January 25, 2012
Yesterday, I cancelled our land line and our clumsy internet service. We are a cell phone family now. It has surprised me how free and unencumbered this move has made me feel.
I feel untethered. I feel like I did when I was younger and I wanted to travel the world and sleep on the beach and just live. Without all the rules.
It’s kind of cool.
January 24, 2012
I have just finished reading Janelle’s latest blog posts and once again I am proud, impressed and humbled that she would want to do a blog with me. One of the reasons I said I wanted to blog with her was because I wanted to “finish strong”. As I read her post it’s toughest in the middle, I thought that is really what finishing strong is all about. It’s continuing to spend time doing – being in the middle. It might be shovelling my neighbour’s walk, making the morning coffee, driving my grandson to practice when his parents are both at work, or just being available to another person.
It might also be going to Mexico to assist in the construction of classrooms for Indigenous children in small communities in the Baja.
The two classrooms we went to build this year would have been finished without my help. I did saw and measure (sometimes in that order) and drive a few nails, but I received much more than I gave. In the next couple of blogs I want to talk about what I learned.
This year we met Victor, a small man with a very large smile, two young children, a grade two education and the desire for his children to have more. He is the chairman of the Parents Association and exemplifies what it means to make do with what you have, to be gracious when you receive, and to do your part in making good things happen for your community.
At the end of the project we enjoyed a feast prepared by the community. Speeches were made, gratitude expressed and Victor eloquently summed up what had taken place.
Now our children will be able to go to school with dignity.
This year, once again, I learned about dignity in the face of poverty.
*** posted by David
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For more information about the organization with which Mom and Dad partner in their Mexico trips, go to True North Helping Hands.
Dad and I plan on making Tuesdays our day, so I’ll see you back here in a week, when it will be my turn to post on the My Dad and Me segment of the blog. Hmmmm, what should I write about?
January 23, 2012
I am home late from BookClub and the house is dark and quiet. I’m not tired – good food and inspired conversation will do that to a person – and I quietly steal upstairs to brush my teeth and wash my face, and I grab a quilt to take back downstairs to the couch. I walk to the stairs, and a door opens a crack. And one of the most beautiful faces in the world peeks out at me.
Can’t sleep, Buddy?
No. I’m having terrible sleeps all the time. I hate the night.
I walk into his room and smooth the blankets on his top bunk. He climbs back up and sits on the bed, cross-legged in his jammies. Charlotte’s Web is playing on his cd player.
Is something bothering you?
Well … ya … He stumbles over the words he doesn’t really want to say, the fear of which he doesn’t want to admit.
Tell me what you’re thinking.
And out it pours. A rush of words and tears and fears. The flood hits me hard, full in my mother heart. I am drenched with his pain and I ache with the damp of it.
And the sum of it all, the fear he is wrestling hard in the alone dark, is death. Because children die all the time, don’t they? So why not me?
I am at a loss. Because he’s right. Children die all the time. Terrible happens. Even with all the prayers for those hedges of protection, even with the faith.
I think of the book I’d just come from discussing, the echo of it still in my ears. Sarah’s Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay. The story of a ten-year-old Jewish girl caught in the terrible Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup during WWII in France. The story none of us had ever heard before.
I think of the awful truth of the Canadian roundups. The Japanese into camps during the war, the First Nations children into residential schools.
I think of children living on streets, and in dumps, and in orphanages. And I know my boy’s heart. I know the overwhelming, heart-breaking, knee-buckling truth with which he wrestles.
I look into the teary face of my precious ten-year-old boy and I have no words. I have no bright and cheery answer. I nod my head slowly, and I hold his eyes with mine, and I say I know. It’s hard. There are many sad things that happen in the world. And sometimes all we can do is love and trust and hold each other’s hands when we are scared.
I gather him up, all arms and legs and scruffy hair and fast-beating heart. And I pick up his pillow and he takes his quilt, and we go down to the living room together. And we make the living room a living room, with the lights on and the couches cozy and a drink in his hand. And we watch The Fonz and Richie being silly for a while and laugh a little, and then we dim the lights and pray and sink deep into soft blankets.
And sleep comes.
January 21, 2012
This isn’t the post you’re expecting. You’re expecting something sweet and Norman Rockwell-ish, about a mom making a cake or cookies or something, and then letting her children lick the bowl and the spoon and the beaters. With a few pictures of the darlings enjoying the treat, even. And Mom, in her apron, smiling in the background.
Nope, this isn’t that post.
This is the post about the tired momma who sometimes feels a tiny bit under-appreciated and overwhelmed. The weary wife who took to heart an off-the-cuff comment made by her husband. The woman who can let herself feel a tad lonely at times in a house full of men. This is the post about having a long day, of focusing on the negative, of staring at the half-empty glass, of being moody and knowing it and still being it.
This is the post about the mom who made her kids’ favourite Flossie’s Chocolate Sheet Cake … and then licked out the bowl – all by herself.
January 20, 2012
You aren’t designed to work above your head. Your eyes face forward. That means you have to tilt your head back and look up, way up as the Friendly Giant used to say, to see what you are working on. And your shoulders and arms are great for doing the work in front of you, but oh they get tired and sore when they are asked to do the work above you.
Working above your head is no fun. Just ask these guys. And it’s something you can only sustain for a short time. Because you weren’t designed that way.
Working within your design is the most productive, most joy-producing, most satisfying way to work. You can grunt your way through the rest of it, the stuff you weren’t designed to do, and you can even have a good attitude about it because it has to get done.
But whenever possible, as often as possible, do the stuff that fits you. You’ll be happier, and the people around you will be happier.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my like, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Steve Jobs
January 19, 2012
We’re in the middle of our renovation. We started strong, full of energy and excited. But after several days of work and mess and water being turned off and the washing machine not hooked up, we’re a little weary. We’re in the middle of the project and that’s the least exciting place to be.
The middle is where the work happens. It’s the plodding, unexciting, I-just-want-to-be-done-with-this place. It’s the nine-to-five, the halfway point in a long journey, the daily grind. It’s where the squishy, uncomfortable, not-so-fun stuff happens. The monotony.
The middle is the fourth day of scraping the old cement floor in the basement bathroom
Even in the middle, though, there are moments. The finishing of the living/dining room floor. It looks beautiful. The visits during “coffee break”. The fun of seeing the bathroom floor taking shape. The joy of a hot bath after two days of no water. The silliness that comes with monotony and tiredness, like the rule that anyone working in the basement bathroom must speak with a Scottish accent.
In the middle, I think, it’s important to stop for a break now and then. A mini Sabbath. A moment to look up from your work and catch your breath. To pause and sit and gather strength.
And while you’re in the middle, don’t forget to celebrate the small victories along the way.
A few more days of The Middle, I think, and then The End will come rushing at us, like a plane landing or a baby birthing. A final flourish.
But today, well, today is another middle day. Most days are.
Every worthwhile accomplishment, big or little, has its stages of drudgery and triumph; a beginning, a struggle and a victory.
Ghandi
January 16, 2012
After the venison roast and and baked potato wedges and quinoa pudding, we sit and visit and laugh until the kitchen chairs get too hard. We move into the living room, push aside the renovation mess and make a little room to sit. Tyson hands Clint a guitar and we’re off, playing and singing and laughing some more.
It’s beauty in the mess, the sound of music and joy. I look around at the faces of my family and these friends, so beloved, all of them. And I’m grateful.
Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing together for joy …
Psalm 98:8
January 14, 2012
The kids are still in bed but my man has already been up for a while, working on that stinking bathroom renovation in the basement. That’s what we’re calling it now. That stinking bathroom.
No, actually things have been going really well. Renovating takes time and patience and so far we’re doing okay in both of those areas. There have been some challenges along the way but what did we expect, eh? It’s a fallen world we live in, after all.
It has been wonderful, though, to see all of my men working together to get this thing done. Really, it’s been great.
But what, you may ask, is the momma’s job. Well, you know, a little of this and a little of that. Keeping everyone fed and such. But my hardest job, by far, is what I’ve come to call Mess Management. Because change creates a lot of mess.
So, I’m the Mess Manager. I like to think of myself as a kind of fairy godmother, waving my magic wand (vacuum cleaner hose) and magically transforming the sawdusty surfaces in my midst.
And then there are the piles. Stuff that’s been moved from one place to another, to make room for the work. And I step around boxes and dressers and things that are not where they are supposed to be. And I stack and restack, trying to make it all more … manageable.
Yes, it’s a messy business. Most processes are. And living with the mess is not easy. But it’s temporary, and it’s doable, and sometimes it’s even kind of fun. The trick is to stop now and then and see what’s been accomplished. To look at the work that’s been, and the work that will be, and to thank God for this family and this time and this life.
And a hug now and then doesn’t hurt.
January 13, 2012
In the midst of our home renovation, Carter and Michael took time out for a little construction project of their own. ‘Cause you gotta have a little fun. It was a packaged kit that was left over from Christmas, one of those pre-cut gingerbread houses with the candy and icing and everything in the box. So I could just leave them to it.
Interesting to watch the two boys at work. Such different personalities. One approached the project in a serious, read-the-rules-first kind of way. The other took a more throw-it-all-together-and-see-what-happens route. But they managed to work together and get the job done.
And at the end of the day, they shared.
You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.
Jesus – the sermon on the mount
January 12, 2012
It’s busy. Saws buzzing and torches flaming and boys up and down the stairs carrying plywood and drywall and tools. It seems like the mess and the noise are going to take me over, and then I see. His head bent, his hands as in prayer. And the beauty.
Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now …
Jesus – the sermon on the mount
