better late than never?

So yesterday was Bad Teenage Poetry Day, as declared by Superlagirl, and Andrea very bravely posted some of her very bad poems. Most of my poems are packed away for our move (in less than two weeks!), but I do have one I can post.

It's funny, I've posted a fair amount of silliness from my teenage years, and I just think it's funny. It doesn't embarrass me. But this poem seriously embarrasses me. It also embarrasses me that I thought it was so good at the time, I was going to post it at my horse's barn to intrigue the guy I was crushing on. Ok, so fine. I guess I can't delay any longer.

Lucifer Falling

Hitler was around then
even in New France
the devil himself
in your Jesuit habit
hiding in your circle of rosary beards
implanted in your cerebra
so you may think
you are god-like
so you may kill all that argues
in the name of the father
the son and the holy ghost.

You bring the plague on the savages
but it is you that is
savage
converting left, right, centre
she is not yours to convert
you may as well rape her
but you will not touch her soul.

It is you,
Satan
wearing your kachina mask
that sends all into chaos
your heritage is mine
and will still be mine
tomorrow
as we are stuck in a ring
neverending
as the sun until
we self-destruct
and our atoms shall mingle together
as one with the stars
at peace as nothing...

You know you're a packrat if...

You find yourself hanging onto the following items as proof that you were once young (and really, really stupid) too:

1. a handful of blank postcards of Florida Manatees, because you once felt an affinity with the sea cow.
   
2. the explanatory note that accompanied a rune pendant, long since lost. It was the run called Eh, (which I think I know better as Ehwaz) meaning movement and symbolizing the horse and the sisterhood or brotherhood for horse and rider. "Movement is necessary for progress along one's path. Loyalty and trust are qualities needed for journeying together. Herb - ragwort, tree - ash/oak."
3. an empty envelope from an old bank statement with Al Purdy's phone number on it, because you once were you so casual with his phone number, you just wrote it on any old paper. (I also kept the address book that I later transferred his number into for safekeeping.)
4. the program from a production of Saint Joan at the 1993 Shaw Festival that was so bad, your teacher gave you all permission not to return to the theatre after intermission.
5. the program for Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story, which set off a long obsession with Buddy's music and glasses and tragic story.
6. a copy of How to Pick Up Guys, which includes such good advice as how to handle a shy man: "Try to help a shy man get over his shyness by saying, 'I'm going to make this as easy for you as I can. I'd like to have steamy sex with you. If you'd like to have steamy sex with me too, blink once.'"
7. an envelope from the stud farm you worked at in high school, which contains the price notes of everyone who worked at the yearling sale. Your notes are circled as the winner because you guessed $131,420 and the actual total was $120,900. You want to keep this envelope because you had totally forgotten there was even a pool, let alone that you won. I guess that memory got wiped out by the shit that came afterward. I wonder how much you won?
8. A handwritten copy of a poem you wrote, which you were planning to submit to a magazine but never did:
   
   

   Winter Scene
   We trekked out
   with our toboggans
   and a pipe T*** had bought in Montreal.
   To the top of the hill
   and the moon,
   she looked down
   a ring of light
   surrounded her in the clouds.
   And L**** held it for me
   tight in my teeth
   as I sucked the flame
   down.
   The pipe we shared,
   finally lit
   and then we slid
   down the hill laughing
   back into the world.
   A ring of girls
   around of a ring of red
   with a ring of smoke above
   and a ring of moonlight too
   reflecting in the white
   of snow.

9. correspondence with your benchmate from biology, which goes something along the lines of:
   
   me: Maybe I"ll say hi to him today. If I get the chance. I wonder if he knows i'm interested in him.
   
   friend: If you would do the eyebrow thing he would know!
   
   me: I did it at lunch. And I think he saw but it was quite a distance so maybe he wasn't even looking at me but I think he was.
   
   friend: Do it! (ha ha) in the hall right at him (eye contact)
   
   me: I will. But sometimes it's hard to position myself properly and sometimes he doesn't look at me. But I'm worried that if I stare at him too much, I'll stop watching where I'm going and trip right in front of him and totally embarrass myself.
   
   [there's a little diagram here, complete with thought bubbles and everything]
   
   me: I look like shit today. These jeans make me look like that grade 9 - she always wears tight jeans that totally flatten her ass.
   
   friend: Those jeans look really good. Nice butt.
   
   
10. And finally, a sign you were planning (please please please let you not have actually done it) to hang on your horse's door at the boarding stable to impress the guy you were crushing on. This one's really embarrassing. It has a typed out copy of a really bad poem that you wrote after you watched Black Robe, your horse's name in marker, and underneath, to show your worldliness, I guess: "Un tres bon cheval. Un muy bien cavalla." Of course, that boy did become your first love, so you must not have actually posted it. Phew.


Wow, and just like that, I don't really need to keep any of these.

knots

When I was lying on the massage table last week, finally getting some relief for my poor, rock-tense neck and shoulders, I couldn't stop thinking about all the people who can't afford massages. It felt a little disgusting to spend my money on something so self-indulgent. But massages are so good for you, especially if you work at a computer all day, and then come home to play on the computer. Massages detoxify your system, increase your circulation -- and prevent tension headaches, something I suffer from fairly frequently without regular massages. I think I've had two massages since Swee'pea was born, but I used to get them regularly, and I really noticed a difference back then. No more headaches, and all of a sudden I could do head slides in belly dance, which I just couldn't do before.

Anyways, the table. I was feeling guilty. Finally, I had to say something. I had to share this burden. So I told this massage therapist, who I'd never met before, that I was volunteering at the Drop-In Centre and that I felt really guilty for being so rich when so many are poor. I mean, many people don't even have a quarter for a coffee there. I would never have considered myself rich before, only millionaires are rich, but since I started volunteering, I've realized just how rich I am. I told her about what that man had said about coming to look at the poor people. (A surprised, "Oh!" escaped her lips and floated around the room when she heard that.)

She said I have to let that guilt go. Everyone has hardships and it really does no good to make comparisons. Some may say that another's hardships aren't as bad their own, but you really can't make those judgments. But I really don't have any hardships, I said. I've been so, so lucky. (Of course since then, I've remembered a few.) The therapist pointed out that some people also just have better attitudes than others, and I had to agree. Some people are more resilient than others, although that's not to say that a person's bad attitude is their fault. If no-one in your family is resilient, if they all have poor, self-destructive or nonexistent coping skills, how would you learn resilience? (And I do believe it's a learned skill.)

I had a friend in high school whose mother was a physiotherapist, and she'd also begun to study cranial-sacral therapy. She died when we were about 21, from breast cancer. She'd fought it once, but after a few years she stopped going for her follow-up appointments, and by the time she went to the doctor, she was too far gone. She died a week later, and it seemed clear to us all that she knew it had come back, and she knew she didn't want to fight anymore. She was a truly beautiful woman.

She believed that our tissues hold emotional trauma, they have a memory of sorts. Once, she was doing a treatment on my friend and my friend was suddenly overwhelmed with incredible sadness and she started to cry. She didn't know why she felt so sad, but her mother said it was because she'd released one of these emotional memories. Once she did a treatment on me, and when I went home, my parents thought I was drunk because my gait had changed. I remember feeling like everything was just slightly out of place from where it had been before - both inside and outside my body.

I wonder if the pain and extreme stiffness in my shoulders and neck ("I'm not gonna lie," said the massage therapist the other day, "It's not looking good.") is partly the result of this guilt and shame and embarrassment I've been carrying around for having money, feelings that have only intensified over the last six months. I've never really felt comfortable with my income, I've always been embarrassed that we have a cleaner - embarrassed that we can afford one: I've never been embarrassed for being a slob.

It strikes me that this middle-class shame isn't doing me or anyone else any favours. It doesn't make me donate more or use it more wisely. It just makes me feel bad - silent and embarrassed, especially around really poor people, and I'm quite certain that doesn't help them. The same guilt and shame infect and inhibit my photography. So. How do I get over it?

push and pull

At Swee’pea’s daycare, when children are having trouble saying goodbye to their parents, the teachers suggest that the child push the parent out the door. Swee’pea loves the place so much (he cries when he goes home or on the days he doesn’t go), he’s only pushed me out the door a couple of times and usually only because he saw one of his friends do it. I have to say, I much prefer the hug and the kiss and leaving by myself to having my ass pushed out the door, so I don’t exactly encourage the push.

This morning, as we pulled into the parking lot, Swee’pea immediately noticed his friend Neema’s truck (the boy’s name is not actually Neema, but that’s Swee’pea’s pronunciation). Neema is an inveterate pusher, and I immediately wondered if I would have to get the push. We went in, Swee’pea took his shoes off, we dropped his stuff in his cubby, and I put his indoor shoes on. I moved a bit quicker than usual, hoping I could beat Neema’s dad to the door and avoid the push. I gave Swee’pea a hug, told him to have a good day, and he went to his latest passion: toy tools and the toy workbench. Just as I was about to leave, Swee’pea came running back to me: “Mommy!” he wailed.

I resigned myself to the push. But it seemed like he only wanted to show me his toy drill, then he got sidetracked by the melee at the sign-out table. I stood by the door for a moment, but he was still sidetracked, so I did what all the parenting books say not to. I slipped out. I mean, I’d already said goodbye and I hugged him twice, so it wasn’t *really* like leaving without saying goodbye.

As I got into the car, though, I looked at the daycare’s door. In the shaft of sunlight that pierced the lower window, I saw the back of Swee’pea’s fiery head and an adult hand leading his toddler paw away from the door.

I have no idea if he was upset or merely curious, and, logically, I’m sure that if he was upset he probably got over it reasonably quickly. Nevertheless, for the last few hours, I’ve been feeling a weight in my chest, that sense of something’s just not quite right in the world, and then I remember that sunlit hair and the sturdy little body turning away from my exit.

*****

Ever since we bought our new house (a whole three weeks ago), I’ve been fretting over whether to change Swee’pea’s daycare. I’ve got him on the list for the one right by my work, and apparently working in my building gives him some priority. If he gets in, I’ll be able to walk him in no more than 20 minutes, probably closer to 15, drop him off, and stroll next door to my office. It would allow us to live with only one car quite comfortably. (We have two cars right now, but we'll be giving the second on back to our friends when they return from Malawi.)

The daycare that Swee'pea currently goes to is downtown, about a five-minute walk from our house, but a good 40-minute walk from my work. The bus takes almost as long. And going from work to daycare and back to our (new) home would drive me nuts with all the inefficient doubling back and extra time taken. But he talks about his friends at daycare quite a lot, and he seriously loves the place, and I’m really hesitating about taking him away from that. Also, the new place is more expensive just by its daily rate AND they charge for five days when a kid only goes four days a week.

Last night at the playground, I recognized two sisters who are older than Swee’pea who I’ve seen at his daycare. I jumped on the opportunity to meet a local parent, and struck up a conversation with their mum. She was saying that she lives far away from downtown, much farther out than our new place, and she comes downtown every day. AND they don’t have a car. They either bus it, or on energetic days, they walk. I was flabbergasted. I suspect she left feeling relieved to get away from me and feeling like we had nothing in common. But *I* feel inspired. The city is improving its bus service this summer, next week I think, so I’m thinking seriously about sticking with the daycare we know, and just making the one car work.

And while I’m on the subject of alternative transportation, we also want to get a bike trailer and bike more often from the new place. To anyone with a bike trailer that converts to a stroller, what are your recommendations? What did you consider when you were deciding, and what did you end up getting? Would you get the same trailer again? Help please!

musing on Myers Briggs

Ever since Bea pronounced me an ENFP more than a year ago, I go through periodic obsessions with Myers Briggs Type Indicator. I'm in one right now.

I had a sudden epiphany a few weeks ago, that when I butt heads with someone or don't understand at all where they're coming from or why they're in a twist about something, it's probably because they're an SJ. It started to become a bit of a dirty word for me, and I started to assume that if I disliked someone they must be an SJ. Last week, I discovered two of my cube-mates are SJs... Eek! I'm surrounded by them! Of course, I quite like my cube-mates, so this was surprising and enlightening. It was also humbling and rather amusing that I thought my type sounded so awesome and how lucky was I to be considered one of them, and my SJ colleague jumped to my denfence: "That's not very nice," she said when she read a description of ENFP, "Sometimes procrastinates?" Like procrastination is one of the worst things someone could do.

"Oh yeah..." I replied, utterly unconcerned. "I'm a total procrastinator."

The same description said that ENFPs work best on a time with a couple of Js to keep us in line. So it's a good thing I'm surrounded by SJs at work.

invincible youth

When we sorted through all the boxes in our basement, we did a quick triage. Books? We edited our book collection last fall so just stack those boxes to go straight to the movers. Baby stuff? Ditto. I thought we'd edited all our stuff down there, but as we got deeper into the piles of boxes, I realized that we had not. This afternoon I went through a box that clearly hadn't been unpacked or even looked at since we moved into this house five years ago.

On the top were old bills and bank account statements that hadn't even been opened, clearly tossed into the box in a last-minute moving panic. Those will be shredded. Deeper down, there was evidence of mouse activity, and envelopes and albums and smaller boxes of photos. So many photos. I will hold onto every single one. As I went through them, I couldn't help but conjure up adult children and grandchildren sorting through them when I'm dead. I'll have to start writing on the backs of them so they know who, when, and what they are.

There's my brother's second gallery, the one that was like a bowling alley, and there are his paintings, photo after photo after photo of his paintings. There's my niece and nephew at the lake, the day we went up to Petroglyphs Park and stopped at a small empty beach to cool down. There's my Grandpa Jack being presented with a birthday cake that holds the number 88, back before they moved into their retirement home, and the painting that now hangs over our guest bed hangs behind him. There's my Grandma Ruth looking absolutely tickled at her first two great-grandchildren, then an infant and toddler, now about to turn 10 and 8. It's the same look I saw almost every time she looked at me, and my chest ached and my eyes pricked that Swee'pea will never see that look, except stilled in this black and white picture.

There's me looking all fresh-faced and thin, wearing my mom's old horn-rimmed, tortoise shell glasses. There's Sugar D and I at my parent's farm and my bony hand, which looks far more graceful than I ever remember it being, holds a cigarette! (Oh yeah, I used to smoke, and not that long ago.) There's us at his graduation, and then his citizenship ceremony. There's the envelope of pictures from the roll of film that started it all; there are the pictures of Sugar D on his balcony at the time that made me think he'd rushed through the last frames just to get to see me again. There's the polaroid of Sugar D with Lala and Po (the Teletubbies) that was taken the day before our first date, the one that made me think he was a pretty cool guy since most guys my age ran from all things children-related. There's Sugar D back in South Africa with his cousins and granny and uncles. There's him again in a picture I've never seen before, and judging from the snow shovel he's holding like in American Gothic with not a single flake of snow to be seen, he must have just arrived in Canada, and his mom must have taken the shot with the intention of sending it back to the summer in South Africa. They arrived in winter and on his first walk to the grocery store his eyelashes froze together. That's never happened to me.

There is the box of runes that I made myself and consulted frequently for romantic advice for a few years. I was about to toss them, but somehow I can't quite. Like they still contain magic, and the magic is one of the threads that hold Sugar D and I together. He also made his own set of runes before we met, and that seemed so significant once upon a time, although I think he lost those long ago.

And of course there's envelope after envelope of boring yet pretentious photographs of brick walls and windows. What was I thinking?!? I guess all those pictures I have on my website will mortify me one day too.

What a treasure of memories this box is, and I feel guilty for all the bends and creases and stuck-together pictures. I guess when I threw stuff in packed that box, I must have intended to sort through it sooner than later. Or maybe not. Back then my grandparents were still alive, although they'd moved out of their apartment, and maybe I thought I was somehow immune to the passage of time, that my memories didn't need photographs to prod them and keep them alive.

When I found those binders last week, I was about to throw a second one out, just like the blue one. But it was my grade 11 English binder and I was sad to throw away my thoughts on Piggy and Ralph and MacBeth, and then I came upon a journal entry on Halloween. Apparently the task was to write about my most memorable Halloween. Now, nearly 15 years after I wrote that, I would say my most memorable Halloween was probably that year or maybe the one before, our last year trick or treating and the first time I tried a cigarette. But the journal entry was about my grade 1 or 2 Halloween, and now I have absolutely no recollection of it. Memory is such a vulnerable and precious thing, and when I packed that box, I had no idea.

knee deep in (de)clutter

We've been working all weekend and house looks much, much worse.

I'm trying to throw away things that have no real function and aren't easy to store, but it's hard for some things. So, I'm taking a picture.

Behold, one of my binders from grade 9 probably:


Just in case you can't read it, a number of my favourite bad pop songs from the time are featured, including "Everybody, everybody," "Wiggle It," and "Do Me." I also declared my love for Johnny Depp in the corner.

And from a couple years earlier, one of my first shop projects from grade 7:

Dusty was my first horse. She's been dead for more than 10 years. I felt like I should hold onto this to honour her but our new house has no basement, and it's not like I'm going to hang it on the wall. So a picture is perfect.

Our real estate agent just told us today that the market is neutralizing, becoming less of a seller's market. Now that we've just gone from buyer to seller, this is not a good thing to hear. Why couldn't she have told us this a couple of days ago???

My monthly letter to Swee'pea will need to wait a few days or a week so I do it justice.

morning

I am such an idiot.

I’m also a creature of habit. Every day after work, I clip my ID badge to my backpack for the next morning. Every morning, as I approach the parking lot at work, I reach for the badge, always in the same place.

This morning, my routine got serendipitously messed up. I was already late leaving the house because I sidetracked by brainwave on a submission I’m trying to make by tomorrow. Of course, this morning was the first morning since last October that Swee’pea has been anything but enthusiastic to get into school. I cajoled him in.

The mother of one of Swee’pea’s daycare-mates was on the phone when we arrived, looking a little flustered.

“I locked my keys in the car.”

After I left Swee’pea at the window watching the big tractor that he’d wanted to watch from the car, she asked if I was driving and if I might give her a ride. Of course. I’m always happy to give someone a ride. It’s a small way to pay forward the millions of rides I’ve scored over the last several years. Plus, it would be a great opportunity to hear more about the earth-shaking news she shared last week, the kind of news that, over the heads of little ones, starts with D – I – V.

Obviously not the kind of conversation you can have in a five-minute drive, so we sat in front of her office building for a good 15 minutes I think. I was already late, but it doesn’t really matter (I just stay later) and I wasn’t about to screw up this opportunity to forge a new friendship.

Eventually, I made my way to the parking lot, and reached for my ID badge. It wasn’t there. WTF?!? How could it not be there?!? I must have left it on my pants last night, the pants that were still in a pile on my bedroom floor.

I had to back up from the security arm, and a car came up behind me. He assumed that the security thingie was broken again, as it has been many times before. I rolled my window down as he got out of his car. “I just forgot my badge.”

“OK, I’ll just try it myself.”

“No, I just forgot my badge. It’s fine. I just forgot my badge.”

But he kept walking without his car. Now there was a line of cars coming from both directions. One of my officemates was there. She gestured at me, what’s going on? I mouthed to her, “I just forgot my badge.” (SHE got it, at least.)

Eventually, I got away from all the cars and confusion I’d caused and went to the visitors’ lot, the visitors’ lot that last year generated like $500 worth of parking tickets (apparently the $15 tickets become $56 tickets if you don’t pay them within a month or two). I thought about going home to get my badge but I was already so late, so I didn’t.

Walking into the building, I thought about how difficult my day was going to be. I’d have to wait for someone to let me up the elevator, wait for someone to let me into our office, make sure someone comes with me for every break and meeting… ugh. Just then, my hand brushed something by my pocket.

My badge. Wha??!?

My mind sifts back through the morning, to when I was first letting my new friend into the car, when I put my backpack into the backseat to make room and put my badge on my pants so I wouldn’t have to reach back and fumble for it.

Oh yeah, I’m a thinker, alright.

doubt

I don't know. I'm having a much harder time sorting through and editing my Cuban photos than I did my South African photos. I don't know if it's because the photos suck or because I'm pickier or because I have less time now. I'm grumpy and discouraged. So far there are 19 photos I like out of the 1500 I shot, not including family shots. You can watch a slide show of them here. What do you think?

There are others I like, but I can't be arsed to edit them. Maybe I just need some time and distance. I'm trying to stay calm, but I could really use some kind words right about now if anyone feels like doling them out.

Anyone?

Anyone?

Bueller?

confession

What would you say if I told you that I haven't trimmed my son's fingernails or toenails since the first (and last) time back when he was a newborn?

six-word epitaph

for Mad.

Risk taker only in my imagination.

Letter to Swee'pea: 23 months old

Dear Swee'pea:



Today you are 23 months old. This month, I can no longer deny, you have become strategic. You've known for a long time that you can influence events, you can make things happen. First you did it with signs and then you learned the finer precison of words. But now you are learning how to equivocate. Bedtime has become a bit of a battleground, as has dressing. You will stop at nothing to delay bedtime, asking for snacks and milk. The first time, I suspected you weren't actually hungry, but I knew that if you were hungry, you wouldn't sleep well. So I took you to your high chair and plunked some noonoos (your absolutely favourite food: any kind of pasta) in front of you. You looked at the food and smiled a triumphant and mischievious smile at me. You took about 15 minutes to eat maybe 10 small noodles, despite my warnings and threats and ranting about the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

Similarly, I have discovered it's much easier to get you dressed if I give you choice. You battle the concept of wearing a shirt much less if I let you choose between the orange shirt and the blue one, the turtle neck or the t-shirt. Now, however, you're onto me. This week, when I asked you to choose between the red socks and the gray ones (a bit dangerous in itself because you've been showing an obvious preference for all blue socks all the time but we were out of clean blue socks), you wanted the red. As soon as I brought the red socks near your feet, you screamed for the gray. And, surprise, surprise, when I went to put the gray socks on, you screamed for the red. This went on for some time until I finally had to be the heavy and tell you that this was your final choice. Period. End of story (I repeated myself a number of times to give you fair warning). Then it devolved into the wrestling match that typified our dressing sessions before I started giving you choices. The wrestling match was followed by intense screaming grieving, and finally a long cuddle before you accepted the socks on your feet.

I was planning to spend a significant portion of this letter complaining about your sleep - the lack of it, or more accurately your inability to fall asleep before 10 p.m. It's been going on for a week and it's seriously damaging my sanity. But, I've been going through my photos from South Africa and I came upon a photo that made me realize how far we've come in the sleep department.


This used to be our reality. I don't think I was as grumpy as I look in the photo - I think I was trying merely to look pensive - but maybe I was grumpy. Because when I zoom in on the photo I can see a sheen of sweat on my forehead.

Now, you take all your naps in the crib, unless you fall asleep in the stroller, and it doesn't usually take long to get you down in it, asleep. Back when that photo was taken, you were waking at least every two hours a night, sometimes more often (I think you were getting molars). Although your bedtime is proving extremely difficult at the moment, you mostly sleep through the night, albeit in our bed. All this to say I will shut up about the bedtime thing (although, if you could make it better, I'd be in a lot better frame of mind... think about it?).

This month your language has taken another leap into the galaxy of compound nouns: garbage truck (bobo da!), newspaper (newww bobo), papertowel (bobo wawa), vegetable soup (baba Boo) etc. You've also discovered adjectives and possessive pronouns. Everything is BIG these days, from plates to spoons to blocks to your poops (I think the daycare taught you that one). Your utterance of the word "my" is usually accompanied by a wounded, hard-done-by look.


Kind of like this. I asked you if perhaps you wanted to switch out your sweater vest for a full sweater, and you declined looking hurt that I would even suggest such a thing.



Christmas just passed and last week we brought your beloved tree down and put our new decorations away. The tree is sitting on our snowy front lawn and I worried about how you would cope with us throwing it out there. Mostly, you've been ok, although every time we come home and leave, you always talk about the tree and how we took the tree down (dee da) and we'll get another one (nana dee) next Christmas. (I don't think you really get the concept of next Christmas though.)

You've been enjoying your Christmas presents, although I've already learned the downside of them (they're a lot of small pieces that make lots of noise when the big box is emptied quickly on the floor, or when you rattle pieces around in a metal collander as if you're panning for gold). We got you a big box of lego blocks, a bag of toy vegetables that you can cut into pieces and peel and then put back together, and a tea set. You love them all and sometimes even combine them to serve vegetable tea or cut blocks. I didn't quite realize that the vegetables came with a toy knife, or I didn't realize quite how disturbing it would be to see you playing with your knife. More than once you've played at stabbing us, so we try not to encourage the knife play. You are an attentive server of tea, promptly asking us if we'd like more as soon as we've taken a sip. And you are not easily distracted from your quest to fill everyone in the room with pots and pots of imaginary tea. It's quite amusing really.



Some nights after you (eventually) go to bed, we will discover a cache of toy vegetable pieces in a collander under your high chair or a line of toy tea cups all nicely ordered along the vent. Except that hasn't happened in days (the bedtime part). As I write this you are still awake. The usual walking back and forth to music didn't work once again, so now your dad is lying down with you in our dark room. I've heard you crying for me several times -- oh! here you go again -- but I can't come to you. I have an angry snake curling around in my belly. If I lie down with you, it rises up and makes me into the kind of mother I never want to be. One who snaps with almost no provocation, one who reacts angrily to every little thing. It's almost feeling like a panic disorder, these moments when you won't sleep and won't leave me alone, and I feel like I will never escape.

It scares me that I want to escape motherhood sometimes. Makes me wonder if perhaps I'm one of those women after all -- one of those mothers who abandons her child(ren) forever, or simply buries herself in other work, barely sparing a distracted hug or chuckle or pat on the head for her child(ren). Not that I'm going to do it right now, just sometimes I see clearly that I could become - permanently - the kind of mother I really didn't want to be. I had one moment when I thought maybe you would be better off without me, that I'm not good enough for you because I'm so angry. I imagine that's how mothers who abandon their children feel too.

I don't know why I'm so angry. So much of my life is really quite pleasant, including you. I just don't seem able to appreciate it at certain moments that overwhelm me with little warning. It used to be that at the points I knew I just couldn't take anymore, you would suddenly sleep well, and the edge I was perched on would recede to a safer distance. This has not been the case the last few nights. I hope these moments aren't all that you remember of me. I hope that overall, you find comfort and love in your memories of me. I hope things get better really soon.

I'm sorry I've spent so much of this letter going on about me and your lousy sleep habits, but they are a part of you, as am I. And besides, if you're reading this, surely we did something right?

Love Always,
Mum

Me, a Spam Blog?

WhatEVerrrrrr.

Yesterday, Blogger locked my blog because they thought it was a spam blog. Blogger says spam blogs are characterized by irrelevant, repetitive and nonsensical text with many links often to the same site.

Consider yourself warned: irrelevant, repetitive and nonsensical text is coming right up.

The day started out shit, literally, when our cat shat on our bedroom carpet, and continued that way. After work, Swee'pea had a meltdown at the daycare when I tried to put all his winter clothes on for the 10-minute walk home, and I couldn't cave because it was minus 13 celsius without the wind chill. His screaming rached boiling point when I wrestled him into the stroller against his will and bumped over the barely plowed sidewalk. He literally screamed all the way home. That does wacky things to an already stretched-too-thin mother: I joined his screaming from time to time in my finest mothering moment yet. I just panicked, because it was the only way home and I wasn't convinced he was dressed warmly enough and I didn't want to waste time putting his toque back on over and over and over again or pleading with him to stop crying so the tears wouldn't freeze on his cheeks.

I was pretty drained and ashamed by the time we made it home and Swee'pea melted down again, screaming for his doodoo then screaming louder when I brought it to him. Finally, he collapsed into my arms, doodoo in mouth, and I checked my email with him on my lap. Which was when I found out that Blogger had locked my blog:

Dear Blogger user,

This is a message from the Blogger team.

Your blog has been identified as a potential spam blog. For an explanation of what spam blogs are, please see Blogger Help: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42577.

You will not be able to publish posts to your blog until we review your site and confirm that it is not a spam blog. To request a review, please fill out the form found here: http://www.blogger.com/unlock-blog.g?lockedBlogID=31853698

We will take a look at your blog and unlock it within four business days. Please note that if we do not hear from you within 20 days, we will remove your blog. If this blog does not belong to you, then you do not have to do anything. Any other blogs you may have will not be affected.

Since you are an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not spam. We find spam by using an automated classifier. Automatic spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and occasionally a blog is flagged incorrectly. We sincerely apologize for this erroneous result. By using this kind of system, however, we can dedicate more storage, bandwidth, and engineering resources to users like you instead of to spammers.

Thank you for your understanding and for your help in our spam-fighting efforts.

Sincerely,

The Blogger Team

I responded immediately, because I'd already posted four posts using their visual verification test AND requested a human review to remove that damn visual verification. When I went to their little help page and saw that my blog got caught by some sort of filter for irrelevance, repetition and nonsense, I just felt hurt, betrayed by the very people who encouraged those qualities. Although I gave Blogger 24 hours to respond before I left them, I just don't think I can live with them after that kind of betrayal.

Work is already underway to move to www.writeabouthere.com using wordpress. I'll let you know when it's set up.

* * *

Today WAS a better day, apart from being unable to post. I just got word that my blog has been reviewed and cleared of all spam blog-related charges.

And as a side effect, not being able to blog freed me up to try out an online service to sell some of my prints.They ship anywhere in the world, offer a range of paper and print qualities (with the most affordable option still offering great quality), and I will donate 50 percent of any proceeds to the Stephen Lewis Foundation. I've just uploaded my very favourite images of 2007 so if you've seen a photo on here that you'd like to buy, and you don't see it in my imagekind gallery, just email me and I can set it up. The site's a bit hard to navigate but if things go well, I will set up a better, more navigable online gallery that just links to imagekind for the actual purchasing.

31 now

So, what are you going to do for your birthday?

I don't know... I haven't thought that far ahead.

When you were a kid, what were you going to do when you turned 31?

When I was a kid, I never got past the age of 23 in my imagination.

My brother-in-law says he never got past 32. That was the year 2000, as 23 was for me. When I was a kid, the world was going to end in 2000.

But it hasn't, and to celebrate my 31st birthday, I'm going to shoot that cement factory I pass on the way to my parents, the cement factory that every time I think I want to shoot that, but I never have. That and the more recently burnt out Victorian mansion with no roof and lots of graffiti.

random pre-holiday wine-drinking shit

I should be wrapping gifts right now, but instead I'm drinking wine and feeling maudlin. Note to self: never listen to your Wallow playlist unless you are actually wallowing. Otherwise it will just make you melancholy.

I should be saving the wine for our little get-together on Christmas Eve, but instead I'm drinking it. So what if I have to make another trip out for supplies.

I should be getting the address and directions for a family gathering we're supposed to go to tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure Swee'pea is coming down with a Merry Christmas bug. He's coughing and having trouble sleeping and his stomach seemed a bit off today.

Plus we have a lot we could do around here (like wrapping presents, buying more wine and making bread pudding).

* * *

I've been meaning to share something I saw in the paper last weekend. I don't read the paper much, but we were snowed in and Sugar D bought one so I read it. I don't feel like explaining all the context so I will just provide the quote.

"... So who is to say that the state of non-verbal rapture you describe in your son - who is to say that that is inferior? Who is to say that? We're arrogant enough to believe that sentience is all that counts. It's not all that counts. A sequoia is not a sentient being. But they count. There is nothing more magnificent. It doesn't require me to think about it to be in awe of it. I don't want to minimize the difficulty of raising a handicapped child. ... But it's just a mistake to think of them as lesser than. There's no lesser than. There's just different from. It isn't just great minds that matter. It's great spirits too."

If you have a subscription to the Globe and Mail you can read the full article here, the third in a series of three. If you don't have a subscription you have to pay one way or the other.

* * *

Oh dear, I'm more than halfway finished the bottle. I should really stop now, especially if Swee'pea really is getting sick and I won't sleep for a week.

I couldn't stop listening to this song today.

* * *


It snowed a lot last weekend.

* * *

Books I want to read:
Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking
Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones
Stephen King, On Writing
Mark Doty, Heaven's Coast and Firebird

* * *

Last weekend we watched Stephen Fry's documentary about bipolar disorder. It was fascinating. Highly recommended.

* * *

Guess I should wrap those presents now.

Nah, there's still tomorrow night.

Off to fill my glass...

where the flashback fridays are

I bet that Mad is the only one who's wondering where the feminist flashback fridays have gone. I always said I would only write them until I ran out of stories, but the truth is I haven't run out of stories. I've just run out of easy stories. On top of that, I've begun to question my motives for telling the other stories I'd like to and reconsidering the boundary between privacy and silence. And there's the matter of my sister enjoying my blog, which is great but I felt a bit weird when she said she'd been reading about my love life and been impressed by how engaging it was. I worry people (like my sister) will think I'm weird for telling some stories.

On the one hand I'm not sure I'd want Swee'pea to read some of these stories when he's older but on the other, I want it documented that I was once young and stupid and invincible-feeling too. I'm worried I'll be one of those parents who completely forgets what it was like to be young. And my memories are still so vivid right now. I realized at that fancy Christmas dinner I went to, when the parents around the table talked about their kids (between 5 and 10 years old), I always had my own anecdote to relate from the kid's perspective. I felt weird when I realized this, but perhaps that just means I have a lot of stories to tell.

On a third hand, I continue to have this niggling feeling that by NOT writing such stories, I am helping to perpetuate the madonna-whore thing. And finally, I don't like that when I die, these experiences will die too.

My choices and relatively brief promiscuity were deliberate and political as well as a journey. In high school I was a nerd and a late bloomer, respected only for my intellect. In my last year and through university, I'd had enough of being admired or desired for my brain and wanted to be admired for my body. Once I conqured that frontier, an impressive feat as an aggressive Amazon, I settled into confidence in my brain and my body, just as they were. Now I do some of the admiring myself, although mostly it's just acceptance.

So I'm going to write them, but I probably won't publish them.

naughty drawer

Somewhere in my parents' house is a big brown envelope with various threats on the outside to anyone other than me who might open it. I have been looking for this envelope for a couple of years now, with no luck. I'm quite certain there's no way it could have been thrown out, because things rarely get thrown out of my parents' house.

The envelope is puffy with many papers, which I packed up just before university. They came out of a drawer in my bedside table, my naughty drawer. I think I put things in there that would shock my mother if she dared open it. It was a test. I knew if she opened it there would be no way she could keep it to herself. I can picture the drawer pulled open even now. There are the letters, a diary, an empty, partly flattened, bright red cigarette pack, an empty mickey bottle (vodka?), and a half-empty box of condoms that expired before I got the chance or inclination to use them.

I threw out everything but the letters by the time I moved out. I no longer had anything to prove.

I suppose I still have a naughty drawer by my bed. It was a surprisingly short time between needing privacy from my parents and soon from my child. Along with my memories of teenage rebellion I remember poring over my friend's dad's porn mags and feeling some small pride that I could never find a similar collection at my house, and I looked high and low.

What about you? Did you have a naughty drawer when you were a teenager? Do you have one now?

PS -- who is that reading in Br0ckville?!? Please tell me it's not family... (unless you're my sister -- that's ok.)

a winter of discontent

I don't much remember the winter I turned 16. I just remember darkness, a long stretch of darkness like the night of the solstice just lasted the entire winter. I was bored and restless yet apathetic and without energy. I despised myself. I remember thinking about suicide, but not having any interest in the violence of the thing. Instead, I wished for a peaceful death just to come upon me.

The true memories I have from that winter are just a few scenes and I watch them from above, all of them at night. In the first a group of teenagers is as minimally dressed up for Halloween as could still merit candy. We don't know it yet but it's our last year really for trick-or-treating. We are sharing a cigarette under a street light. It was my first time smoking and I was afraid to inhale. But the sense of community and the tang of smoke in my nostrils were irresistible.

Another night, this one colder and in a field covered in snow. Five girls in a circle, a new pipe with a small orange circle is being passed from hand to mouth to hand around the circle. We had a few crazy carpets and had tried sliding down the hill, but the sleds got slowed down by the tall grasses rising out of the snow. It was my birthday, my supposed sweet 16. The orange glow of the pipe kept us warm in the cold, white night.

Another night, and I am taking a break from mucking out the stalls or feeding the horses. The light from the barn spills onto the concrete pad of the barnyard, casting a golden rhombus, as I look out. There are northern lights in the sky, and they are shape-shifting as I watch. I feel like the only person on the planet, and not in a good way.

Eventually, light came back and so did I in the spring. I started driving lessons and a couple of my friends got their licenses and we were finally free. I got my license the following summer. And I began the arduous task of learning to like myself, a task that, as much as I'd prefer otherwise, is never really complete.

reversal

Since my Grinchy McScrooge post, I have found myself, lo and behold, getting into the Christmas spirit. I have been thinking about what holiday traditions I want to build and share with Swee'pea. This year will be our first grown-up Christmas. Until now, we've always gone to my parents' house for Christmas and had a sort of Christmas by proxy. I've never had my own tree since I've never been home at Christmas before, and the stocking thing kind of petered out for the adults. So this year will mark a lot of firsts: first Christmas tree, first time setting out our own stockings on Christmas Eve, first time hosting a Christmas Eve gathering with Sugar D's mom.

This week, Swee'pea's daycare put up their Christmas trees and decorated them, and every night I pick up Swee'pea he points at the tree and says "tdeetdee" with considerable enthusiasm. It's so cute that now I'm exicted about getting a tree and decorating it. Of course, decorating it will be a challenge, since we only have one decoration that my belly dance instructor gave me the Christmas before Swee'pea was born. And get this: totally non-crafty me is considering making some tree decorations with Swee'pea. I don't have the slightest clue where to start with that, so I'll put it out to you guys: any ideas for how to make tree decorations that a two-year-old could help with (I'm looking at YOU, Beck)?

I've also been thinking about stockings. My mom, who is as uncrafty as I am, took a lot longer to accept that fact and made the felt stockings I grew up with herself. Each stocking was edged with pinking shears and has one of our names on them as well as a little Christmasy image, all made of felt. I always liked that those stockings were made with love, with each of us in mind as she cut and sewed. But I know myself well enough to know that if I attempted such a feat, I would probably not finish it for at least a few Christmases. So I bought some. They're not very Christmasy but I love them.



AND, they're all knitted by a women's co-operative in Kenya so I know the makers are receiving a good portion of my dollars. How's that for sweet? (Of course, on the way home I realized that if we have any more children -- and that will be a whole other post soon I think -- we may have a hard time finding matching stockings. Oh well, we'll cross that bridge when it comes I guess.) That co-operative also makes tree decorations and beatiful toques, scarves, and mittens of all sizes.

Not only did I buy stockings, but in wandering around the store looking for them I found all kinds of things I'd love to both receive and give. And I've been thinking about what to give Swee'pea without feeling angsty. I definitely want to keep a limit on our gifts to Swee'pea and as much as possible I want to make sure that they'll last a long time, developmentally, and/or are made fairly locally (that one could be very difficult but I'm willing to try). But I'm feeling way less Scrooge-y.

When I first started thinking about ways to help others during the holiday season, I thought about sponsoring a local family and giving them gifts for the children and food for a holiday feast. But then I realized I'd have to choose between going against my own anti-comsumerism values and forcing them (and other antis as far as toys go) onto another family. So we're not going to do that. We have enough angst trying to make ethical purchases for our own family anyways.

* * *

Walking home with our new stockings in the bag, I thought about Santa and what role I want him to have in our Christmas. When I was a kid, I loved leaving cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for the reindeer, then discovering the carrots gone, the cookie half-eaten and the milk half-drunk in the morning. So I think I'd like to invite Santa to our home and have him fill our stockings and maybe leave one gift for each of us. I hesitate to put that down here, because I just imagine looking back ten years from now and laughing at my silly ideals, the ones that got tossed out the window as soon as Swee'pea turned 3 or 4. I can try though, right?

While downtown, I saw that the city is hosting festivities this weekend, lighting up the trees with live music and horse-drawn trolleys, the same festivities and trolleys that I have rolled my eyes at every year -- until now, when I've suddenly discovered how much Swee'pea enjoys this kind of stuff. What is happening to me?!? I'm even thinking of baking!

Seasonal Angst Disorder Part 1

A week ago we went to the Santa Claus Parade. Before we left I decided to tell Swee'pea about the parade to entice him to let me clothe him appropriately for the sunny but cold weather. Knowing his obsession for all things wheeled, I told him there would be trucks and tractors and big wagons with kids on them, and probably at least one fire truck AND an ambulance. I glossed over Santa, not having really thought about what I want Swee'pea to think about him. He was definitely interested in seeing all the trucks, but we still had to get him dressed while he screamed and flailed. Yay, winter with a two-year-old. Anyways, he was pretty spell-bound for the whole parade, and kept looking down the street whenever there was a gap between floats (which I must say were pretty pathetic, even by G-town's standards) looking for more trucks. It was the trucks that he especially loved, no surprise.

Towards the end, someone was carrying a sign that said, "Simplify your life!" Always on the lookout for ways to simplify my life, I looked closer and read the next line: "Hire an Elf." This confused me and made me think for a moment that perhaps I really have been doing too much Pot(ter). Looking even closer, I saw the fine print talked about a personalized shopping service. For a moment, seduced by the power of suggestion, I thought that might be a good idea, but then I came to, digusted. Buying gifts for loved ones, just for the sake of buying gifts, really feels wrong to me. I mean, if you don't have the time, interest or knowledge to give gifts that are meaningful or particularly desired, why bother?

I've already written about how in my immediate family we no longer give each other gifts and we donate to a charity instead (we still give gifts to the children though), about how I feel like a total scrooge with my disillusionment in gift-giving and ambivalence about Santa and what role I'm comfortable with for the man in red in my child(ren)'s Christmas. And yet, I feel the need to rehash a lot of this.

Go ahead and call me the Grinch but I don't really like getting gifts anymore. Being a packrat by nature and not very hygienically inclined, my house tends to keep filling up with stuff that I just have to keep sorting through and donating or tossing to landfill. Andrea's green family series and the Bloghers ACT: Canada initiative have really got me thinking about how wasteful it is buying new things when you could recycle old things... and, now that Christmas is coming, giving people (or receiving) gifts that they'll never really use or enjoy. I am fortunate and frugal enough to be able to buy myself most of the things I want when I want them so I don't need Christmas gifts, and most Christmases I can't even think of anything that I'd like to receive. On the other hand, I like showing other people my appreciation of and affection for them, and I appreciate when that affection is reciprocated, but I really don't need or want it to be done with material things.

Mad and Jen's monthly Just Posts, now approaching their first anniversary, have also raised my awareness about social justice in a big way. This year, I'm going to try to make all my gift-giving give back (except for Swee'pea and nieces and newphews, which I will discuss later). I'm going to donate in the names of the people I give gifts to. So I've started thinking about what organizations I want to donate to. Last year, my family and I focused on international giving -- we gave to Foster Parents Plan for Christmas Gifts, and (eventually) sponsored a child through Help Lesotho (which we are still doing).

This year, I'd like to give locally as well. On June 15, 2007 our youth shelter closed suddenly. It provided dinner for about 30 kids every night, and had 20 emergency beds. Sadly, the essential services it provided have still not been replaced and the kids who used them still don't have a new shelter space. I discovered through G-town Social Justice that we can donate money towards the new shelter (once they find space and funding) or to providing services in the meantime. The same folks are also collecting toiletries and other essentials for the kids and are driving a Kick the Cold initiative to collect clean warm garments for homeless people here.

Another choice for giving is the Masai Centre for Local, Regional and Global health, an out-patient clinic that provides holistic and compassionate care for people living with HIV/AIDS in Wellington-Dufferin, Grey-Bruce and Waterloo Region. The organization also raises funds for the Tsepong Clinic in Lesotho.

While I am most drawn to using my gift-giving dollars to help people, I also feel it may be appropriate to support an organization in line with my passion for native plant conservation and gardening, so Evergreen is top of my list as well. What I like about Evergreen is its holistic approach: Evergreen funds the creation of native plant gardens at schools, makes urban spaces greener, builds awareness and provides resources for native plant gardening, and supports buy-local initiatives in its Brick Works space. I am also considering the Canadian Wildlife Foundation.

And finally, I want to give to the Stephen Lewis Foundation. It does great work to fight AIDS in Africa, and when you make a donation on behalf of someone else, they give you a nice card to notify them.

All those options make me feel slightly less grinch-like, and I also discovered that I am not alone. Buy Nothing Christmas has lots of ideas to reduce the crazy consumerism of the season that just widens the gap between rich and poor around the world and further damages the environment.

Last year I was able to get away without much thought for how I want Swee'pea to see Christmas and how to let him enjoy the magic and family closeness of the holiday without going all capitalist crazy. This year he's so aware that we've got some decisions to make and traditions to begin. But I'll leave that for another post...