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.

6 months

It was 6 months ago that I gave birth to my beautiful daughter.  I knew that when I started on this journey that it would be a foray into the big scary unknown.  Little did I know just what a wondrous journey that this would be.  Every day before I open my eyes, I wake to her soft little body nestled into mine.  I feel her snuffly breath on my cheek and when I open my eyes there she is with her one hand flung over her face and her head resting on the other.  It is a lovely thing to wake each morning to a miracle.

Time has a different meaning now.  Before, there was always something more to do, something that needed to get done instantly.  There are still those moments but there is little now that really has that sense of urgency that means I can’t stop and blow raspberries or sing a song or give a kiss.  Sometimes we will find ourselves in a sea of half completed tasks, her in my arms and me in the chair chanting a song in her ear and rocking her.  In those moments we are somewhere else, adrift in a pocket of stasis where there is nothing else to hear or say or see or do.  Together we just sit and let the world turn by itself.

Her smile can melt my heart. Her furrowed brow when she concentrates at whatever task she is doing or action that she is analyzing makes me impatient for the day that I can share in what she is thinking and doing.  Such a tiny little thing and already her personality can overtake a room.  I watch and laugh as my parents vie for her attention, something that I can never remember them doing for me or my siblings and yet it seems right for them to do so now.  I hear the longing in her other grandparents’ voices as they make do with irregular visits via Skype and promise myself that ‘we will get better at phoning every week.’  I watch her eyebrow raise and her head perk up when she hears her dad’s voice when he comes home at night.  I join in her sense of satisfaction when she has managed to rip that paper just right or make that sound or finally reach her object of choice.  Tears come to my eyes when I hear her whimper in her sleep and see the shadows flicker over her face.

Every night I go to sleep with her at my breast, Ryan’s warm body beside mine and Sabine’s snoring furry self at my feet and thank God for the miracle of my life.

Waking up to ‘Gang Wars’

I listen to CBC. It is almost always on in the car and it is what I wake up to in the morning and usually listen to as I go to sleep at night. The past couple of months, I have rolled over in the morning and as I doze in and out of sleep have been aware of a nagging sense of dissatisfaction and disengagement from the The Early Edition. I can’t stand the political panel with most of my venom directed to Erin Airton who I find to be whiny and reactionary in her comments. This has little to do with her political leanings as I don’t hold the same political views as Rafe Mair but I find his comments, even when I disagree with them, to be thought out and well-argued.

This morning my discomfort all made sense when I woke up to hear the morning show which was all about Metro Vancouver’s Gang Wars. I found the commentary, interviews and questions asked of the interviewees to be one-sided and inflammatory. I also never thought that a Province headline would be used as supportive material for CBC programming. I waited patiently for the ‘other side’, the discussion about how crime rates in Metro Vancouver have declined, a discussion as to who joins gangs and why, a discussion of the history of gangs in Vancouver, anything that would stem the tide of ‘are you scared to go outside because you might be shot.’ As a side note – I am not afraid to go outside, I don’t feel anymore threatened than I ever did and when the ‘Balcony Rapist’ moved to New Westminster, I didn’t lock myself into the apartment.

I think that where my dissatisfaction with the morning show, comes not from my disagreeing with what is being said (I revel in yelling at the radio) but in the direction that it is taking. Everything that has been touched in the last month has turned into ‘AN ISSUE’ that we should be scared about. I think that today it was made worse by the fact that all that was on the local news was discussion about the various shootings. Apparently nothing else is going on in our city that is considered newsworthy.

All of this is happening at a time that our Federal Government is wanting to pass a crime bill and are quietly preparing the way for capital punishment. Harper may say that he is not planning on opening the debate on capital punishment but then gave this ,”The reality in this particular case is, were we to intervene, it would quickly become a question of whether we were willing to repatriate a double murderer to Canada,” Harper told reporters. “In light of this government’s strong initiatives on tackling violent crime I think that would send the wrong signal to the Canadian public.”, as his reasoning as to not bring Ronald Allen Smith back to Canada to serve a prison term instead of being executed. At the same time, Canada is also not standing in the forefront of the UN call to end capital punishment.

I expect a lot from CBC, more than what I do from The Province or The Sun and definitely more than all of the other news casts on T.V.. However, the morning show today made me want to tune into CNN.  I’m not saying that there isn’t something going on obviously there is.  I just don’t thinking that instilling fear is the best way to go about dealing with the issue.  I turned off the radio this morning when I listened to someone phone in and talk about how we should “just send those  people(Asians) back to their home.”  Pretty presumptive to assume that ‘those’ people are landed immigrants and not people whose families have lived here for generations.  What about the Hell’s Angels bigoted caller?  Last time I checked, they were all Caucasian.

I will continue to listen to CBC because there isn’t really another alternative.  In the meantime I’ll continue to listen to exemplary programming such as learning about the latest dog parks  and cross  my fingers that someone takes over the programming for the Early Edition sooner than later.

Swimming Sound Waves

Music has always been a larger part of my life than I would have thought possible for someone who doesn’t sing or play an instrument. I have always had an eclectic and varied relationship with music. For the most part I will listen to anything and everything. You are just as likely to find my voice twanging on some Dixie Chicks as it is snarling out a line from Audioslave. There are definitely some genres that I have been unable to incorporate into my life’s soundtrack but not because they are bad – they just don’t work for me.

My first tape was Cindi Lauper, quickly followed by Billy Joel and Michael Jackson. I used to wait patiently by the radio, tape cued for that one song to be played. My early mixed tapes were filled with songs caught in mid line. Later, I would have the luxury to access a collective library to create mini soundtracks. The last mix was the last break-up album. There is a line from a movie (Dog Park?) where the character is told that when he can listen to the break-up tape without crying then he will know he is over his ex.

I used to get dragged to noise shows above the Smash Gallery. I would inevitabley fall asleep on the couch. I guess my ear was not sophisticated enough to appreciate the music coming from the front. As a teenager, I spent a lot of time at the Commodore, getting into concerts with my fake id and paying $8 dollars if we had missed the opening act. There was also the Cruel Elephant good for a Punk show and then the variety of booze cans whose location if you asked me today I would not be able to place.

I often play a game with myself trying to create a soundtrack that would encapsulate the specific moment that I am in or a memory that I have. Like scents, an opening bar can propel me back to a specific place, time or person. I Touch Myself by the Divinyls conjures up an ex, a fitting song for a megalomaniac who wanted me to be at his beck and call – his trophy that he could bring out and show off on special occasions. Other songs immediately send an endorphin rush to my cells and if I close my eyes it is 2 am, I am sweaty, dancing and surrounded by a safety net of beats and bodies.

I have begun to introduce my daughter to music. She falls asleep best to Leonard Cohen and likes to play with her ball in time to Blur. I move around the house singing made up songs about what I am doing. Some of the songs are on repeat. I sing her songs that my mother sang to me. I sing her songs that I love, Summertime and Somebody. I listen to mum sing to her granddaughter some of the songs I remember from when I and my siblings were young, others have obviously been held in waiting to be shared only with her granddaughter.

A new melody is being overlayed my own. Together, for now, the two melodies will play together. As she grows older, they will pull apart and become movements to be played independently. I can not wait to hear her life’s symphony.

x365 – Update

Alright I have started it.  Maybe now I’ll be able to sleep at night instead of making lists.  I’ve moved it to another page and as you can see so far it is not about people.  I still don’t know if I will be comfortable with including people.  However, in writing about music, books and places I am writing about people and about a particular place in time that I continue to carry with me.

Ripping Off the Scab

While I was looking for something else today, I came across my notebook that I had used while working on my Masters. As I leafed through it, I began to cry. That tiny nondescript notebook was a reminder of what I hadn’t completed. While I did walk across the stage to accept my degree, it wasn’t the degree that I had imagined I would accept. I also cried because of the pain that I read behind the words. Not the girls’ pain but my pain, the ache that I had carried with me, held close to me. The anger that made my bones brittle.

“I am having difficulties writing about body and space. I feel like throwing the whole thigs away, walking away from it. Bury my head, my body and disappear.

I feel like I am being held together by tiny webs – I expect to see hairline cracks all over my body, like clay when it has no more water left. One quick step and I’ll fall into a heap of dust. Pieces too small to be put back together. Broken beyond repair. The heat of my anger evaporating my remains. I want to cut into my shin – peel back the top layers – expose the blood, membranes and bones beneath. Feel the rush of pain – the pieces of flesh underneath my nails. The cakiness of blood on my shin, the fresh running blood underneath. I want to tear it open again and again. I want to scream. I want to hit. I want to break down the walls. I can see myself through them – throwing myself against the walls. I can feel the screams, see my mouth open but I can’t hear them. I watch as my body, my hands slide down the wall over and over again. I watch and then I think ‘good girls don’t yell.’”

I read this and realise just how much it hurt to force myself to be continually thinking about girls, body, space, place and identity. How often when I read the literature and the studies I would feel sick. Looking back now, I should have changed my focus. My gaze should have shifted to me rather than an external analysis. At the time, that felt too self-centered, too egotistical.

Ultimately, I did write about myself and my experience researching and writing:

I was eleven when I was sexually abused by my softball coach. For the next two decades my body remembered what my mind chose to forget. I still can not remember fully what happened. All I have is the image of the sun shining through the leaves hanging above the van, the taste of bile in the back of my throat, and the world becoming still. I remember when the other girls mentioned that the police had come to their house but I don’t remember talking to them. I don’t know at what moment I remembered, I can’t place the trigger. It’s as though I woke up one morning and it was just there. I would look at pictures from my childhood and search my younger self’s face to see if I could witness the change. It became painful to read or hear the stories of adolescent girls. How could I listen to other’s stories when I was having difficulties listening to my own? Each time I sat down to write, read, or listen, my stomach would clench, I’d feel the tears well up and I would turn away.

This is a story about my journey.
(“Pandora’s Box” 2006)

I haven’t opened the document since I sent it off. There are only two people who have read it – my advisor and my second. I don’t think that I did myself justice or the topic justice. It might be one of those things that I have to go back to and do it right.

Next Tuesday, I have a meeting with my advisor. I don’t think that I am finished this journey.

Branding the Baby

We decided before Miss Pumpkin was born that we were going to use cloth diapers. We have in suite laundry, are concerned about the environment and its what good parents are supposed to do. However, we also looked at the cloth diapers and knew that they were going to be bigger than her when we brought her home so we picked up some Huggies for newborns. We were appalled to realise that they were decorated with lovely pictures of Winnie the Pooh a la Disney, Pampers were no better with the Sesame baby Elmo and other ‘baby’ Sesame Street characters.

Since then, Miss Pumpkin has voiced her opinion over cloth diapers and it isn’t positive. When we are at home and I am feeling up to it, we will use them during the day. What it has meant is that I have to forage for disposable diapers that do not have advertising directed at my daughter’s subconscious and that don’t make me shudder when I touch them because they feel too much like foam. We buy Simply Kids and Seventh Generation chlorine free diapers. The Simply Kids are awesome and cheaper than Huggies or Pampers but are decorated with some sort of kid friendly characters. The Seventh Generation are equally fantastic and have no decoration on them, they are definitely more expensive. Which ones we buy is determined by where I am shopping when I need to pick up diapers.

Why the long post about diapers? I think it is a perfect example of how branding our children occurs without us really noticing. Winnie the Pooh is cute, adorable and how could Tigger be a bad thing for a baby. It isn’t – except that I am putting this on my child every day, several times a day for most likely 2-3 years. By the time, the toilet training is done and the diapers are gone my child has been fully indoctrinated into Disney’s version of Winnie the Pooh and/or Sesame Street characters. (When we were kids did Sesame Street have all of the dolls, clothing and stuff that they do now? I can’t remember)

Ryan and I had already decided that we wanted to limit the toys that Miss Pumpkin would own. It is amazing how quickly the toys can accumulate and most kids I know don’t really play with all of them. I have always been an aware viewer when it comes to advertising and media in general, in the past 4 months I have become hyper aware. I almost went into an apoleptic fit when I saw the ad for the Dora Explorer cash register which includes a charge card and other great add ons. Bratz dolls are another group of commercials that make me want to throw away the tv and move to the middle of nowhere. What bothers me most about these ads and all of the marketing that is directed to kids is that it creates whiny, mini consumers whose only way of getting what they want is to nag at their parents. Yes, it is the parents responsibility to say “no” but in a culture that is so commodified and where love is more often represented through things as opposed to time, I think this is easier to say than do.

What I find most difficult now is to not simply react to the things that I see, read and hear. It has become harder to step back and analyse my reactions. To ask myself the questions: “what is it that I find offensive?”, “what makes this appealing to children?” and so on.  It doesn’t help that I have read too many articles and books on the marketing to and commodification of children and teens in my past.  More often than not, what I am reacting to is the feeling that we are being controlled by corporations and conglomerates.  Children are being trained to be mindless cogs in the economic wheel of cheap labour and cheap products that make the rich richer and the rest of us and the environment poorer and sicker.

More and more we are becoming removed from what it actually means to make or grow something.  Our sense of what something is worth has been twisted so that items that should be discussed in terms of its quality have been reduced to measurements of quantity.   We process our food so extensively that we have to add back nutrients that are found naturally in it.  We talk about good food being expensive and yet we think nothing of buying Kraft Dinner because it can feed us cheaply and yet the $1 price tag doesn’t truly factor in the cost to the environment not to mention that the processed food is heavily subsidized by governments.  Furthermore, the actual nutritional value of kraft dinner is nonexistent, in that sense it is vastly overpriced.   When asked, I want my children to know what foods are in season, where they come from and more importantly how to prepare them.  We are luckier than most as there is the family farm that they will be able to visit and work on.  I want them to understand that everybody deserves to be paid for their labour, that the environment isn’t something to be pillaged.

In the end it will be about balance and our willingness to say  “no” when so many other people are going to be saying “yes.”  I just hope that Miss Pumpkin and any other squashes we find in the vegetable patch understand that there was a reason behind their parents’ madness.