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

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.

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.

No Cry My Ass

It is now past noon and I have been “putting my child to sleep” for two and a half hours.  Is she asleep?  Hell no!  For the first hour and a half she cried and it didn’t matter if I was holding her, placing her in her crib, patting her back, talking to her, singing to her, and/or sitting beside her.  Oh, there were moments of silence.  There was even two minutes when she was actually almost asleep and then she woke herself up screaming again.  At the hour and forty-five minute mark she decided to stop yelling and start doing her “ba, ba, baing” thing which is what she does if she needs to tell me that I am a bad person and that she disagrees vehemently with whatever it is that I am or not doing .  This continued for awhile longer and then she went back to the crying.

At the moment I am reading a variety of books on getting babies to sleep.  All of them supposedly ‘no cry’ but nowhere in any of them do they talk about the child that just cries as soon as the idea of sleep is suggested.  The Baby Whisperer” suggest the ‘pick up, put down’ method.  Apparently as soon as they start crying you are supposed to pick them up, hold them (NO BOUNCING OR ROCKING though ’cause that is just BAD BAD BAD) and then as soon as they stop crying, you put them down.  When they cry again, you pick them up and so it goes.  At no point does she talk about the baby that has entwined her fingers into your hair and that the moment you lean uses the hair as handle holds to hang on.  As I  try to pry her one hand out of my hair, the other invariably has grabbed onto something else by which to ensure that she is permanently attached to my body.  This can also include but is not limited to my lips, shirt, crib, and air.  The No Cry Method does not even mention what to do if your child has decided to cry for two hours.  Somehow you are just supposed to include a variety of rituals and then Voila you have a baby that sleeps with no crying. My reading has not been limited to these two books but have included a vast array of internet sites, books from the shelves of the local bookstore or library and anyone who has a child that does not have bags under their eyes (the child I mean, not the parent.  The parent can have bags under their eyes for good reasons like staying up late and actually having sex with their partner, or going to a movie, or reading a book or well the options are limitless.)

The hardest part is that if I laid down with her in our bed, gave her some milk and then sat there with her she would have been asleep in twenty minutes.  However, due to her crawling and moving we can no longer put her to sleep for her naps on our bed.  So here I am – obsessing and waiting for the knock on the door from child services because of the complaints that have been made about the screaming child.  Though, we do have double-glazed windows so maybe she can’t be heard from the outside.  Part of the problem with this morning was that I was so conscious of her crying and worrying about what people would think.  There is something to be said for the anonymity of a an apartment versus where we our living now.

I am also worried that this is what my life has become – my biggest concern in the world and the only thing on my mind is whether or not Pumpkin sleeps in her crib.  There are political scandals to analyse, educational and environmental policies to critique, literature to read, music to hear and a mind to cultivate and all me efforts are consumed with the sleeping behaviour of an eight and half month old.   Has my life become so pedestrian?

Well, it is almost time for her afternoon nap.

An Ecosystem in the Corner of the Room

For the past 6 months we have been growing a little ecosystem in the corner of our living room.  Our fish had all died and things had become a little busy what with a new baby in the house.  Occasionally either Ryan and I would look over at the fish tank and wonder aloud when something would be done with it.  Around October, Ryan made the attempt to deal with the tank by turning off the filter and heater.  The tank continued to sit growing its algae garden, an underwater grave for the fish that had disappeared into its bowels.

Or so we thought.

Tonight while I was persuading Imogen that sleep is a good thing, Ryan began to empty out the tank in preparation for its journey to our new house.  By the time I sat on the couch the tank was empty.  I heard some rustling and assumed that the cat had found some paper.  It happened again and this time I could see Sabine.  I looked at Ryan and then in tandem we both looked at the fish tank.  On cue, the rustling sound emanated out of the tank.  While Ryan peered into its depths I attempted to grab our one and only lamp to bring it closer.  Ryan let out a “No shit!”  and there it was…  the shark that we had thought had died in July.  Lying on its side with its gills flapping open and close, the shark was taking its last breath.   As Ryan ran to get water, I stared at the shark wondering how you give mouth to mouth to a shark and if fish get brain damage when they have a lack of oxygen to the brain.  Were there going to be lasting effects to this chain of events?  Do vets deal with fish with brain damage?  (The strange thoughts had more to do with my fragile state of being due to the upcoming move rather than any real love of the fish.)

It has been an hour and the fish has been fed real fish food for the first time in the last 6 months.  We will see whether or not the fish survives.  Of course, the next questions is what to do with the fish.  It has obviously become accustomed to its environment being unheated, unbalanced and filled with algae.  The algae was probably what kept the fish alive.

The saddest thing is now all I can think is – shit, now we are going to have to move the tank with water in it AND find a place for it in the new house that is not the storage closet.

Overwhelmed

This is the best word to describe my state of being at the moment. I am trying to be positive and glass half full but then there are the moments of complete and utter panic. I actually have felt a couple of panic attacks coming on but have managed to breathe them out. It has been a loooong time since I have had a panic attack and having one with an 8 month old hanging out on the floor is probably not the best way to restart them. I remind myself that I am not the only one who has to pack and move. I am moving a 20 minute drive away not across the country like some people that I know. Really all these reminders do is make me get mad at myself for being so whiny.

I have made lists and make sure that I cross things off to make myself feel better. This works occasionally. We have 20 boxes of books. They are lined up against one wall. I have 6 boxes of kitchen stuff. There are at least another 6 boxes to go. Then there is the den. The front closet. The clothes closet. Imogen’s stuf. The list is endless. 5 bags of stuff went to the Sally Ann and the Elizabeth Fry Society. There is a box of books to be taken to the used bookstore. There is the cleaner to arrange to come in and clean the place but no one is phoning me back. There is laundry to be done. There are the phone calls with the change of address. Oh, and an Imogen to be taken care of. Ryan had an assignment due this week which took up most of the weekend and he had class last night. He can only take Friday off (thank God for that) but because he has a student teacher he can’t actually take a day off to help pack.

Oh, and our landlords want us to take some pictures of the place furnished so that they can use them when they list the place. This means that I have to move all of the boxes in order to take pictures.

What happened to thriving under stress? Actually, I think if the stress was work related I would be alright. Each box here means that a tiny little root is being torn up, multiply that and I am almost at the point of being completely rootless. My house has always been my place to ground and escape from chaos. I am having a really difficult time with this move and I don’t know why. I find myself thinking about having to move again in a couple of years because we will have grown out of the new place. Moving into another place that is not ‘ours’. I think that might be the problem. My roots are questioning whether or not they should bother burrowing in if there is the knowledge that they are going to be ripped up again. I don’t think that I have committed to my new home but look at it as a transitioning place. That doesn’t bode well for my sanity.

Home Sick

I woke up this morning and realised that in a few short weeks I will be waking up in a new house. Yesterday, I was excited about it, today I am feeling morose. As I putter around, stepping over the pillows and toys on the floor, trying to wade my way through the maze of clothes, furniture and cat that is our decorating scheme in our bedroom, I know logically that it is time to move. That knowing doesn’t make me feel better.

This is the house that we moved into when we became engaged. This is the house that I woke up in the morning of my wedding. This is the house that I brought my daughter to live.  It has been our home and it is hard to leave.

I have always worked hard to create a space that was a home. I think that I have been successful but there was always something lacking.  The result was I moved.  It was only recently that I realised that I had taken my practice of rearranging my room when I was younger whenever I was unhappy and transferred it into moving rooms.  It speaks to my happiness with my life that my roots have become firmly grounded into the floors of this space.

A home versus a house is a necessity for me.  Some people are satisfied as long as they have a place to put their stuff.  Being an introvert, I need a place that is safe and that is mine.  I am usually on the go and can’t stay in the house for days on end without going wiggy, but I still need somewhere to recharge.  A retreat from the outside world.  A place where I can putter, ponder and play.

The sad truth is that we have to move.  Our landlords are selling and we need more space.  The place that we are moving to is perfect, except that it is not here.  I knew that we would find the place that we needed to move into, that the universe would not let us down.  Upon meeting our new landlords I felt comfortable and upon entering the space, I felt welcomed.  There is also something very luxurious about being able to go down the wish list and check off not only our needs but our wants.  Wood floors – check.  Dishwasher – check.  In-suite laundry – check.  Patio – check.  Two bedrooms and den – check.  Continue to only need 1 car – check.  Shopping within walking distance – check.

So I am going to give myself some space to mourn and say good-bye to these walls that have been my home.  At the same time, I am going to let myself choose paint colours, plan furniture placement and know that soon we will be able to take a  half hour walk in the sunshine and meet Ryan when he gets off work and that is a wonderful thing.

Bad Week

I have been having a bad week.  Much of my time has been spent moving through the house breathing deeply and chanting, “this will pass.”  I’m exhausted and am feeling emotionally drained.  Imogen has been decidedly off and there have been a couple of nights where sleep has been non-existent.  My thighs, arms and breasts are bruised from her pinches and kicks.  The mottled green and brown skin would be good if I was trying for the role of Grendel’s mom- oh wait I am not Angelina Jolie.

Tuesday night, after hours of trying to put Imogen to sleep, I found myself sitting in the middle of the bed, trying to nurse and sobbing.  It didn’t help that at the end of the tears, I had a daughter sleeping in my arms.   I was too tired to see the humour.  This was followed up with last night’s mess of miscommunication between Ryan and I.

I went to Oakridge (never again) to buy a swim suit for myself.  I wanted something with full coverage.  If I could buy a 1920’s bathing suit that would be perfect.  I tried to explain to the salesperson that bikini waxes were a little difficult to do on a regular basis with a 7 month old and did they have something more like shorts.  I found out that I needed a ’specialty’ bathing suit because of my large chest.  When I explained that I did not want to spend much more than the $50 gift certificate as I was not planning on breast feeding forever and therefore would likely need to buy a new bathing suit in the near future, she looked at me as though I had asked her for her kidney.  If I thought that the trauma of having to see myself in a bathing suit would be bad enough, Imogen decided to turn it up a notch by deciding to go in a screaming fit while I was half dressed.  In the end, I left with nothing but the screaming child, and my self esteem trailing behind me.

There are half written posts that I have no energy to finish as I am trying to save it up to clean the house.  Laundry seems endless.  As soon as the basket is empty it is filled up again.  I finally put away the last of the stuff from Christmas.  I know that it seems ridiculous to worry about a clean house but I am uncomfortable when the house is messy.  I can’t relax until it is clean.

I think I am also lonely.  Visiting the school yesterday, was bittersweet.  The world has moved on without me.  I have not spoken to people that I thought were friends for months.  That hurts.  I want to say something to them but then question whether or not I am going to sound whiny.  Sort of like this post.  Maybe this will have done some good and released the poison.