so out of control lately.  This morning she actually hit me.  That was enough to make me stop and reflect.

Now, I did not cause her to hit me, she chose to hit me but I did teach her being physical with someone is an ok way to get them to do what you want.  You see, along with the pushing her away, there have been a number of times that I have grabbed on to her and tried to force her to look at me, or get off the floor etc…  Each time, I have felt uncomfortable but instead of stopping and checking in with myself I have continued.  It never ends well, in fact it never has really ended.  We have just moved from one crisis to the next (exacerbated by a lack of sleep for all of us).  My frustration with the last interaction, simmers inside,  ready to burble up at the slightest provocation; while my mantra has become “bad mum, bad mum.”  I haven’t been very loving or forgiving with myself, even though I know I can’t be truly gentle or loving with others if I am not being gentle with me.  Meanwhile, Miss Pumpkin has become frustrated as I haven’t been listening to her.  She has been reaching out for comfort and too often has been rebuffed.  (She has also been asking to watch TV more.  Is there a connection?)

This family has been on a roller coaster ride for 8 months.  We spent every day for almost a month with dad in the hospital/hospice, been at 2 graveside ceremonies, I went on bed rest, added Miss Heddy to our family, hosted grandma and grandda’, Ryan went back to work after being off for summer, flew to Thunder Bay and stayed at grandma and grandda’s not child friendly house and met a bunch of new people. I have been feeling overwhelmed and off centred, no wonder the 2 year old might be feeling the need for stability.

I can’t change life but I can change how I deal with it and therefore how my family deals with it.  I have been impatient with myself that I am not more patient, in the moment and loving and the result is that I haven’t been the parent/person I want to be.

So here I am.  Ready to listen to what I am feeling, ready to hear what my family is saying and doing so with mindfulness and love.

Still here, just quiet.

It is hard to believe that it has been 5 months since I have actually posted.  I have spent a lot of time on the internet, reading, searching, questioning and at times writing blog entries that are never completed or are deleted upon completion.  It is not as though I haven’t been busy.  I have a 3 month old who fills my arms most of the time and a 2 1/2 year old who fills them the other times and with full arms I have been busy with living and everything that that has meant.  I have been grieving – letting myself live within it, allowing myself to do what I need to do in order to become whole.  I have been creating – knitting scarves and blankets and sweaters; sewing dolls and quilts and clothes; cooking, baking and canning.  I have been learning – new ways of thinking about myself, the world and my place within it.  I have been searching – looking to find my way on what has become a spiritual journey of motherhood. This has all meant much messiness with tears and laughter.

One lesson I have relearned is to trust in myself that if I am open to the world and myself I will be given what I need.

I felt guilty about going to Galiano in June, I was being self-indulgent and could grieve and do what I needed to do just as well at home.  All of May and June until I left, I fought with myself to go or not to go.  I would cry, my body would tense qnd I couldn’t sleep when I had decided to not go away.  As soon as I changed my mind, my back would straighten, my lungs would open and I felt easy in the world.  I knew that I had to be near the ocean and trees.  I knew I had to be alone.  I thought I needed to grieve for my dad.  I went and it was wonderful.  Yet, I came back not dissatisfied per se but as though I had missed something.  At the time, I thought it was the fact that I hadn’t cried, that I hadn’t done the grief work I was supposed to have done.

Talking about it with Donna last week, I mentioned my dissatisfaction.  She asked me what did happen that weekend.  I told her about the books that I had found.  One called  Mother-Mysteries that was about the author’s spiritual journey with motherhood and Balance Point another book about a spiritual journey this time one with the environment as the focal point.  It was also here that I began to feel the pain and cramping that would result in my being put on bed rest for the remainder of my pregnancy.  As I walked and read and sat my hand would rest on my belly, connecting to the little one who lay inside.  Donna laughed as I relayed my story.  “Maybe”, she said, “you didn’t need to grieve, maybe you needed to reconnect with the baby you were carrying inside.  Maybe, that was why the world offered you the books and your body sent you the pain.”

With those two sentences and observations it all began to make sense.  The world has been sending me what I have needed to guide my mind on this new phase of my life and while I have been dutifully taking it in, I haven’t been engaging with it.  My body keeps telling me that it needs to be centered and to be reconnected with my mind and heart, thus the compelling need throughout my pregnancy (even before dad died) and after to practice yoga again. I was on a new chapter before dad’s death.  My grief has become part of the story but it is only one strand.

based withinit

Labouring with grief

I feel as though I have fallen inward in my search for understanding and acceptance.  I am present, because I force myself to be, to not let the moment fade away or disapear but my desire is to fade away myself.  There are no books that I have found that tell me how to negotiate the waves of grief while wiping a snotty nose and finding amusements for two year olds.  My moments of grief are stolen, hidden not because I am ashamed but simply because I do not have the luxury of time or place.  Knowing that soon I will be giving birth again, existing in that place where life and death are not separate, instills an urgency in my need to accept and move through my grief.  Yet, just like the work of labour, the work of grief has its own rhythm and its own path and forcing it to move to another’s sense of timing will do nothing but ensure more pain that serves no purpose.

The birth of my daughter, was also my rebirth.  It was my transformation.  Outwardly, there was no sign or symptom of this change but I had shifted sideways, and my body became heavier and my soul lighter.  I could see and hear more clearly and my heart became more open.  I still fall back to my old ways, where I forget what really matters and become caught up in my own ego.

I am afraid that my upcoming birthing journey is going to be overshadowed and intertwined with my journey of grief.  I am afraid of being in that space where life and death are one and the same while learning how to accept the death of my father.  I am frightened that I will not have the strength or the capacity to go through two transformations at the same time.  I am afraid that my child will be born swaddled in my grief.  I am afraid that my sorrow will taint their birth gift and become a shadow that follows them on their own journey.  I am afraid that I will try to control my labour rather than letting myself fall into it.

So I search.  I search for words of wisdom that help me understand.  I search for the quiet places within and outside of myself where I can just be.  I search for the sounds that bring peace and comfort.  I search for trust and I search for hope.

When it is quiet.

I have been avoiding this, afraid maybe of what will happen when I actually stop to write.  Unsure of whether or not I am strong enough to let my mind and heart be open to one another.  These past 6 weeks have been so surreal.  I wake up each night with a start, there is no gentleness, no quiet wonder just a single jolt and my eyes are open and I am aware.  It is as though my consciousness refuses to let me have a reprieve from the knowing.

I cry when I am alone, when it is quiet.  There are no sobs, no wails – just tears that find their way down my face.  Sometimes, it is just one or two, sometimes I can not tell where one stops and the next begins.  Even so there is no pain, just emptiness and a deep bone sadness.  I have two faces, two bodies.  There is the practical, dependable daughter, sister, mother, friend, wife who walks ahead to make sure all is well and then there is me, who wants nothing more than to fold into herself, to find a quiet place far away from everybody.  A place where I can breathe in the wind, feel the rustle of the leaves on my skin, sink into the earth and listen to the world’s song.  A place where I can nurture the child that is rocked in my belly; a concrete reminder that our lives and deaths are part of a bigger dance.

I know that he is still here, that he watches over us and always will.  That eases my soul, but I am no enlightened being, my physical self wants to see his smile, hear his voice, watch him with his granddaughter, feel his arms around me and know that when I walk up the stairs, he’ll be there.  I want what is tangible, to feel his side and I have no shame in my desire.

Something in me has shifted.  I think that I have finally lost the last of my innocence and I mourn for her but I feel as though she has been replaced by something as equally wondrous.  It is as though this journey opened a part of me that has been dormant, waiting for me to be ready to accept it.  Maybe it is because I decided that I would see the beauty in dad’s illness and death – that I wouldn’t let it twist me.  I chose and choose to find the blessings, to let myself be completely in the moment regardless of how difficult, to listen to myself and to others, to reach out and to not stop laughing.

I miss him so much.

21 days

21 days ago, I came home and cried.  The man that was sitting in the chair beside me at dinner was not the man that I knew as my father.  21 days ago, I knew that my dad was dying.  I hoped that what I had recognised in my father was his mortality and merely the markers of the journey we all begin upon our birth. What I feared was that the tendrils of mortality had already encroached and begun to tighten – choking his vitality.

21 days have passed and now I sit, watching his body deteriorate around him, waiting for the day it will completely loosen its hold on his spirit..  Each morning when I wake, I have a reprieve, the blissfulness of forgetfulness and then I remember, and a moan escapes my lips while the tears come. It is hard not to begin to grieve, to mourn even though his body still exists.  And yet, as painful and heart-breaking as this is, I am grateful.  I am grateful that even though this has happened so suddenly it has happened in this way.  There has been no long drawn out process of dying, no painful interventions, no tainting of special occasions.  Instead we got to live. We got to be together as a family.  We got to laugh freely.  And when he was diagnosed two weeks ago, he was still lucid and had the time to say and do what he needed.  We spent one last weekend together at home, where we laughed and loved and hoped.  When the hope was taken, we still had the laughter and the love.

My father’s dying has been a celebration of life and of love and though my heart is breaking and a moan escapes my lips – as I write this I am smiling through the tears.

Greatest Fear

There has always been a part of me that has looked over my shoulder fearful that my family and I have been too blessed.  I would hear about babies and children who had died or were sick but they were always that one step removed – my extended family was still untouched.  But in the quiet time of 4 in the morning, when my mind was vulnerable, my subconscious would slide under the door to whisper the statistics.  The time before dawn became filled with mathematical equations and probability problems as I counted up the tragedies and hoped that they were enough to shield my family.  Horrible isn’t it, that while my heart is breaking to hear of someone else’s pain there is always a part thankful that it happened to them and not me.  Dawn always came; the day shutting the door on my fears, pushing them aside to make room for living.  A piece always stayed behind though, ready to open the door when it saw its chance.

At some point in my bleary sleep deprived mind I must have made a wrong calculation and lost.   A brief phone call and suddenly my greatest desire is to go to my daughter, hold her close and never let her go.  Thankful that the visit to the doctor resulted in nothing more than a round of antibiotics and a sleepless night. Unlike another little one, who has just finished having a blood transfusion instead of birthday cake and is lying in a hospital bed  while her newly married parents and grandparents are told that she has leukemia and will need to live in a strange city for at least 6 months if not longer.

So while you hold your little (or big ones) tight, pray for a little girl who has a long battle ahead of her.  Pray for her parents who will be living far from their family and pray for all of us who hold them close to their hearts.

Monday’s Small Blessings

• 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep.
• Sipping coffee with your husband while the sun shines.
• Listening to Coltrane’s A Love Supreme .
• Feeling a little sharp bump in a tiny mouth.
• Running into an old acquaintance that you are happy to see.
• Finding a tiny blossom on a pepper plant.
• Remembering to remember the everyday things that make life beautiful.

At some point I folded in on myself. To say that my life has become narrowed and myopic is too simple. I am neither disengaged with life nor dissatisfied with it. It is as though most of me is engaged in solving a problem and has left me running on the back-up emergency system. This has meant that I am able to focus on one task or contained engagement but anything that requires me to be truly present has resulted in me shutting down. I have caught myself a number of times being in a middle of a conversation or event and physically turning away. I am not necessarily uncomfortable in these situations, I enjoy observing and listening I am just unable to participate. In my head I have something to say but then when I open my mouth, the words have become bungled and I grasp for something to fill the space. This has meant that when I have attempted to join in I become the ‘that weird person that disrupts the flow of the conversation with their incongruous statements.’ It makes me wonder if there is much point in trying to engage or if it would be better to read a book or make muffins.

Oddly, I am still able to be sharp when attending to matters like meetings at work and solving various issues that have begun to come up in the planning for next year. However, that part of me is easy to access. She is the fall back personae, the doer, and the one that is running the show at the moment anyways. However, she is also the person who refuses to read anything that may be thought-provoking which has meant that I have to go further than the local library as I have read their collection of Terry Pratchett.

Occasionally I look for the rest of me, the parts that make life more than planning for dinner. When I find them they tell me “not now we’re busy” and then shut the door. I hope they are done soon because I would like to go out and play.

Objects In The Mirror May Appear Larger Than They Are

Anyone who has come out of an eating disorder is aware than the mind can play tricks. You may only weigh 90 pounds but when you look in the mirror your eyes are able to double or triple that until you take up the whole mirror. This playing with perception has never really left me though the days of dieting (or not eating) have long gone. Usually I am aware of my brain’s love of playing games and have a variety of tricks that I use to offset any craziness. Then pregnancy happened and that meant all of my little tricks became useless. Mostly because I was larger – 55 pounds larger and my body was no longer mine.

When I came out of the pregnancy in a fit of momentary madness I decided to clean my closet of all of my pre-pregnancy clothes as my hormone laden mind believed that there was no way that my body was ever going to fit those clothes again. So I packed everything up, pointedly ignoring Ryan’s gentle remonstrations to ‘maybe just put them away in the storage locker,’ and dropped the garbage bag off at the Salvation Army. I wore my maternity clothes, purchased some clothing on sale and continued on with my life. That was until the day my pants fell down as I was walking. Fortunately for everyone involved, Imogen and Sabine were the only witnesses and I managed to find a belt to hold the pants up. Cleaning out my closet I found a couple of pants that had escaped the purge and fortunately I had never had the heart to give up my skirts so I had something to wear that didn’t fall off. I was comfortable with the status quo until this week. Tomorrow I am going to a friend’s art opening and realised that I own nothing that is appropriate that fits.  Ryan put Imogen to bed and I went to the mall.

I actually argued with the salesperson who was helping me as she handed me a dress and I said that I needed to have a larger size and then grabbed one that was 3 sizes larger. She grabbed it back from me and gave me another dress one size larger. We continued this pattern as she helped me find a dress to wear. I took the dresses and went and tried them on. In the first one I felt NAKED. It wasn’t low cut, it had sleeves and hit just above the knee but I felt naked and realised that at some point I had disconnected from my body. What it did do was skim my body – a body that I no longer recognised as my own. The dress was SEXY and I am not sexy. I wound up getting another dress because I just couldn’t bring myself to commit to the SEXY dress. I left and went and bought some pants, tops and another skirt that fits me. By me, I mean the one that is actually in front of the mirror and not the one that I have been seeing in the mirror.

It was more of a sour grapes than an emerald green.

On Saturday we decided to have a family day and go to the Green Living Show. We were hoping to see something that we would be able to incorporate into the house. I was really hoping that there would be something on worm composting as I was hoping to start one this summer (assuming that the Strata lets me, I do know that there are rats, raccoons, coyotes and other wildlife living around us.) I was also hoping that there might be some booths devoted to food, cleaning and well things to do with living. What we got was rather disappointing. There was really not much of anything. We wandered around and looked at stuff, ate overpriced food and left with a sense of blah.

Talking about it afterwards we both realised that we were frustrated by the lack of anything new and the dismal showing of local businesses. WalMart, Chevrolet and Home Depot were there (I know the first people I think of when I am thinking of green businesses, though to be fair WalMart actually does have some very green practices as they actually result in cost savings.) but there was no representation from the local farmer’s markets, organic food chains (including SPUDS) or really any new ideas for living green. Having been researching environmentally friendly paints and other green building supplies it amazed me that there was nothing on green renovations.

The question is was this lack of representation and innovative ideas because of the marketers of the show or was it the lack of interest on the part of potential vendors? Sometimes I wish I had gone into marketing rather than teaching as it kills me to see good ideas and concepts under-utilised and is the kind of projects that I love to do. Thinking about it makes me get angry about New Westminster Quay all over again. There is a place that could do with an overhaul and is such a sad place and yet there is so much potential if the off-shore owners, community and city council actually decided to do something about it. Of course we are talking about the New West city council that was worried about having the farmer’s market at City Hall because of the garbage but have absolutely no problems in handing land to condo developers with no real benefit to the denizens of the city. (How about a new park, funding for the Mundy Park Pool …).

I have also been thinking about the concerns about the cost of food that has been in the news lately. I don’t know why anyone is particularly surprised about the increase in cost. Considering the cost of oil has gone up (which is used to make fertilisers, pesticides and run the machinery and transport the goods) and that more crops are being used as bio fuel. Why we thought using bio fuel would be better is beyond me. The crops used for bio fuel are still being grown with a dependency on oil which means that we are still reliant on the very thing that the bio fuel is supposed to be replacing. What I am hoping is that the increase cost in oil and the resulting increase in costs for farmers (and the corporations) will actually mean that more farmers may start looking at changing their farming practices. Especially if the difference in price between organically or biodynamically grown food and ‘regularily’ grown food is diminished.

I also find it mildly amusing that our incredibly forward-thinking government is promoting eating local foods and at the same time remove land from the agriculture land reserve and closed down farm run slaughter houses.