hi ya!!! How are you all? My apologies for not writing sooner. I seem to go in fits and starts. I'm so T I R E D . . . blah. . . Work today was hard. . i was 'in house' today. . as the hospital-wide computer module i usually tie into was down all day for an upgrade. So, I was filing in the muggy 'corporate storage' dungeon. . I have SO MUCH respect for the girls who do this on a regular basis. It is physical work! Lots of lifting of heavy piles of charts, bending to reach the lowest file banks, pulling out tightly wedged ones and shoving them back in. It was really nice to work with my co workers in person!!!We usually just share a cyber connection - occasionally seeing other at staff meetings and the office brunches. We had a great lunch feast today, courtesy of our boss. So nice. It was equally nice to share a table with everyone! We had one of the private anterooms reserved for us. After lunch I saw my friend Karen's Dominican vac pictures! I saw my friend Peta, who looks like a million bucks despite battling cancer. . she came in to visit us after one of her treatments. Man, today I felt like a troll that was let out from under the bridge! REAL PEOPLE!!!! Working from home is a tough gig. It has its good points. Sure if i wanted to i could sit in my PJs and work like that all day. Yes, its true that I don't fight traffic. On the yuckiest days I'm safe and cosy in my house. No, I don't have to do my hair. Yes, I can sleep till the last minute and then just turn on the computer and 'go to work'. . but it gets lonely really quickly and I REALLY hate that. So it was such a treat to go in today. . I felt so connected.
I danced my *** off tonight!!! POW!! Last evening of the spring session! Monday is our early summer session. I have that song "All She Wants to Do Is Dance" in my head. . and yes, its true -- all i want to do fitness wise anyway is DANCE. . I still can't believe how incredibly enamoured I am with it! All the steps, all the moves. I love the stretching. The mind/body connection is so cool. Dancing isn't just about muscles moving, its about feeling and learning new ways to move yourself in your emotions as well. Remembering the patterns, sequences, keeping count, learning technique, honing it twice a week, every week - it amazes me how it all meshes and synchronizes. The comraderie is unique. Everyone learning and improving together, surprising each other with how we can master even the toughest routines. Going from awkward, tentative beginnings to fluid, precise endings. I will be forever blissfully happy if I can do this for the next ??? years with all my new friends. . what an amazing group of women they are!!! I'm especially excited to be bringing my 2 daughters to the June session!!!! They're really jazzed. . me too!!! I hope that they love it as much as i do?!
Well, its late. . Rob's got a movie still for us to watch. . I'm gonna be up a long time - i may miss some of it?!!! zzzzzzzzzzz. . . . The movie was "New World" with Colin Farrell -- i didn't miss any of it. . really enjoyed it - a bit 'artsy'. . the cinematography was luscious. I didn't catch the credits, so I'm not sure who was responsible for that; superb work.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Dear God,
I want to be open, but i keep closing off.
You must get fed up with me?
I get fed up with me.
Sometimes my heart feels so much - much love for others, sympathy, compassion.
I feel so much love for you, so much awe when i think of and see the evidences of you all around me. . so glorious.
We both know that I hide from you sometimes -
maybe just fearful of what you may ask of me, complete submission to your will
i hide because i misunderstand you,
fearing my loss of control.
Why won't i trust you?
Why?
I know there is no better way. .
yet i find periodically find myself in this hinterland of doubt.
I feel my spirit's potential sometimes - in waves that break over me
still i struggle to surface - afraid of the deep.
Do I have a mental blockage?
Is it my emotional lability?
Physical interference?
I'm so easily waylaid by circumstance,
so easily cooled off
so easily put off.
You are a tenacious one.
I admire you so much
but admiration is not what you want from me
you want it all --
my all.
There have been so many times when I have disbelieved . .
I have not been able to believe that you, GOD are interested in me, kathy.
I've told myself that you don't care overly much,
or i've told myself that I'm not worth much -- a conflicted, complaining bundle of trouble. . .
just one more heart to feed,
one more soul to discipline
one more spirit to resuscitate.
I don't feel worth the trouble. .
People say that because you're God you don't need us,
maybe you don't?
But you do love us. . isn't there need in love?
People say you can't become disillusioned with us, because you don't have illusions - but do you feel disappointment when I miss the obvious over and over and over?
Someone once said to me that you don't have any emotions because you're God and you're above all that. . . I guess they didn't read my Bible - your heart isn't on your sleeve, its in those pages.
People, well they may not always be right, but they're just trying to make sense of it all.
Your love is mysterious, just like everything about you -- your appearance, your 'age', your mind, motives, reasons, your 3-in-1-ness, your power, your Heaven, your judgement. .
I love a good mystery - but i like to be able to figure it out. . . I've given myself a headache when i've tried to 'solve' you.
When I've lulled myself with the surface ways - waded around in the shallows of human existence, i've been all body, emotions, whims and wants - carefully avoiding the call of the deep. . . your voice, your path. . .but you beckon and you instill in me a desire to leave the shallow end and to plunge and be okay with being over my head. I want to be okay, but i'm afraid i'll lose 'me'. . but would i not then be a much improved me? do i trust you?
I want to listen to you.
I'm desperate to dialogue with you - not just whenever i'm seized with the notion, but continually.
I know you're always calling out to me . .you're not the giving up type. . how beautiful can you possibly be? It means the world to me that you won't give up - even though i've given you plenty of what most would consider just cause.
Help me to persistently practice recognizing the sound of your voice.
There's a lot of noise 'out there'.
I often feel like a child with ADHD. . .
I really need you. . back and forth - up and down, its just so tiring. .
You must get fed up with me?
I get fed up with me.
Sometimes my heart feels so much - much love for others, sympathy, compassion.
I feel so much love for you, so much awe when i think of and see the evidences of you all around me. . so glorious.
We both know that I hide from you sometimes -
maybe just fearful of what you may ask of me, complete submission to your will
i hide because i misunderstand you,
fearing my loss of control.
Why won't i trust you?
Why?
I know there is no better way. .
yet i find periodically find myself in this hinterland of doubt.
I feel my spirit's potential sometimes - in waves that break over me
still i struggle to surface - afraid of the deep.
Do I have a mental blockage?
Is it my emotional lability?
Physical interference?
I'm so easily waylaid by circumstance,
so easily cooled off
so easily put off.
You are a tenacious one.
I admire you so much
but admiration is not what you want from me
you want it all --
my all.
There have been so many times when I have disbelieved . .
I have not been able to believe that you, GOD are interested in me, kathy.
I've told myself that you don't care overly much,
or i've told myself that I'm not worth much -- a conflicted, complaining bundle of trouble. . .
just one more heart to feed,
one more soul to discipline
one more spirit to resuscitate.
I don't feel worth the trouble. .
People say that because you're God you don't need us,
maybe you don't?
But you do love us. . isn't there need in love?
People say you can't become disillusioned with us, because you don't have illusions - but do you feel disappointment when I miss the obvious over and over and over?
Someone once said to me that you don't have any emotions because you're God and you're above all that. . . I guess they didn't read my Bible - your heart isn't on your sleeve, its in those pages.
People, well they may not always be right, but they're just trying to make sense of it all.
Your love is mysterious, just like everything about you -- your appearance, your 'age', your mind, motives, reasons, your 3-in-1-ness, your power, your Heaven, your judgement. .
I love a good mystery - but i like to be able to figure it out. . . I've given myself a headache when i've tried to 'solve' you.
When I've lulled myself with the surface ways - waded around in the shallows of human existence, i've been all body, emotions, whims and wants - carefully avoiding the call of the deep. . . your voice, your path. . .but you beckon and you instill in me a desire to leave the shallow end and to plunge and be okay with being over my head. I want to be okay, but i'm afraid i'll lose 'me'. . but would i not then be a much improved me? do i trust you?
I want to listen to you.
I'm desperate to dialogue with you - not just whenever i'm seized with the notion, but continually.
I know you're always calling out to me . .you're not the giving up type. . how beautiful can you possibly be? It means the world to me that you won't give up - even though i've given you plenty of what most would consider just cause.
Help me to persistently practice recognizing the sound of your voice.
There's a lot of noise 'out there'.
I often feel like a child with ADHD. . .
I really need you. . back and forth - up and down, its just so tiring. .
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
craving simple
There's something so beautiful about simplicity.
I especially notice this when things are complicated. Take a day -- you wake up, simple -- then everything after that gets away from you. Depending on what's happening, your day can pick up speed like a runaway train with no brakes!! You almost can't wait to crash, cuz at least then you'll be able to stop!!
Sometimes there are different ways to get crazed, which don't necessarily involve speed so much as feeling like you're covered in superglue and everything is sticking to you and you keep picking up more and more layers as you go along, bogging you down, slowing you down.
Other days its like you have amnesia and you simply forget simple and you make everything 50 x harder than it has to be, frustrating yourself, others and piling more and more 'argh' onto what could have been 'aaaah'. You can suffocate yourself with it and not realize until you can't stop sighing out your tension, or feel those muscles clenching in response to your rising stress levels and it dawns on you that you've let go of easy and swapped it out for difficult.
When I start longing, then i start listening, listening to my common sense, which I admit I sorely neglect sometimes. Do you know what i mean? Like its saying to me "HEY! HEY!!! I'm here. Hello?! Why not keep it simple?" Complexity even seeps into my dreams in the form of anxiety, struggling, frustration. Talk about wake up calls! No pun intended. When my dreams are stressful, i know i've got a problem.
When I start feeling like i've got to daydream of a simple ice cream scooping job in order to be able to live with neverending production deadlines, endless stat requests, pressures to churn out complicated volumes with perfection and accuracy. . i find myself longing to bake cranberry scones and brew tea for wonderful imaginary customers. Sometimes i long to hula hoop with my laughing grandchildren in the green of my backyard in the middle of a work day just because i feel like it! Other times its not even daydreaming, but just finding that I not only long to pare my life down but I need to. Pare down all the stuff that's in my house. Use up all the food in the fridge and not waste or throw it out. Not have 5 bottles of hair products in the shower, but just one. Pare down so that I'm only reading 1 book at a time. Pare it all down -- why do i tend to fill up every night of the week? Why not just have one night without a plan? Why do I need to hang onto things i don't use? Why not pare down my thoughts, so I can cope with the multitude of them and have some peace in my noggin - especially at night when i'm trying to sleep. Multitasking!!!!??? Who says this is a good thing?! Half of society does! Women pride themselves on it. Why?!!! Why be so proud about building on layers of cloying responsibility? Why can't I be like my husband who does one thing, does it well and then moves on?! Simple.
Kids are simple. They aren't sophisticated. They don't strive to be a certain way, they're just themselves. I love that. It doesn't take much to impress them. I love that about them too. They laugh easily. They cry the same way. They smile. They dance as soon as they hear music. Kids speak the truth. I'm on my second 'go around' with little children in my life - grandchildren. I love what they teach me, cuz when my daughters were little i may have learned the same things from them; but it seems that i've forgotten and as they grew and became more sophisticated and adult, i became re-complicated again!! The kiddies make me forget everything . . and i just play or read them a story, throw a blanket over myself and 'wooh' like a ghost or cuddle a spike-haired baby doll in a facecloth 'bunting bag' and plant a kiss on its fabric cheek; all of which delight James and Erica to no end and teach me to relax.
My dog reminds me of simple. Sometimes i envy her!!! All she ever has to do is eat, drink, go for lovely walks, run around in the yard chasing squirrels and chipmunks, sniff fire hydrants, get held like a baby and petted and coochie cooed, lay around all day and all night, get treats, steal food from the kiddies' plates and crawl under our bed to hide when all of this gets to be too much for her. Yes, I'm jealous!!!
Well, its now become the simpler time of day. . ahhhhh. . . gotta breathe that in and store enough up to get me through tomorrow!!!! and the next day and the next. . . I have one word cross-stitched onto fabric, in a wooden frame -- it sits on top of my fridge and speaks to me every day -- i think maybe i need one in every room of my house and in both of my cars. . .
the word is "simplify"
I especially notice this when things are complicated. Take a day -- you wake up, simple -- then everything after that gets away from you. Depending on what's happening, your day can pick up speed like a runaway train with no brakes!! You almost can't wait to crash, cuz at least then you'll be able to stop!!
Sometimes there are different ways to get crazed, which don't necessarily involve speed so much as feeling like you're covered in superglue and everything is sticking to you and you keep picking up more and more layers as you go along, bogging you down, slowing you down.
Other days its like you have amnesia and you simply forget simple and you make everything 50 x harder than it has to be, frustrating yourself, others and piling more and more 'argh' onto what could have been 'aaaah'. You can suffocate yourself with it and not realize until you can't stop sighing out your tension, or feel those muscles clenching in response to your rising stress levels and it dawns on you that you've let go of easy and swapped it out for difficult.
When I start longing, then i start listening, listening to my common sense, which I admit I sorely neglect sometimes. Do you know what i mean? Like its saying to me "HEY! HEY!!! I'm here. Hello?! Why not keep it simple?" Complexity even seeps into my dreams in the form of anxiety, struggling, frustration. Talk about wake up calls! No pun intended. When my dreams are stressful, i know i've got a problem.
When I start feeling like i've got to daydream of a simple ice cream scooping job in order to be able to live with neverending production deadlines, endless stat requests, pressures to churn out complicated volumes with perfection and accuracy. . i find myself longing to bake cranberry scones and brew tea for wonderful imaginary customers. Sometimes i long to hula hoop with my laughing grandchildren in the green of my backyard in the middle of a work day just because i feel like it! Other times its not even daydreaming, but just finding that I not only long to pare my life down but I need to. Pare down all the stuff that's in my house. Use up all the food in the fridge and not waste or throw it out. Not have 5 bottles of hair products in the shower, but just one. Pare down so that I'm only reading 1 book at a time. Pare it all down -- why do i tend to fill up every night of the week? Why not just have one night without a plan? Why do I need to hang onto things i don't use? Why not pare down my thoughts, so I can cope with the multitude of them and have some peace in my noggin - especially at night when i'm trying to sleep. Multitasking!!!!??? Who says this is a good thing?! Half of society does! Women pride themselves on it. Why?!!! Why be so proud about building on layers of cloying responsibility? Why can't I be like my husband who does one thing, does it well and then moves on?! Simple.
Kids are simple. They aren't sophisticated. They don't strive to be a certain way, they're just themselves. I love that. It doesn't take much to impress them. I love that about them too. They laugh easily. They cry the same way. They smile. They dance as soon as they hear music. Kids speak the truth. I'm on my second 'go around' with little children in my life - grandchildren. I love what they teach me, cuz when my daughters were little i may have learned the same things from them; but it seems that i've forgotten and as they grew and became more sophisticated and adult, i became re-complicated again!! The kiddies make me forget everything . . and i just play or read them a story, throw a blanket over myself and 'wooh' like a ghost or cuddle a spike-haired baby doll in a facecloth 'bunting bag' and plant a kiss on its fabric cheek; all of which delight James and Erica to no end and teach me to relax.
My dog reminds me of simple. Sometimes i envy her!!! All she ever has to do is eat, drink, go for lovely walks, run around in the yard chasing squirrels and chipmunks, sniff fire hydrants, get held like a baby and petted and coochie cooed, lay around all day and all night, get treats, steal food from the kiddies' plates and crawl under our bed to hide when all of this gets to be too much for her. Yes, I'm jealous!!!
Well, its now become the simpler time of day. . ahhhhh. . . gotta breathe that in and store enough up to get me through tomorrow!!!! and the next day and the next. . . I have one word cross-stitched onto fabric, in a wooden frame -- it sits on top of my fridge and speaks to me every day -- i think maybe i need one in every room of my house and in both of my cars. . .
the word is "simplify"
Saturday, May 06, 2006
1/4 century
This is me and Robbie. . its a picture from last year, but I don't have a non-Mexico couple picture of us this year!!! I think we look pretty much the same?!
On Tuesday past we celebrated our 25th anniversary. It was a work day, so not too thrilling. . but we went to the Keg. . and had a great dinner. Even nicer was a discount on our bill and a free anniversary piece of ice cream cake *with a sparkler!!* The manager is a friend of our daughter's b/f, Joel.
We kept saying to each other: "Can you believe we've been married 25 years?!!!"
We did some reminiscing. It was pretty low key. After our vacation, this was just a date! That was really the special thing. . our second honeymoon!! awwww!
Wow, can you tell I'm tired? I'm gonna sign off now.
Just thought I'd share our special occasion with you!
Monday, May 01, 2006
ever feel. . .
Do you ever feel like this world is full of people going around just looking for others whom they can trust with their stories? their experiences? I feel like this. I think everyone walks around like this, testing others, gauging from their reactions and responses whether or not they will go beyond greetings and talk about more than sports or weather to begin to build some kind of framework of trust and security, where their real selves would risk making an appearance. I think people want others to have time for them, to make time for them. I think people want others who will look at them and see them and love them. I struggle -- do you? i struggle on both ends of it. . . i get wrapped up, involved, i'm busy, unavailable. . . others are the same way. . always running on parallel courses, never intersecting - or crossing for the briefest of times in sadly superficial ways. Do you know what I mean?
Sometimes i'm not busy, i'm undone, afraid to be involved, strangely fragile for such a tough dame - and I'm guessing that everyone else has their own moments too. I don't usually confess this to anyone but my best friend/husband. He knows me and i know him. This is somehow easy, I guess because it feels so anonymous.
Its so easy to see buildings and work at jobs and drive in vehicles and purchase items and pursue goals and dream dreams, but its similarly easy to let relationships become overlooked and undernurtured, like a beautiful garden gone to seed, dry, neglected and wilted. Its even easier not to plant at all. Isn't that just so true?
Then you can expand your thoughts outside your own circles to consider that there are many circles besides your own. It feels like I'm more often colliding with people than relating, it really does. . like we're all just kind of ricocheting off each other. . sometimes these collisions will leave a bruise, other times barely a scratch, maybe fleetingly pleasant, maybe not. . It feels weird - even this feels weird. . as somehow it passes for conversation, though its just a solitary picture with me in the dark at my computer and you reading my cooled off words. .
Do you ever feel when you drive around or walk around and see people, people everywhere and you wonder: "What's their story? What have they been through?" I'm sometimes acutely aware of living in a city with house after house after building after building full of people, people and more people and I wonder how they're feeling, does someone listen to them? does someone love them? are they angry? do they feel alone? Did someone abandon them?
I don't even know why these thoughts are in my head now. . maybe they just are and that's good enough reason. Sometimes i write stuff in this blog, pour it out of my heart, then delete it all. Do you ever do that? I do that when i comment on others' blogs - i think i'll put it out there, then I get scared and make it go away. I hope that I can understand how important it is for me to be someone worthy of trust and someone loving enough who will care to listen to the things that other people say, and even more to the things they might not.
Sometimes i'm not busy, i'm undone, afraid to be involved, strangely fragile for such a tough dame - and I'm guessing that everyone else has their own moments too. I don't usually confess this to anyone but my best friend/husband. He knows me and i know him. This is somehow easy, I guess because it feels so anonymous.
Its so easy to see buildings and work at jobs and drive in vehicles and purchase items and pursue goals and dream dreams, but its similarly easy to let relationships become overlooked and undernurtured, like a beautiful garden gone to seed, dry, neglected and wilted. Its even easier not to plant at all. Isn't that just so true?
Then you can expand your thoughts outside your own circles to consider that there are many circles besides your own. It feels like I'm more often colliding with people than relating, it really does. . like we're all just kind of ricocheting off each other. . sometimes these collisions will leave a bruise, other times barely a scratch, maybe fleetingly pleasant, maybe not. . It feels weird - even this feels weird. . as somehow it passes for conversation, though its just a solitary picture with me in the dark at my computer and you reading my cooled off words. .
Do you ever feel when you drive around or walk around and see people, people everywhere and you wonder: "What's their story? What have they been through?" I'm sometimes acutely aware of living in a city with house after house after building after building full of people, people and more people and I wonder how they're feeling, does someone listen to them? does someone love them? are they angry? do they feel alone? Did someone abandon them?
I don't even know why these thoughts are in my head now. . maybe they just are and that's good enough reason. Sometimes i write stuff in this blog, pour it out of my heart, then delete it all. Do you ever do that? I do that when i comment on others' blogs - i think i'll put it out there, then I get scared and make it go away. I hope that I can understand how important it is for me to be someone worthy of trust and someone loving enough who will care to listen to the things that other people say, and even more to the things they might not.
Saturday, April 29, 2006
joyous feeling - you know? LIFE!
What's not to love about a day that begins with sleeping in?!!! I'm of two minds when it comes to sleeping in. . . my first mind nags like this: "Oh, what a waste of time! Think of all the things you could have done." My second mind thinks like this: "AHHHHH! That was great!!! No work, no 'should' or 'have to' just 'want to'! Freedom!!" So, guess which mind won the battle this a.m.??? You guessed it. . . mind #2!!!!! WOOOH!
Do you have those days where you feel just generally glad about things? I had one today. . it was so releasing, i felt released from the work grind, i felt released from the structure of the Monday - Friday routine. Saturdays, for me, always feel so promising - hours of time to walk, read, visit the market, shop, get things done around the house, see my grandchildren, my daughters, spend more time with Rob, see a movie, cook the way i like to when i have time, bake the same way, travel around the region. I don't always get all those things done in one Saturday, but I appreciate the chance to pack as much as possible in!!!Spring has got me itching to change things around. . i have so many ideas, its time to get to work on them. We have our anniversary coming up May 2. . married for 25 years - neither one of us can believe it. . together now for a total of 29 years. Great years.. absolutely great!
Today was a belated birthday celebration for Mom, who's been so busy, this was the first chance we had to mark her special day! I planned the menu earlier in the week. . roast beef, yorkshire pudding, gravy, steamed broccoli, corn, mashed potatoes. Rob shopped for the food today while I got started on the desserts, which are always done first. . Carrot cake cupcakes - made with fresh ginger, real maple syrup, pineapple and spices, cream cheese icing, topped with fresh strawberry slices -- chocolate-topped coconut/condensed milk squares and fresh strawberries. . I had a blast!!! I love any chance to get busy in the kitchen -- its one of my favourite ways to be good to those I love.
We had a great meal together, after which we enjoyed a trip to the park - the kids slid and ran around and swung and saw the deer and the birds, the ducks and geese. Lindsay and the kids went on their way home. KK, Rob, Mom and i enjoyed a drive in the country - saw the cows and horses, even a couple of wild turkeys!! took a rollercoastery side road and screamed like we were on a ride at Wonderland!! Capped the trip off with a stop at Timmie's for drinks, then dropped Mom off and headed home. Rob and I went for a walk, then watched CSI taped from Thursday!!! and THEN saw "Tristan and Isolde". .
Its late now, i'm gonna close. Rob's playing guitar downstairs, I love when he does that. . I love living in a music house. . what's not to love about staying up till 2 a.m.?! squeeze every bit outta the one day and bite into the next one! heh heh. . . I'm an incurable nighthawk. I may just sleep in this morning. .
Do you have those days where you feel just generally glad about things? I had one today. . it was so releasing, i felt released from the work grind, i felt released from the structure of the Monday - Friday routine. Saturdays, for me, always feel so promising - hours of time to walk, read, visit the market, shop, get things done around the house, see my grandchildren, my daughters, spend more time with Rob, see a movie, cook the way i like to when i have time, bake the same way, travel around the region. I don't always get all those things done in one Saturday, but I appreciate the chance to pack as much as possible in!!!Spring has got me itching to change things around. . i have so many ideas, its time to get to work on them. We have our anniversary coming up May 2. . married for 25 years - neither one of us can believe it. . together now for a total of 29 years. Great years.. absolutely great!
Today was a belated birthday celebration for Mom, who's been so busy, this was the first chance we had to mark her special day! I planned the menu earlier in the week. . roast beef, yorkshire pudding, gravy, steamed broccoli, corn, mashed potatoes. Rob shopped for the food today while I got started on the desserts, which are always done first. . Carrot cake cupcakes - made with fresh ginger, real maple syrup, pineapple and spices, cream cheese icing, topped with fresh strawberry slices -- chocolate-topped coconut/condensed milk squares and fresh strawberries. . I had a blast!!! I love any chance to get busy in the kitchen -- its one of my favourite ways to be good to those I love.
We had a great meal together, after which we enjoyed a trip to the park - the kids slid and ran around and swung and saw the deer and the birds, the ducks and geese. Lindsay and the kids went on their way home. KK, Rob, Mom and i enjoyed a drive in the country - saw the cows and horses, even a couple of wild turkeys!! took a rollercoastery side road and screamed like we were on a ride at Wonderland!! Capped the trip off with a stop at Timmie's for drinks, then dropped Mom off and headed home. Rob and I went for a walk, then watched CSI taped from Thursday!!! and THEN saw "Tristan and Isolde". .
Its late now, i'm gonna close. Rob's playing guitar downstairs, I love when he does that. . I love living in a music house. . what's not to love about staying up till 2 a.m.?! squeeze every bit outta the one day and bite into the next one! heh heh. . . I'm an incurable nighthawk. I may just sleep in this morning. .
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
spring
winter surrenders
the sleeping, barren earth shows her hidden life
and i feel joy
faded brown gives way to vivid green
ice recedes from loamy soil
warm air blows through budding branches
Resurrection's in the air, in the sun,
perfumed rain soaks the ground
The world throbs with life and the promise of plenty
Elemental symphony -- birds sing ancient mysteries.
earth echoes their song. . my heart sings along.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
as promised -- cenote!!!!
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If you click on this top link, you will see the jade green water of the open air cenote just past the Temple of Venus.
Okay, now this was the cenote in which we jumped and swam! -- notice the vines, the spots of filtered sunlight shining on the water's surface. From the midway point on the steps down, you could see the dark silhouettes of the catfish circling around -. The water was extremely refreshing after that stifling heat! You see the divers here standing on the steps. We were told that it was 150 feet deep!!! I can't even guess how wide. . it seemed huge, though these pictures don't really convey that.
Rob and I climbed the steps, looked down at the water below -- i was so scared -- we counted 1. . . . "I can't do it!!!" said me. 2. . . . .. . "AHHHH!!! i don't think i can!" 3!!!!! I jumped and my heart rose up in my throat, i screamed all the way down -- until i splashed down and way under, water shooting up my nose. . and into my ears!!! Rob stayed up above laughing at me!!!!!
I lolled about, swimming mostly around the middle, cuz for some reason i felt safe there?! Rob and I at one point were laying on our backs, looking up at people WWWAYYY up there, looking down at us! Then we just hung out and treaded water. . at which point he said: "Try opening your eyes underwater. I can't see a thing. . its completely black!" This freaked me out just a bit. . the fact that i was essentially swimming in a graveyard, and God knows what else they chucked in there over the centures?! Not to mention the thought of fish and assorted other ugly, squirmy creatures. . I just wanted to stay as much on the surface as possible!!!
By the end of our session he had taken the plunge 5 times and me three. . I can't even describe the peace, swimming around on that deep blue surface. . If you floated on your back and looked up you see vines hanging like curtains from way up above!!! If you looked up you saw this yawning gap of sky, rimmed by mossy earth at the top-most part of the cave, from which the vines dangle. . and from which water drips and showers you as you move underneath it.
I think it was one of the most amazing things I'd ever done!!! WAY better than our ocean jet skiing the next day which was NOT something i would ever try again. Maybe a nice, calm lake yes. . but it was a choppy sea the day we were out. . I know that there were sharks and other grossities out in the open water and that FREAKED ME OUT! We were just slamming on the waves and every time we cut across a wave we went up and then of course slammed down. .so it went like this: VRRRRROOOM!!! cut through the wave "AHHHH!!!!" slam down. . . "AAAAH!" I just screamed the whole time. . It was such a small craft to be out in the open ocean. . i felt too vulnerable and was frightened to death of falling off the back of the thing!!! Rob took me back to the beach and he went out by himself!! I think he was glad to dump me off!!!
Yes, the cenote was the aquatic highlight for me. . we tried kayaking too, but its tricky with those waves. . cenote! cenote!!! I would DEFINITELY take the leap again!!!
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Kukulcan's temple -- Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza, Mexico.
Me and Robbie are dwarfed by this amazing marvel of ancient Mayan engineering.
The 2 hour-trip away from the Caribbean Sea, into miles of scrub and naked, tangled trees and bone-dry land, what a shock to the system. The climate controlled bus came to a stop and we spilled out into this OVEN of a place that is Chichen Itza. . A bottle of cold water was issued to each person on leaving and again on re-entering the bus. Our guide, Jose Luis, warned of the dangers of dehydration.They were NOT kidding ! After only about 20 minutes or so i began to feel the effects of the sun (even with my hat and sunglasses and sunblock). After an hour my legs were rubber and I was starting to feel like i was gonna fall down! Rob offered me some of his water, which by that point had become hot in the bottle. . not warm -- HOT! We found a place to buy some nice, cold water. . $200 pesos or so. . just a few dollars. I don't think I have ever appreciated water as much as I did that bottle of "Crystal".
Extreme heat aside. . we were entranced with these ruins and we listened to descriptions of their mathematically-adept architects. What an education!! To be honest I had never really thought much about Mayan history - it just never came up in conversation where i live! They were the creators of a numerical system that ultimately became the binary system used in modern computing. . these ppl lived by the stars, marked equinoxes and solstices with great, stone monuments, using precision and skill that baffles 21st century scientists. They took powerful hallucinogens and took 'vision quests' into outer space, said our proudly Mayan guide, Jose #2. Upon coming back down to 'earth', they would use the knowledge they gathered to erect their observatories and their pyramids within pyramids (similar large pyramids in Teotihuacan contained 7 pyramids in 1 - to pay homage to the constellation "The 7 Sisters"). Here's a bit of coolness for you. . . the rubber trees here exude a stretchy, white sap that was mixed with herbs to make ancient 'chewing gum' called (in Mayan) "Chi Clet" "Chi" = mouth "Clet" = chew. .
Chiclets!!!
We had the guided tour, then we were allowed to go "Indiana Jones". . explore on our own. Our guides kept repeating "7186 - The Good Guys". . it was the bus number and our tour's 'Code Name'!!! (with so many tour buses, you did NOT want to get on the wrong one!!!) Unbelievably, I STILL remember this!!! Great brainwashing job, eh?!! With 12 square miles of Chichen Itza to explore and not very much time in which to do it, we chose to take a right past the Observatory and the remains of The Temple of Venus. . and headed to see a jade-green 'cenote' (senotay). These giant meteor craters are fed by underground rivers and were used for ritual sacrifices in which bones of the deceased (males and infants) sacred objects and other items would be cast into the watery pit. I'd like to post another picture here for you. . but I don't know how to post more than 1 at a time!!! GAH!!! I will put one up in a separate post. . and I'll show you a picture of the one that we were later privileged to jump into and swim around in!!!
The sheer size of this settlement was just one of those things you have to see with you own eyes to believe! We also toured the "Templo de los Guerreros" (Temple of the Warriors). What a fierce structure this was. . with its thousands of stone poles, each paying tribute to a man of legendary strength and battle skill *more than just a little phallic!!!* MEN!!!!! We were left breathless as we walked the pathway that suddenly opened onto this 3 football field-sized expanse of land on which sat the jewel in the crown, Kukulcan's temple!! flanked by many other grand ghostly structures, which even in their 'ruined' state, catch your breath and leave you with few words. If you scratch away the thin, yellowed grass with your foot, you uncover interlocking paving stones as far as you can see. Amazing. . how painstaking to place them. .they were completely level.
Something that we found extremely disturbing, and against which we were warned by our guides, was the presence of hundreds of peddlars. They were apparently illegally there, everywhere among the ruins. You quickly felt hassled. They would come up to you and hold stuff up in your face, tell you how many pesos, how many dollars. So many of them. . with so many fake pyramids, hats, panflutes, jaguars, masks, mirrors. Everywhere you walked someone was trying to get you to buy a statue, "One dollah!" they would cry out. "Three for 10 Dollah!" Young men waved marble and quartz carvings and yelled out "You like? Good deal! Come on!" Old men sat under the shady trees and carved pieces of wood. The flood of tourists passed the squatters, but despite advisement against encouraging these vendors - many ppl bought from them. Old women waved white embroidered handkerchiefs, their wizened faces and tired eyes made me incredibly sad. Dirty-faced young children with their chins tilted down, would look up at you with big brown eyes. I just could not believe the desperation that seemed to have gripped every one of them. This was their bread and butter -- squatting illegally in a government-protected heritage site and hoping the tourists would give them a few bucks. The way i was feeling as we walked through this tunnel of vendors to the cenote. . i was annoyed, like you might feel if bugs are constantly hovering around you and you can't get away from them. I felt faint from the baking heat and worst of all I felt so upset by the poverty i was seeing. I wanted to say to them "I don't want to buy that stupid stuff. .how can i really help you?" Its impossible to make such offers when you're only there for a couple of hours. We did buy a photo folio from a thin, white-haired Mayan man. . the proceeds of which went to support the "Investigacion Y Conservacion De La Cultura Maya".
Time had come to head back to the bus, back past all those desperate people, back past all the merchandise-covered tarps spread on the dusty ground. .back past all those eyes, past all the yells. . we finally caved and bought a double panflute. . most likely got ripped off. . but when i look at it now, i think of the young man who sold it to us and i think of the village that we passed on our way to lunch and our cenote swim. This place was so, so full of tiny little stuccoed homes. . surrounded by scrub and dust. .skinny dogs trotted in backyards littered with discarded tricycles, jalopy trucks, empty Corona beer bottles. I thought of my neighbourhood back home and I felt so unbelievably odd gazing upon this bareness. . sitting in that expensive bus, wearing new clothes, money in my wallet, being shuttled around in comfort, fed a buffet, given the sight of a lifetime at Chichen Itza, taken to swim in a wondrous meteor crater, even watched a movie on the way. It was unsettling. But as Rob reminded me, this is what their 'economy' thrives on -- tourism.
We had taken plenty of pictures, we were tired and awed and grateful and unsettled. The bus shuddered through a series of small villages on our way home, picking up speed once on the highway. . leaving Yucatan, heading back into Quintana Roo (Kintanna Roh) leaving the poverty and the dust and endless acres of ugly trees. . ever closer to that gorgeous ocean and our beautiful resort. . This was the day of the Presidential and Prime Ministerial meetings in Cancun. . armed guards stood miles outside of the city. . choppers hugged the shorelines. . grey battle ships dotted the water, divers worked along the coast. Traffic snarled. . our stomachs growled. We were dropped off at the front doors of our beautiful temporary home - we thanked the 2 Joses and Mr. Angel the driver. . 7186 "The Good Guys"!!! we tipped them and headed up to our room to fall down on the bed for a rest. What a strange privilege was ours. . absolutely unforgettable.
Me and Robbie are dwarfed by this amazing marvel of ancient Mayan engineering.
The 2 hour-trip away from the Caribbean Sea, into miles of scrub and naked, tangled trees and bone-dry land, what a shock to the system. The climate controlled bus came to a stop and we spilled out into this OVEN of a place that is Chichen Itza. . A bottle of cold water was issued to each person on leaving and again on re-entering the bus. Our guide, Jose Luis, warned of the dangers of dehydration.They were NOT kidding ! After only about 20 minutes or so i began to feel the effects of the sun (even with my hat and sunglasses and sunblock). After an hour my legs were rubber and I was starting to feel like i was gonna fall down! Rob offered me some of his water, which by that point had become hot in the bottle. . not warm -- HOT! We found a place to buy some nice, cold water. . $200 pesos or so. . just a few dollars. I don't think I have ever appreciated water as much as I did that bottle of "Crystal".
Extreme heat aside. . we were entranced with these ruins and we listened to descriptions of their mathematically-adept architects. What an education!! To be honest I had never really thought much about Mayan history - it just never came up in conversation where i live! They were the creators of a numerical system that ultimately became the binary system used in modern computing. . these ppl lived by the stars, marked equinoxes and solstices with great, stone monuments, using precision and skill that baffles 21st century scientists. They took powerful hallucinogens and took 'vision quests' into outer space, said our proudly Mayan guide, Jose #2. Upon coming back down to 'earth', they would use the knowledge they gathered to erect their observatories and their pyramids within pyramids (similar large pyramids in Teotihuacan contained 7 pyramids in 1 - to pay homage to the constellation "The 7 Sisters"). Here's a bit of coolness for you. . . the rubber trees here exude a stretchy, white sap that was mixed with herbs to make ancient 'chewing gum' called (in Mayan) "Chi Clet" "Chi" = mouth "Clet" = chew. .
Chiclets!!!
We had the guided tour, then we were allowed to go "Indiana Jones". . explore on our own. Our guides kept repeating "7186 - The Good Guys". . it was the bus number and our tour's 'Code Name'!!! (with so many tour buses, you did NOT want to get on the wrong one!!!) Unbelievably, I STILL remember this!!! Great brainwashing job, eh?!! With 12 square miles of Chichen Itza to explore and not very much time in which to do it, we chose to take a right past the Observatory and the remains of The Temple of Venus. . and headed to see a jade-green 'cenote' (senotay). These giant meteor craters are fed by underground rivers and were used for ritual sacrifices in which bones of the deceased (males and infants) sacred objects and other items would be cast into the watery pit. I'd like to post another picture here for you. . but I don't know how to post more than 1 at a time!!! GAH!!! I will put one up in a separate post. . and I'll show you a picture of the one that we were later privileged to jump into and swim around in!!!
The sheer size of this settlement was just one of those things you have to see with you own eyes to believe! We also toured the "Templo de los Guerreros" (Temple of the Warriors). What a fierce structure this was. . with its thousands of stone poles, each paying tribute to a man of legendary strength and battle skill *more than just a little phallic!!!* MEN!!!!! We were left breathless as we walked the pathway that suddenly opened onto this 3 football field-sized expanse of land on which sat the jewel in the crown, Kukulcan's temple!! flanked by many other grand ghostly structures, which even in their 'ruined' state, catch your breath and leave you with few words. If you scratch away the thin, yellowed grass with your foot, you uncover interlocking paving stones as far as you can see. Amazing. . how painstaking to place them. .they were completely level.
Something that we found extremely disturbing, and against which we were warned by our guides, was the presence of hundreds of peddlars. They were apparently illegally there, everywhere among the ruins. You quickly felt hassled. They would come up to you and hold stuff up in your face, tell you how many pesos, how many dollars. So many of them. . with so many fake pyramids, hats, panflutes, jaguars, masks, mirrors. Everywhere you walked someone was trying to get you to buy a statue, "One dollah!" they would cry out. "Three for 10 Dollah!" Young men waved marble and quartz carvings and yelled out "You like? Good deal! Come on!" Old men sat under the shady trees and carved pieces of wood. The flood of tourists passed the squatters, but despite advisement against encouraging these vendors - many ppl bought from them. Old women waved white embroidered handkerchiefs, their wizened faces and tired eyes made me incredibly sad. Dirty-faced young children with their chins tilted down, would look up at you with big brown eyes. I just could not believe the desperation that seemed to have gripped every one of them. This was their bread and butter -- squatting illegally in a government-protected heritage site and hoping the tourists would give them a few bucks. The way i was feeling as we walked through this tunnel of vendors to the cenote. . i was annoyed, like you might feel if bugs are constantly hovering around you and you can't get away from them. I felt faint from the baking heat and worst of all I felt so upset by the poverty i was seeing. I wanted to say to them "I don't want to buy that stupid stuff. .how can i really help you?" Its impossible to make such offers when you're only there for a couple of hours. We did buy a photo folio from a thin, white-haired Mayan man. . the proceeds of which went to support the "Investigacion Y Conservacion De La Cultura Maya".
Time had come to head back to the bus, back past all those desperate people, back past all the merchandise-covered tarps spread on the dusty ground. .back past all those eyes, past all the yells. . we finally caved and bought a double panflute. . most likely got ripped off. . but when i look at it now, i think of the young man who sold it to us and i think of the village that we passed on our way to lunch and our cenote swim. This place was so, so full of tiny little stuccoed homes. . surrounded by scrub and dust. .skinny dogs trotted in backyards littered with discarded tricycles, jalopy trucks, empty Corona beer bottles. I thought of my neighbourhood back home and I felt so unbelievably odd gazing upon this bareness. . sitting in that expensive bus, wearing new clothes, money in my wallet, being shuttled around in comfort, fed a buffet, given the sight of a lifetime at Chichen Itza, taken to swim in a wondrous meteor crater, even watched a movie on the way. It was unsettling. But as Rob reminded me, this is what their 'economy' thrives on -- tourism.
We had taken plenty of pictures, we were tired and awed and grateful and unsettled. The bus shuddered through a series of small villages on our way home, picking up speed once on the highway. . leaving Yucatan, heading back into Quintana Roo (Kintanna Roh) leaving the poverty and the dust and endless acres of ugly trees. . ever closer to that gorgeous ocean and our beautiful resort. . This was the day of the Presidential and Prime Ministerial meetings in Cancun. . armed guards stood miles outside of the city. . choppers hugged the shorelines. . grey battle ships dotted the water, divers worked along the coast. Traffic snarled. . our stomachs growled. We were dropped off at the front doors of our beautiful temporary home - we thanked the 2 Joses and Mr. Angel the driver. . 7186 "The Good Guys"!!! we tipped them and headed up to our room to fall down on the bed for a rest. What a strange privilege was ours. . absolutely unforgettable.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
over my head
i've been having dreams the past several nights in which i'm over my head in water.
Ordinarily this is a great thing, because i love water. I even like to think that it took so long for me to be born because I didn't want to come out of the water!
These dreams have been different than having a beautiful swim in a placid lake, or peaceful pool. The waters of my dreams have been raging, surging, wild and uncontrolled. I have either fallen into them and been swept away with the flow, going under and dragging myself up, sputtering and gasping. . or i have been dragged over the edge of a thundering cataract and plunged screaming, thousands of feet down the roaring sheet of water.
I seem to have these thematic dreams -- climbing impossible heights, frightened to death of falling, or i've been hopelessly lost on a journey and unable to get my bearings. . now with being submerged and surrendered to a journey not of my choosing, having to go where the waves take me. I think there's a leather couch in a nearby office with my name on it!!!
So, its Easter Sunday morning - very early. . i should be in bed asleep! My thoughts are churning as much as the water in my dreams, keeping me awake. I've been trying to pray but i'm too antsy. . . i had to write this. Maybe this is a way to pray? think things through, sort stuff out.
Aside from the whole spring renewal, baby chicks, easter bunny, eggs both real and candy, lamb with mint sauce, buns with crosses, ham dinner, new clothes, going to church stuff, this year I'm really trying to ask myself "What is all this stuff that we do?"
When I was a kid it was all about the excitement of the Easter Bunny hiding all those sugary goodies. The anticipation of the hunt, the pastel-coloured, woven treat-holding baskets, the gorging on chocolate, marshmallow and jelly beans! Kid heaven!!! It was also the new Easter dress, hat, white gloves, white patent leather shoes to wear to church, where I heard words like sin, Jesus, cross, mercy, grave, risen, Redeemer, forgiveness, salvation, everlasting life. I was familiar with these words, i knew the sound of them, but I'm afraid that they took a back seat to Laura Secord cream eggs and my newest spring outfit. The purple words were all way over my head.
Fast forward through the decades. . i played Easter Bunny to my own kids, dyed eggs with food colouring, bought those baskets, the girlie outfits, hid the candy eggs, decorated the house with spring flowers, toasted hot cross buns for breakfast, dressed the girls and went to church.
Now I've lived enough to know more than the sound of those words, but I've become familiar with how they feel to me. My feelings however go up and down like the thermometer during the transition between seasons. But the purple words don't take a back seat to the former things, or do they? The money I've spent this week on food for 'the feast', the money I plunked down at the hand-made chocolate shop, the fresh cut flowers, the potted lily, the little gifts for the grandkids, the menu planning. I wonder, have I gotten it yet? I'm middle aged for crying in the sink! but I sometimes I don't really think its sunk in?
I went to a nearby church on "Good Friday". . . a day that can hardly be called 'good', but maybe "Good Came From That Friday"? I had taken Thursday off in order to run around and get 'stuff' for the big event -- so it was quite a gearing down the next morning when I entered a darkened, hushed room with all its candle-lit 'stations'. I sat in quietness with other strangers as i moved from one display to the next. I began by staring at 30 pieces of silver - coins spilled out on a cloth-lined table. I thought of betrayal . I thought of my own fickleness. Next I touched some rough, splintered pieces of wood and winced as i thought of how it felt to lie against that wood. I held cold metal spikes in my hand and hefted a mallet. I thought of how much it hurt if a tiny needle entered my skin, couldn't imagine this spike. I ate a piece of bread and took a sip of grape juice - thought of his body, broken for us and his blood shed. I took some strips of muslin fabric in my hands and rubbed them together - grave clothes - i smelled the myrrh, put some in the palm of my hand. Pictured 75 pounds of this used to embalm his body. . this was the amount used for a royal burial in those days -- how ironic after his criminal's death.
When I sat at each station and thought about all these parts of his whole death process, I began to feel the weight of the purple words becoming a reality and felt them overshadow my trip to the chocolate shop and felt them dwarf the grocery run and eclipse the balloons and the stuffed toy rabbits -- as i thought of such merciful, selfless bravery and hard core compassion -- i felt once more over my head. I came to a torn curtain, hanging between flood-lit pillars and i tried to imagine the sound of the ripping of that heavy temple curtain that separated the 'holy of holies' from the common area -- i thought of what this meant. . no more separation between God and us. Last, I came to a small cross, draped in scarlet cloth, from which hung a crown of thorns --at the base of which lay a crossbeam, a bucket of small nails, black pieces of paper, pencils and a hammer. This was my cross. I was invited to write down something I felt that I was willing to surrender, then lay it on the wood and pound it in. I sat there for a while. What could i possibly write on that black piece of paper? And if i DID write down something, would i really be honest about it? I thought of wanting to be real and feel something more about Easter than all that stuff we've all made it into. I thought of those purple words that have always been in my head, but did they really make the journey down to my heart yet? Sometimes i think they have, but then other times I worry that I don't have the slightest clue how heavily beautiful they are and I don't understand them. I sat some more. At last I got up and took a pencil in hand, knelt by the bucket of nails, wrote "myself" on the paper and nailed it to the 'cross' in 3 strikes of the hammer. Its not that I thought of me hanging on a cross, but rather of me being willing to symbolically promise my everything to the one would did not hesitate to literally give his everything for me. Once more I felt over my head - but isn't that really what i wanted? Real? not candy? not flowers or baked goods? not buying things? not stuffed toys? not even church attendance or Bible verses? but me flooded over by the reality of his depth of mercy?
I used to belong to a beautiful choir. We sang this song, or rather 'they' sang it, because I don't think I ever sang a note . It always made me cry. . .the haunting tune ebbing and flowing like ocean swells, the words cut me down. I cried for my badness and for his goodness that swallowed it up:
Depth of mercy can there be? Mercy still reserved for me?
Can my God his wrath forbear? me the chief of sinners spare?
I have long withstood His grace, long provoked Him to his face,
Would not harken to his calls, grieved him by a thousand falls.
Depth of mercy can there be? Mercy still reserved for me?
Can my God his wrath forebear? Me the chief of sinners spare?
Whence to me this waste of love? Ask my advocate above.
See the cause in Jesus' face, now before the throne of grace.
There for me a Saviour stands, show His wounds and spreads His hands
God is love, I know, I feel. . . Jesus lives and loves me still.
Ordinarily this is a great thing, because i love water. I even like to think that it took so long for me to be born because I didn't want to come out of the water!
These dreams have been different than having a beautiful swim in a placid lake, or peaceful pool. The waters of my dreams have been raging, surging, wild and uncontrolled. I have either fallen into them and been swept away with the flow, going under and dragging myself up, sputtering and gasping. . or i have been dragged over the edge of a thundering cataract and plunged screaming, thousands of feet down the roaring sheet of water.
I seem to have these thematic dreams -- climbing impossible heights, frightened to death of falling, or i've been hopelessly lost on a journey and unable to get my bearings. . now with being submerged and surrendered to a journey not of my choosing, having to go where the waves take me. I think there's a leather couch in a nearby office with my name on it!!!
So, its Easter Sunday morning - very early. . i should be in bed asleep! My thoughts are churning as much as the water in my dreams, keeping me awake. I've been trying to pray but i'm too antsy. . . i had to write this. Maybe this is a way to pray? think things through, sort stuff out.
Aside from the whole spring renewal, baby chicks, easter bunny, eggs both real and candy, lamb with mint sauce, buns with crosses, ham dinner, new clothes, going to church stuff, this year I'm really trying to ask myself "What is all this stuff that we do?"
When I was a kid it was all about the excitement of the Easter Bunny hiding all those sugary goodies. The anticipation of the hunt, the pastel-coloured, woven treat-holding baskets, the gorging on chocolate, marshmallow and jelly beans! Kid heaven!!! It was also the new Easter dress, hat, white gloves, white patent leather shoes to wear to church, where I heard words like sin, Jesus, cross, mercy, grave, risen, Redeemer, forgiveness, salvation, everlasting life. I was familiar with these words, i knew the sound of them, but I'm afraid that they took a back seat to Laura Secord cream eggs and my newest spring outfit. The purple words were all way over my head.
Fast forward through the decades. . i played Easter Bunny to my own kids, dyed eggs with food colouring, bought those baskets, the girlie outfits, hid the candy eggs, decorated the house with spring flowers, toasted hot cross buns for breakfast, dressed the girls and went to church.
Now I've lived enough to know more than the sound of those words, but I've become familiar with how they feel to me. My feelings however go up and down like the thermometer during the transition between seasons. But the purple words don't take a back seat to the former things, or do they? The money I've spent this week on food for 'the feast', the money I plunked down at the hand-made chocolate shop, the fresh cut flowers, the potted lily, the little gifts for the grandkids, the menu planning. I wonder, have I gotten it yet? I'm middle aged for crying in the sink! but I sometimes I don't really think its sunk in?
I went to a nearby church on "Good Friday". . . a day that can hardly be called 'good', but maybe "Good Came From That Friday"? I had taken Thursday off in order to run around and get 'stuff' for the big event -- so it was quite a gearing down the next morning when I entered a darkened, hushed room with all its candle-lit 'stations'. I sat in quietness with other strangers as i moved from one display to the next. I began by staring at 30 pieces of silver - coins spilled out on a cloth-lined table. I thought of betrayal . I thought of my own fickleness. Next I touched some rough, splintered pieces of wood and winced as i thought of how it felt to lie against that wood. I held cold metal spikes in my hand and hefted a mallet. I thought of how much it hurt if a tiny needle entered my skin, couldn't imagine this spike. I ate a piece of bread and took a sip of grape juice - thought of his body, broken for us and his blood shed. I took some strips of muslin fabric in my hands and rubbed them together - grave clothes - i smelled the myrrh, put some in the palm of my hand. Pictured 75 pounds of this used to embalm his body. . this was the amount used for a royal burial in those days -- how ironic after his criminal's death.
When I sat at each station and thought about all these parts of his whole death process, I began to feel the weight of the purple words becoming a reality and felt them overshadow my trip to the chocolate shop and felt them dwarf the grocery run and eclipse the balloons and the stuffed toy rabbits -- as i thought of such merciful, selfless bravery and hard core compassion -- i felt once more over my head. I came to a torn curtain, hanging between flood-lit pillars and i tried to imagine the sound of the ripping of that heavy temple curtain that separated the 'holy of holies' from the common area -- i thought of what this meant. . no more separation between God and us. Last, I came to a small cross, draped in scarlet cloth, from which hung a crown of thorns --at the base of which lay a crossbeam, a bucket of small nails, black pieces of paper, pencils and a hammer. This was my cross. I was invited to write down something I felt that I was willing to surrender, then lay it on the wood and pound it in. I sat there for a while. What could i possibly write on that black piece of paper? And if i DID write down something, would i really be honest about it? I thought of wanting to be real and feel something more about Easter than all that stuff we've all made it into. I thought of those purple words that have always been in my head, but did they really make the journey down to my heart yet? Sometimes i think they have, but then other times I worry that I don't have the slightest clue how heavily beautiful they are and I don't understand them. I sat some more. At last I got up and took a pencil in hand, knelt by the bucket of nails, wrote "myself" on the paper and nailed it to the 'cross' in 3 strikes of the hammer. Its not that I thought of me hanging on a cross, but rather of me being willing to symbolically promise my everything to the one would did not hesitate to literally give his everything for me. Once more I felt over my head - but isn't that really what i wanted? Real? not candy? not flowers or baked goods? not buying things? not stuffed toys? not even church attendance or Bible verses? but me flooded over by the reality of his depth of mercy?
I used to belong to a beautiful choir. We sang this song, or rather 'they' sang it, because I don't think I ever sang a note . It always made me cry. . .the haunting tune ebbing and flowing like ocean swells, the words cut me down. I cried for my badness and for his goodness that swallowed it up:
Depth of mercy can there be? Mercy still reserved for me?
Can my God his wrath forbear? me the chief of sinners spare?
I have long withstood His grace, long provoked Him to his face,
Would not harken to his calls, grieved him by a thousand falls.
Depth of mercy can there be? Mercy still reserved for me?
Can my God his wrath forebear? Me the chief of sinners spare?
Whence to me this waste of love? Ask my advocate above.
See the cause in Jesus' face, now before the throne of grace.
There for me a Saviour stands, show His wounds and spreads His hands
God is love, I know, I feel. . . Jesus lives and loves me still.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
got your back
Walking on a sunny Sunday -- its so special, somehow different from walking on other days of the week. Perhaps its because this day has long been set apart as sacred - though to me any day is such. Perhaps its because of all days in my neighbourhood, its the one day in which I meet up with more people to talk and spend time developing our neighbourly relationships? I guess its all that and more.
Today is one such idyllic blue-sky day. The kind you faithfully anticipate through all the grey and cloud and cold. The kind of which you try to make the most when it graces the week with its longed-for presence. The kind which draws Canadians out of their homes and fills their lungs with fresher air, inspires them to work the earth again, excites them to retrieve bikes, skateboards and rollerblades from their winter storage. You know this kind of day? You do, I know.
Today i walked for 1 1/2 hours. . i am a bit behind the times, so I borrowed my daughter's cast-off discman to help me out and I popped in one of the great CDs from this awesome band: http://www.downhere.com
I strode great strides, keeping time with the music. I straightened myself up to full height, pulled in my abs and walked with intensity and joy. There's something about walking, do you know what I mean? You see so much more detail than you would with speedier means of transport. Your senses are firing. . i think this is my favourite thing -- every few steps bring a different smell, loamy earth, fabric softener smell from dryer vents, sawdust from workshops, cooking and bbq aromas, acrid, peppery fertilizer odours from lawn-serviced yards. Sight. . there's lots to look at. . dogs, cats, squirrels, ponies. Yes, a young woman walked past our house yesterday with her Shetland on a leash!!! Sunlight and shadows shifting over the forest floor, over the pavement, over the houses, clouds dotting the blue, traveling with the wind. Feeling the air on your skin, the sun warming you, the wind lifting your hair and billowing your jacket. . Some of my thoughts were on the music, but other thoughts are playing around the edges of the melody, so I let them do their thing.
I did focus them for a while on a young family in the park. Mom, Dad, 2 kids. . an older girl and a younger boy - both on bicycles, one parent behind each. I gave them a wide berth, and I switched from the winding path to the adjacent forest. They had some serious kid business to attend to, the business of learning to ride a bike! Mom and son stayed behind me, doing practice circles. . while Dad and daughter kicked it up a notch and rode the path. She pedaled with this exultant, "Look!!! I'm riding a bike!!" expression on her face. Dad ran proudly behind, holding the grab bar at the back of her seat. We shadowed each other for quite a while, them on the paved path, me wending the higher path through the trees. It was really touching to see. . When she sped up, Dad ran behind. When she slowed down, Dad walked. Then, as she got clipping along, Dad let go. . . she didn't notice at first, but then she glanced back and saw him, then she wobbled and cried out. . and Dad ran to her aid, stopped her, talked to her and then gave her a pat on the helmet and they started up again with Dad at her back.
That was quite a thing to see. Such a picture of love and support. I went back in my mind to when our girls were little. . we did the same thing. . teaching, helping, showing, running behind and I thought also of me and God. . . I'm on the bike, he's running behind. I noticed with the dad and daughter that he didn't sit on a bench and read a paper and expect her to learn on her own. . . i noticed that he didn't start her off and then leave her. . . i noticed that even when he did let go, it was to help her become independent and when she got scared, he wasn't far and he ran right to her when she called him. I'm so glad I was able to witness that. I took a great lesson from that scene. . . my unwitting teachers will never know it, but I know it and God does too. Anything that helps me have a clearer picture of what he's like, helps me. That's something i could never learn sitting in a pew. . .shifting and yawning while someone talks at me. I need to see things - and today i saw an amazing thing, at which point i could almost hear God tell me: "That's you and me, Kathy. . . . I've got your back."
Today is one such idyllic blue-sky day. The kind you faithfully anticipate through all the grey and cloud and cold. The kind of which you try to make the most when it graces the week with its longed-for presence. The kind which draws Canadians out of their homes and fills their lungs with fresher air, inspires them to work the earth again, excites them to retrieve bikes, skateboards and rollerblades from their winter storage. You know this kind of day? You do, I know.
Today i walked for 1 1/2 hours. . i am a bit behind the times, so I borrowed my daughter's cast-off discman to help me out and I popped in one of the great CDs from this awesome band: http://www.downhere.com
I strode great strides, keeping time with the music. I straightened myself up to full height, pulled in my abs and walked with intensity and joy. There's something about walking, do you know what I mean? You see so much more detail than you would with speedier means of transport. Your senses are firing. . i think this is my favourite thing -- every few steps bring a different smell, loamy earth, fabric softener smell from dryer vents, sawdust from workshops, cooking and bbq aromas, acrid, peppery fertilizer odours from lawn-serviced yards. Sight. . there's lots to look at. . dogs, cats, squirrels, ponies. Yes, a young woman walked past our house yesterday with her Shetland on a leash!!! Sunlight and shadows shifting over the forest floor, over the pavement, over the houses, clouds dotting the blue, traveling with the wind. Feeling the air on your skin, the sun warming you, the wind lifting your hair and billowing your jacket. . Some of my thoughts were on the music, but other thoughts are playing around the edges of the melody, so I let them do their thing.
I did focus them for a while on a young family in the park. Mom, Dad, 2 kids. . an older girl and a younger boy - both on bicycles, one parent behind each. I gave them a wide berth, and I switched from the winding path to the adjacent forest. They had some serious kid business to attend to, the business of learning to ride a bike! Mom and son stayed behind me, doing practice circles. . while Dad and daughter kicked it up a notch and rode the path. She pedaled with this exultant, "Look!!! I'm riding a bike!!" expression on her face. Dad ran proudly behind, holding the grab bar at the back of her seat. We shadowed each other for quite a while, them on the paved path, me wending the higher path through the trees. It was really touching to see. . When she sped up, Dad ran behind. When she slowed down, Dad walked. Then, as she got clipping along, Dad let go. . . she didn't notice at first, but then she glanced back and saw him, then she wobbled and cried out. . and Dad ran to her aid, stopped her, talked to her and then gave her a pat on the helmet and they started up again with Dad at her back.
That was quite a thing to see. Such a picture of love and support. I went back in my mind to when our girls were little. . we did the same thing. . teaching, helping, showing, running behind and I thought also of me and God. . . I'm on the bike, he's running behind. I noticed with the dad and daughter that he didn't sit on a bench and read a paper and expect her to learn on her own. . . i noticed that he didn't start her off and then leave her. . . i noticed that even when he did let go, it was to help her become independent and when she got scared, he wasn't far and he ran right to her when she called him. I'm so glad I was able to witness that. I took a great lesson from that scene. . . my unwitting teachers will never know it, but I know it and God does too. Anything that helps me have a clearer picture of what he's like, helps me. That's something i could never learn sitting in a pew. . .shifting and yawning while someone talks at me. I need to see things - and today i saw an amazing thing, at which point i could almost hear God tell me: "That's you and me, Kathy. . . . I've got your back."
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
great big sea
I miss the sound . I can't sleep tonight for thinking of it. . wusssssssshhhhhhh. . . . . . . . . wussssshhhhhhhhh. . . . . . like the ocean is breathing. . in and out, in and out. I was lying there in bed thinking of this. The briney taste on my lips and the sting in my eyes (okay, not so pleasant). I miss all that water. . As Rob and I both draped our arms over our floating mat and kicked our legs in lazy circles below us I remember the feeling of bobbing up and down on the swelling waves -- I said to him: "You know, I feel like a baby." and he gave me the raised brow look. . and i said: "Yes, just like a baby in the womb, floating in warm water, moving when its mother moves." Maybe that seems weird. . but it didn't to me. It was so relaxing. . i kept sighing out the winter until there were no winter sighs left, only "this is great" sighs. When we had enough of the mat, we just swam and I felt even more like this as I put my head back, hugged my knees to my chest and floated . . . almost in disbelief that one day i could be in my little house in Canada, then the next I could be playing waterbaby . I did keep thinking though of aquatic beasties as i cut swaths back and forth out to the white buoy line, or across to the floating trampoline (BIG FUN!!!). I figured, well if i just don't touch bottom and keep swimming i'll be okay? strange, not entirely logical, but it worked i guess? Sometimes i felt something brush past my foot or my leg. . which made my heart jump a bit and I would feel a mini surge of panic!!! Baby indeed!!! Rob seemed to share no such fears (I have enough for the both of us). I thought of sharks and fish -- I pictured seeing a fin. . i pictured Jaws, I could almost anticipate one of them latching onto my leg and pulling me under!!! But I kept telling myself to get a grip!!! I didn't even think of jellyfish until i got back home and my friend Moni mentioned that they could have been in there too!!! ahhhh!!! Now i'm kind of scared after the fact!!! The seaweed grossed me out if i happened to touch my foot down on the sea bed for even a second. . .. i would immediately withdraw it and try to swim until i could feel sand. . no undulating or slimy 'things'.
My inner dialogue went something like this: "Stop it! You're safe. Look at the other swimmers.. look at Rob way out there. . just enjoy this. SWIM!!! You love it!! " and sometimes like this: "Ooooh, the water's colder here, that means its deeper. . . . what's under me? AHHHHH I don't like that!!!" Yes, I am a complete contradiction -- floating like a contented baby one minute, and jittery with fear of the unknown the next!!! Its odd when you think about it. . we're not made to exist in the watery domain, but we visit it in body or with some kind of device or equipment. How great is that? I could have swum in the pool, but its so artificial - its not alive, it had no waves - it was too dull and safe - not many heart skipping moments to be had in there, unless maybe you saw something brown floating your way?!!!
At one point I suggested to Rob that we should sit close to the shore. . cuz i did that when i was a kid and I loved getting tossed around by the waves pounding the shoreline. Yeah. . . . we did this -- sat upon the sand at the water's edge. . it was a strong surf that day and did we ever get tossed around, dragged out with the pull of the tide, completely helpless. . laughing and acting like morons, getting sand in places you don't want sand!!! When suddenly one rogue wave pushed Rob back and dragged him forward, causing him to scrape his sunburned back along the gritty shore - at which point he kinda bellowed out in pain. He looked hilarious though, with his long legs going different directions!!! That was it for him! I gave up too, cuz its no fun being an idiot by yourself!
I do miss that rushing sound -- i slept like . . . . a BABY!! when we were there. It was that sound. . there's something very soothing about its rhythm. Very primeval, very natural, very calming. . Maybe if i got myself a CD 'ocean sounds' recording?! I think I will! Why don't you try it too? It will remind you of past trips to the sea!!! (which you know that you always miss when you have to leave). Do you have any sea memories you'd like to share? I'd love to hear them!
Monday, April 03, 2006
ahhhhhh
don't you love this? i'm so sad to leave it behind. Rob took this photo. We swam in this every day.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
The tourqouise sea
I am so full of stories to tell. . . but I'm really tired. 7 days in Cancun can do wonders, but long flight delays and a missed night's sleep also do things. . . . blah. .
The ocean, the white sand, the hotness of the air, the Mayan ruins. . . I will post some pictures! I've missed you all!!
I miss the ocean now!!!!
WAAAA!!!!
The ocean, the white sand, the hotness of the air, the Mayan ruins. . . I will post some pictures! I've missed you all!!
I miss the ocean now!!!!
WAAAA!!!!
Saturday, March 18, 2006
st. patrick's day
St. Patrick's Day for me and for Rob will be forever remembered. Not for green beer. Not for 'shamrock shakes' from McDonald's, but for the daughters we fondly and wistfully think of every March 17 - from 1985 onwards -- the day of their stillbirth and the day of our first encounter with grief.
Today they would have been 21 and its only now that i've ceased working, running around, visiting with my daughters and grandkids, working out and walking the dog that its sunk in. This was the day they were 'born'. They were actually supposed to be born in July of that horrible year, but instead of things going smoothly like everyone hopes for, things went horribly wrong and no-one was the wiser until it was too late. We didn't even know we had twins until i got a phone call from the doctor, after being investigated for being large for dates and having 'knockout fights' within my innards every day, it was discovered and told to me like this: "Kathy, you are pregnant with twins and one of the babies is already dead." WHOMP -- first blow. I could heardly breathe. I kept asking him: "Are you serious? What??!!! Is this true?" It just caught me off balance. I asked him: "What am I going to do? what about the other baby?" He matter of factly informed me that I would have to carry the dead baby to term with the live one.. . which made me really uncomfortable thinking about that. .ugh. . . Second blow. . .had a hard time with this reality. I felt like it was all some ghastly nightmare and i would wake up at some point. I remember looking at my stomach and feeling so strange. They booked me for a specialized ultrasound, one long week later. I don't know if there was a longer week in my life prior to or since? I cried all the time. . my 3 year-old daughter didn't know why I had become like this. She would put her hand on my shoulder and say : "Don't cry, Mommy, its all right." It was hard to go to work, cook suppers, be there for my daughter. Rob felt helpless.
Ultrasound time. . .i'm on the table -- silent technician -- I knew. . . I waited for the doctor to review it with me, which he did. He asked me if i'd felt any movement. . . i didn't know. . . i guess? kinda rolling movement, maybe? I didn't like the look in his eyes. His mouth was tight. . .like my throat. "Mrs. Allan, I'm sorry to tell you that the viable twin has died." Third blow. I had to get out of that place, back to a place where there was still life, this was a bad place to be. . i wanted to go home. I don't remember the ride home. However I remember not wanting to go out in public the following week - for some reason they would not induce me for another week. I wasn't retaining much, they would tell me stuff, but it was just like I was hearing them underwater. . . I didn't want to see pregnant women, I didn't want to see babies. I didn't want people coming up to me and asking: "So, when are you due?"
Its hard to induce labour when its not time . After 8 hours of unproductive agony, i received a day off and then the date was set again. . St. Patrick's Day. . I got some green jello in the labour room. . i don't remember if i ate it? i don't think so. . . The labour started and i went through the whole thing. . . just like my first baby. . . only this was so pointless. A mother can go through all kinds of pain if she's going to be able to hear that first cry and hold that little squirmy darling. . but this? this was just indescribable. I wished that they would knock me out so that I could just wake up when it was over. They said they couldn't do that without performing surgery and i didn't want that Time came to go to the delivery room and Rob was beside me, thank God for him! They had me on laughing gas to help take the edge off. . . i was laughing my head off!!! which sort of put the tense medical staff at ease. . . we all laughed. . it was insane. . we knew it. The gas stopped, it was time and things grew quiet. The doctor delivered one, then the other. . in silence . . aside from my weeping and the nurses with their tears falling. All at once the mystery was solved -- our daughters were casualties of a double umbilical cord 'accident'. . . they were lying in the 'wrong' positions and this caused their lifelines to become tangled and knotted. Rob looked at their tiny forms. . .i couldn't do it. I was too afraid of how they would look, too afraid to bond -- the final blow. . . going back to a maternity ward with empty arms -- hearing the cries of newborns and the excited conversations of happy, joyous families. . . I had my own room - i was exhausted but sleepless -- my eyes would look at things but not see. The next day they sent me home. I was never so glad to see St. Patrick's Day end. Rob had to handle the final arrangements -- I couldn't deal with anything. He chose a pretty, white casket - my grandparents paid for the plot, we chose the stone and our twin daughters were laid to rest in the 'children's garden' of the cemetery.
I recovered physically, but i was just so hollow. We received so many cards of sympathy, flowers. It was overwhelming. However, some people told me stuff like "God doesn't make mistakes, you know, its His will." I can't describe the fury those comments stirred in me. I'm sure they meant well, but those words felt like they branded my soul. . they stung and burned.
Sometimes I would have these nightmares in which I'd hear babies crying and I'd be frantically running and running, trying to find them and i never could. I had such a scary jealousy when I saw pregnant women, babies. . . and if i saw twins, or heard the word 'twins'. . . .oh i can't even say.
I was a zombie. . i felt so bad for my little girl. . . who wanted her Mom back. Thank God for her though, i was forced to eventually snap out of it. Rob had his own way of coping with all of this. . he became quiet. . and i could just not stop going over and over it all. . .countless time upon time. . I didn't understand him and he wasn't like me. . . Yes, thank God for our daughter! She helped us through the tunnel. We remember a touchingly bittersweet moment at the shopping mall a few months later. She had received 2 helium balloons from the cashier at Sears. When we got out to the car, Lindsay let go of her balloons and we all put our heads back to see them zoom up and up and up, until they were just little dots. She said: "These are for my baby sisters, to make them happy." Children are awesome.
You know, writing this took me right back . . . I didn't go to their grave today. It sounds callous, I suppose. But I know that they're not there. . and life has gone on. Now i imagine how they would have looked, what their voices would have sounded like, what kind of food would they have enjoyed? would they be musical? athletic? I wish that we could have had the privilege of knowing them. . and them knowing us. We loved them so much, the promise of them, the twinness of them, which blew us away! I got pregnant again a short while later. . but that baby never took a breath - i miscarried at the start of my 4th month, which just about finished me off. . Rob too. . I felt like i was losing my sanity by that point and I kept thinking that I was being punished by God. . i don't think that now. I don't know why any of that happened, but it did and its okay now. In July, 1986 we had our 5th and final child: another beautiful daughter!!! I can't even tell you what that joy felt like. . . it was like a beautiful tidal wave of emotion. . . it just rolled right over top of us and cleansed away all the cloying grief and made us feel new again. As we held our baby and looked closely at her, we saw a perfect red heart-shaped birthmark beside her right ear. A sign. . . . . of love, our love, God's love , everything was going to be all right.
Today they would have been 21 and its only now that i've ceased working, running around, visiting with my daughters and grandkids, working out and walking the dog that its sunk in. This was the day they were 'born'. They were actually supposed to be born in July of that horrible year, but instead of things going smoothly like everyone hopes for, things went horribly wrong and no-one was the wiser until it was too late. We didn't even know we had twins until i got a phone call from the doctor, after being investigated for being large for dates and having 'knockout fights' within my innards every day, it was discovered and told to me like this: "Kathy, you are pregnant with twins and one of the babies is already dead." WHOMP -- first blow. I could heardly breathe. I kept asking him: "Are you serious? What??!!! Is this true?" It just caught me off balance. I asked him: "What am I going to do? what about the other baby?" He matter of factly informed me that I would have to carry the dead baby to term with the live one.. . which made me really uncomfortable thinking about that. .ugh. . . Second blow. . .had a hard time with this reality. I felt like it was all some ghastly nightmare and i would wake up at some point. I remember looking at my stomach and feeling so strange. They booked me for a specialized ultrasound, one long week later. I don't know if there was a longer week in my life prior to or since? I cried all the time. . my 3 year-old daughter didn't know why I had become like this. She would put her hand on my shoulder and say : "Don't cry, Mommy, its all right." It was hard to go to work, cook suppers, be there for my daughter. Rob felt helpless.
Ultrasound time. . .i'm on the table -- silent technician -- I knew. . . I waited for the doctor to review it with me, which he did. He asked me if i'd felt any movement. . . i didn't know. . . i guess? kinda rolling movement, maybe? I didn't like the look in his eyes. His mouth was tight. . .like my throat. "Mrs. Allan, I'm sorry to tell you that the viable twin has died." Third blow. I had to get out of that place, back to a place where there was still life, this was a bad place to be. . i wanted to go home. I don't remember the ride home. However I remember not wanting to go out in public the following week - for some reason they would not induce me for another week. I wasn't retaining much, they would tell me stuff, but it was just like I was hearing them underwater. . . I didn't want to see pregnant women, I didn't want to see babies. I didn't want people coming up to me and asking: "So, when are you due?"
Its hard to induce labour when its not time . After 8 hours of unproductive agony, i received a day off and then the date was set again. . St. Patrick's Day. . I got some green jello in the labour room. . i don't remember if i ate it? i don't think so. . . The labour started and i went through the whole thing. . . just like my first baby. . . only this was so pointless. A mother can go through all kinds of pain if she's going to be able to hear that first cry and hold that little squirmy darling. . but this? this was just indescribable. I wished that they would knock me out so that I could just wake up when it was over. They said they couldn't do that without performing surgery and i didn't want that Time came to go to the delivery room and Rob was beside me, thank God for him! They had me on laughing gas to help take the edge off. . . i was laughing my head off!!! which sort of put the tense medical staff at ease. . . we all laughed. . it was insane. . we knew it. The gas stopped, it was time and things grew quiet. The doctor delivered one, then the other. . in silence . . aside from my weeping and the nurses with their tears falling. All at once the mystery was solved -- our daughters were casualties of a double umbilical cord 'accident'. . . they were lying in the 'wrong' positions and this caused their lifelines to become tangled and knotted. Rob looked at their tiny forms. . .i couldn't do it. I was too afraid of how they would look, too afraid to bond -- the final blow. . . going back to a maternity ward with empty arms -- hearing the cries of newborns and the excited conversations of happy, joyous families. . . I had my own room - i was exhausted but sleepless -- my eyes would look at things but not see. The next day they sent me home. I was never so glad to see St. Patrick's Day end. Rob had to handle the final arrangements -- I couldn't deal with anything. He chose a pretty, white casket - my grandparents paid for the plot, we chose the stone and our twin daughters were laid to rest in the 'children's garden' of the cemetery.
I recovered physically, but i was just so hollow. We received so many cards of sympathy, flowers. It was overwhelming. However, some people told me stuff like "God doesn't make mistakes, you know, its His will." I can't describe the fury those comments stirred in me. I'm sure they meant well, but those words felt like they branded my soul. . they stung and burned.
Sometimes I would have these nightmares in which I'd hear babies crying and I'd be frantically running and running, trying to find them and i never could. I had such a scary jealousy when I saw pregnant women, babies. . . and if i saw twins, or heard the word 'twins'. . . .oh i can't even say.
I was a zombie. . i felt so bad for my little girl. . . who wanted her Mom back. Thank God for her though, i was forced to eventually snap out of it. Rob had his own way of coping with all of this. . he became quiet. . and i could just not stop going over and over it all. . .countless time upon time. . I didn't understand him and he wasn't like me. . . Yes, thank God for our daughter! She helped us through the tunnel. We remember a touchingly bittersweet moment at the shopping mall a few months later. She had received 2 helium balloons from the cashier at Sears. When we got out to the car, Lindsay let go of her balloons and we all put our heads back to see them zoom up and up and up, until they were just little dots. She said: "These are for my baby sisters, to make them happy." Children are awesome.
You know, writing this took me right back . . . I didn't go to their grave today. It sounds callous, I suppose. But I know that they're not there. . and life has gone on. Now i imagine how they would have looked, what their voices would have sounded like, what kind of food would they have enjoyed? would they be musical? athletic? I wish that we could have had the privilege of knowing them. . and them knowing us. We loved them so much, the promise of them, the twinness of them, which blew us away! I got pregnant again a short while later. . but that baby never took a breath - i miscarried at the start of my 4th month, which just about finished me off. . Rob too. . I felt like i was losing my sanity by that point and I kept thinking that I was being punished by God. . i don't think that now. I don't know why any of that happened, but it did and its okay now. In July, 1986 we had our 5th and final child: another beautiful daughter!!! I can't even tell you what that joy felt like. . . it was like a beautiful tidal wave of emotion. . . it just rolled right over top of us and cleansed away all the cloying grief and made us feel new again. As we held our baby and looked closely at her, we saw a perfect red heart-shaped birthmark beside her right ear. A sign. . . . . of love, our love, God's love , everything was going to be all right.
Thursday, March 09, 2006
longing
I've been thinking. . .
I've been thinking that most of my life has been spent longing for something or someone.
Nothing wrong with that, in fact its good.
I wonder if there are any memories or experiences that haven't been coloured with longing?
When I was little i longed for dumb little trinkets, candies, all the toys in the Sears Christmas Wish Book!!! My sisters and I would lay on the floor and pore over those enticing pages. I longed for warm fuzziness in my life, like being at my Nana's house and that 'house smell' i loved. I longed for any occasion to eat her delicious food, watch her cuckoo clock, visit my Bop's study, with its endless entertainment for us odd little girls who typed messages on the ancient typewriter and elected a 'runner' to take them upstairs to our grandparents and parents. The desk and chair, the book-lined walls - i loved them because I loved who they belonged to. I don't know which i preferred, the kitchen with Nana or Bop's study. I always longed to spend time in the rec room decorated with all the evidences of their world travels. . the Charles Dickens "Curiosity Shoppe" tapestry, the scratchy red brocade chesterfield, the crazy exercise device that looked like a springy lounge chair, on which we girls would lie supine, then arch backwards and let our hair hang down on the carpet, then snap upwards to touch our toes. Good thing we loved it, cuz Nana didn't use it!!! I longed to look at the photograph wall - on which was displayed everyone in our family -- distant cousins, all the aunts and uncles and greats, and great greats - I memorized the poses, their faces. When my Nana died their house became my Bop's hermitage, where he hid and pined for 10 years before he left us. I longed then for the old house with everyone in it and the way things used to be. It had always felt as though this little place was the magical lynchpin holding us all together. Now i long for it in my dreams. I dream of them often. . they're alive, they talk to me, they drive, they cook. . they are real for at least 1 REM cycle, maybe 2 . . .
Sometimes in life i would long to go back, other times i would long to jump ahead. .but it was always dogging me - that restlessness. When transition came i wanted to regress back and go to comfort. Yet once I got used to it, i began to long for more. . . it was never enough. . i couldn't just be. I couldn't just enjoy 'now' without wishing and longing for days from now or months or years. . . Longing is such a restless, demanding thing. Its always pushing for more. I longed for stupid things on the way to being a grownup. . I vacillated backwards and forwards, wanting the past, wanting the future - never settling in the present. When my hair naturally darkened from blonde to brown, i longed for it to go back the way i knew it! I longed to have blue eyes, instead of the golden brown ones i had been 'unfairly' issued. When i outgrew my favourite clothes and had to pass them to my sister i longed to keep them!!! I remember wearing a ridiculously short dress, with my long legs miles underneath it, rather than see it on my sister!
I went to school with cute, little Cindy Brady-looking girls, so i longed to be cute and little. I felt so awkward, taller, larger. I longed to be like everyone else. When I became even older i longed for a boyfriend. I practiced kissing my pillow, which was really just dumb, but oh well!!! maybe it helped?!! When I had one boyfriend I longed for a nicer, better one and so on and so on. . and then finally i found THE one!!! and i longed to be with him always and not living in different cities, and i longed to wear an engagement ring. . then i longed to be a bride and plan a wedding, and I stocked my hope chest and practiced writing my new last name before it even was mine!!!
You'd think that longing would give me a rest. . but i began to discover that no matter what happened to me i didn't stop, i couldn't. The longings morphed into adult things . . Longing for a job to be able to make money to live on. . . of course years down the road, i now find myself longing for retirement!!! I longed to carry a child and carried several. . wonderful, marvellous, loved being pregnant - but towards the end i was longing to get them outta there so i could sleep again!!! Like THAT was going to happen, as i then began longing for them to stop crying, and then for them to eat normal food, and then for them to speak and walk and read and on and on. . Then came the longing for our own house. . . and when that came to pass, i longed for the money to be able to fix our fixer upper! Then i started longing to be free of our mortage.
No matter what was going on, there was always that yearny, longy feeling and i started to clue in sometime in my early 30s that all the things I had wanted and sought just never seemed to do the trick for me; which was when i had this epiphanous, light bulb moment where I realized that my longing was not necessarily for all these many, many things or people or goals or whatevers, no matter how wonderful they were. . . it was all for Him.
Okay, so I mean to say that I'm convinced that I am meant to long. Yes. I am. It makes sense to me, that's why its always there, that's why it drives me and never lets me be. I just didn't understand what to do with that and now I do. I long for spirit connection - I long for God. Have you ever felt that? when everything else and everyone else is there and still you feel it? You've ticked off this and that and the other from your Life's Accomplishment List and it gnaws at you. . .or maybe you don't have as many tick marks are you think you should, so you go and you do and you try and you seek and you accomplish. . nah, those didn't quite do it. . The swirl of it all can be quite exhilerating, the fun, the challenge, the risk. Its only in my quietest moments that I would feel the lack, and you know how it is -- quiet moments are at a premium.
So began my life with longing to know God and i'm living with that longing. Now its almost like i'm glad for it, because like anything else i've pined for or desired - its like I'm starting to get that when you embark on a relationship with someone you love, you can never know enough about them, you can never not want to be closer. This seemed to come naturally to me with people, but it was quite a revelation to me that I could feel this way about someone i couldn't even see!!! I feel now as if i have, in God, a focus for all my restless energy, and its cool how as i focus on him, nothing and no one else is neglected, because it seems that that he refracts that beam and it just illuminates everything so that I can see it the way it should be. So many years i bounced that beam everywhere, up and down and sideways, like it was a searchlight and then i found the target, thank God. I could breathe. I felt like i finally got it. . you know?
I've been thinking that most of my life has been spent longing for something or someone.
Nothing wrong with that, in fact its good.
I wonder if there are any memories or experiences that haven't been coloured with longing?
When I was little i longed for dumb little trinkets, candies, all the toys in the Sears Christmas Wish Book!!! My sisters and I would lay on the floor and pore over those enticing pages. I longed for warm fuzziness in my life, like being at my Nana's house and that 'house smell' i loved. I longed for any occasion to eat her delicious food, watch her cuckoo clock, visit my Bop's study, with its endless entertainment for us odd little girls who typed messages on the ancient typewriter and elected a 'runner' to take them upstairs to our grandparents and parents. The desk and chair, the book-lined walls - i loved them because I loved who they belonged to. I don't know which i preferred, the kitchen with Nana or Bop's study. I always longed to spend time in the rec room decorated with all the evidences of their world travels. . the Charles Dickens "Curiosity Shoppe" tapestry, the scratchy red brocade chesterfield, the crazy exercise device that looked like a springy lounge chair, on which we girls would lie supine, then arch backwards and let our hair hang down on the carpet, then snap upwards to touch our toes. Good thing we loved it, cuz Nana didn't use it!!! I longed to look at the photograph wall - on which was displayed everyone in our family -- distant cousins, all the aunts and uncles and greats, and great greats - I memorized the poses, their faces. When my Nana died their house became my Bop's hermitage, where he hid and pined for 10 years before he left us. I longed then for the old house with everyone in it and the way things used to be. It had always felt as though this little place was the magical lynchpin holding us all together. Now i long for it in my dreams. I dream of them often. . they're alive, they talk to me, they drive, they cook. . they are real for at least 1 REM cycle, maybe 2 . . .
Sometimes in life i would long to go back, other times i would long to jump ahead. .but it was always dogging me - that restlessness. When transition came i wanted to regress back and go to comfort. Yet once I got used to it, i began to long for more. . . it was never enough. . i couldn't just be. I couldn't just enjoy 'now' without wishing and longing for days from now or months or years. . . Longing is such a restless, demanding thing. Its always pushing for more. I longed for stupid things on the way to being a grownup. . I vacillated backwards and forwards, wanting the past, wanting the future - never settling in the present. When my hair naturally darkened from blonde to brown, i longed for it to go back the way i knew it! I longed to have blue eyes, instead of the golden brown ones i had been 'unfairly' issued. When i outgrew my favourite clothes and had to pass them to my sister i longed to keep them!!! I remember wearing a ridiculously short dress, with my long legs miles underneath it, rather than see it on my sister!
I went to school with cute, little Cindy Brady-looking girls, so i longed to be cute and little. I felt so awkward, taller, larger. I longed to be like everyone else. When I became even older i longed for a boyfriend. I practiced kissing my pillow, which was really just dumb, but oh well!!! maybe it helped?!! When I had one boyfriend I longed for a nicer, better one and so on and so on. . and then finally i found THE one!!! and i longed to be with him always and not living in different cities, and i longed to wear an engagement ring. . then i longed to be a bride and plan a wedding, and I stocked my hope chest and practiced writing my new last name before it even was mine!!!
You'd think that longing would give me a rest. . but i began to discover that no matter what happened to me i didn't stop, i couldn't. The longings morphed into adult things . . Longing for a job to be able to make money to live on. . . of course years down the road, i now find myself longing for retirement!!! I longed to carry a child and carried several. . wonderful, marvellous, loved being pregnant - but towards the end i was longing to get them outta there so i could sleep again!!! Like THAT was going to happen, as i then began longing for them to stop crying, and then for them to eat normal food, and then for them to speak and walk and read and on and on. . Then came the longing for our own house. . . and when that came to pass, i longed for the money to be able to fix our fixer upper! Then i started longing to be free of our mortage.
No matter what was going on, there was always that yearny, longy feeling and i started to clue in sometime in my early 30s that all the things I had wanted and sought just never seemed to do the trick for me; which was when i had this epiphanous, light bulb moment where I realized that my longing was not necessarily for all these many, many things or people or goals or whatevers, no matter how wonderful they were. . . it was all for Him.
Okay, so I mean to say that I'm convinced that I am meant to long. Yes. I am. It makes sense to me, that's why its always there, that's why it drives me and never lets me be. I just didn't understand what to do with that and now I do. I long for spirit connection - I long for God. Have you ever felt that? when everything else and everyone else is there and still you feel it? You've ticked off this and that and the other from your Life's Accomplishment List and it gnaws at you. . .or maybe you don't have as many tick marks are you think you should, so you go and you do and you try and you seek and you accomplish. . nah, those didn't quite do it. . The swirl of it all can be quite exhilerating, the fun, the challenge, the risk. Its only in my quietest moments that I would feel the lack, and you know how it is -- quiet moments are at a premium.
So began my life with longing to know God and i'm living with that longing. Now its almost like i'm glad for it, because like anything else i've pined for or desired - its like I'm starting to get that when you embark on a relationship with someone you love, you can never know enough about them, you can never not want to be closer. This seemed to come naturally to me with people, but it was quite a revelation to me that I could feel this way about someone i couldn't even see!!! I feel now as if i have, in God, a focus for all my restless energy, and its cool how as i focus on him, nothing and no one else is neglected, because it seems that that he refracts that beam and it just illuminates everything so that I can see it the way it should be. So many years i bounced that beam everywhere, up and down and sideways, like it was a searchlight and then i found the target, thank God. I could breathe. I felt like i finally got it. . you know?
Monday, March 06, 2006
more like 'slackie mcgee'!!
I promise I will post something new soon!!! I'm a bad blogger. . bad!!!
How are you? Did you have a good day today? Mine wasn't bad for a Monday. Dancing in a couple of hours!!!! YAY!!!! need an energy snack. . some protein does the trick. Last time i went to class i have a bit of tuna and cottage cheese about 1 - 1.5 hours before class. . . talk about ENERGY!!!
Anyway, i think i hear Rob in the driveway! Bye for now!!!
How are you? Did you have a good day today? Mine wasn't bad for a Monday. Dancing in a couple of hours!!!! YAY!!!! need an energy snack. . some protein does the trick. Last time i went to class i have a bit of tuna and cottage cheese about 1 - 1.5 hours before class. . . talk about ENERGY!!!
Anyway, i think i hear Rob in the driveway! Bye for now!!!
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Tonight i talked to Terri
Terri is a brave woman. She's my dance instructor. I've been getting to know her in bits and pieces over the last 3 dance sessions. She's one of those warm-spirited ones, has hugs for everyone. Everyone loves her because she's the kind of person you instantly take to and I did instantly take to her. I helped her pack up her sound equipment tonight after class. We did some great dancing tonight and for once each of us had lots of room to move - as she says when the class is small: "Tonight we are small but mighty, women!"
I listened to her share what was in her heart and i discovered how raw her grief still is just 1 year after her husband suddenly died. When I first signed up with the troupe, I couldn't believe that she was such a recent widow and was running this company, and working another job -- always on the go. I wondered if i had been in her shoes. . . would i keep going at full tilt after such a cataclysmic event? I suspect that I would be in a fetal position in bed with the blinds shut. I remember our very first conversation, the night i joined. She said to me "This group of women has literally kept me alive since Rod died." I was a newcomer and I could see what she meant -- what a network of all different ages of women, different walks of life -- they were such a closeknit community - Terri was the 'mother' and we were all 'her girls'. I've been gradually able to integrate with them and feel at home there.
"I feel bad for the girls." said Terri tonight as she packed away her headset mic and put away the power bar in her purple tote. "Some of them don't know why I had to step down." *Terri and her best friend, Darlene - our fabulous choreographer - are calling it a day as leaders. They've been at it forever and they need a change.* "I've felt bad" she said, as she stopped what she was doing and looked at me. "I love teaching, and its this great thing where i give, and everyone takes it and gives it back to me and its fabulous." I nodded in agreement. "But, you know, Kath - I'm not feeling like i have anything in me to give any more. Some days I can barely put one f***ing foot in front of another, never mind teaching a class and working a job and trying to stay away from that empty house as long as possible every day." Her words were heavy with grief. I think she really needed to vent, so I just listened . "You know how everyone tells you if you can make it through the first year then you'll be all right?!" I said "Yeah." "That's bullsh**" she said as she pulled her polar fleece over her head. "Sure, its slightly easier to function day to day, and you're kinda used to it. . . but there's this giant, gaping hole where your heart used to be. . . and after a year there's still a giant gaping hole where your heart used to be."
Terri has been running from her grief. . filling it all up with work and teaching and socializing. . . now its catching up with her. She talked about her grief counselor and how he's been helping her to see that she can't avoid or side step this process. . . she must go through it. As she pulled on her boots, she said "I've never been without a man in my life, since I was a teenager. Now its just me." I told her that I too have almost never been without a man in my life and I can't imagine it. I got brave and asked her "What's it like, Terri?" She actually said "You know, its kinda cool! I'm thinking, there are all these possibilities and I can go any direction I want, but you know, its also horribly terrifying at the same time."
You'd never know that all this was inside if you took her class. She's jokey and funny. She teaches a great class. Its easy to just dance and then leave. Usually there are women buzzing around her and its hard to talk, but tonight I'm glad I stuck around and waited for my turn. It was just her and I left in the gym and in just 10 minutes I was able to know exactly how she's dealing with things, what she feels, how she's doing. I'm sad that she and Darlene are done. . . but I really am so awed by her bravery, her strength and her honesty. I'm glad she entrusted me with even some of what's in her heart.
We walked out to the parking lot together and I helped her load her car, after which she gave me the biggest Terri-style bear hug and said "Hon, you've been such a joy, I'm so glad that you joined." I thanked her and told her that she was awesome and I meant it. She really is.
I listened to her share what was in her heart and i discovered how raw her grief still is just 1 year after her husband suddenly died. When I first signed up with the troupe, I couldn't believe that she was such a recent widow and was running this company, and working another job -- always on the go. I wondered if i had been in her shoes. . . would i keep going at full tilt after such a cataclysmic event? I suspect that I would be in a fetal position in bed with the blinds shut. I remember our very first conversation, the night i joined. She said to me "This group of women has literally kept me alive since Rod died." I was a newcomer and I could see what she meant -- what a network of all different ages of women, different walks of life -- they were such a closeknit community - Terri was the 'mother' and we were all 'her girls'. I've been gradually able to integrate with them and feel at home there.
"I feel bad for the girls." said Terri tonight as she packed away her headset mic and put away the power bar in her purple tote. "Some of them don't know why I had to step down." *Terri and her best friend, Darlene - our fabulous choreographer - are calling it a day as leaders. They've been at it forever and they need a change.* "I've felt bad" she said, as she stopped what she was doing and looked at me. "I love teaching, and its this great thing where i give, and everyone takes it and gives it back to me and its fabulous." I nodded in agreement. "But, you know, Kath - I'm not feeling like i have anything in me to give any more. Some days I can barely put one f***ing foot in front of another, never mind teaching a class and working a job and trying to stay away from that empty house as long as possible every day." Her words were heavy with grief. I think she really needed to vent, so I just listened . "You know how everyone tells you if you can make it through the first year then you'll be all right?!" I said "Yeah." "That's bullsh**" she said as she pulled her polar fleece over her head. "Sure, its slightly easier to function day to day, and you're kinda used to it. . . but there's this giant, gaping hole where your heart used to be. . . and after a year there's still a giant gaping hole where your heart used to be."
Terri has been running from her grief. . filling it all up with work and teaching and socializing. . . now its catching up with her. She talked about her grief counselor and how he's been helping her to see that she can't avoid or side step this process. . . she must go through it. As she pulled on her boots, she said "I've never been without a man in my life, since I was a teenager. Now its just me." I told her that I too have almost never been without a man in my life and I can't imagine it. I got brave and asked her "What's it like, Terri?" She actually said "You know, its kinda cool! I'm thinking, there are all these possibilities and I can go any direction I want, but you know, its also horribly terrifying at the same time."
You'd never know that all this was inside if you took her class. She's jokey and funny. She teaches a great class. Its easy to just dance and then leave. Usually there are women buzzing around her and its hard to talk, but tonight I'm glad I stuck around and waited for my turn. It was just her and I left in the gym and in just 10 minutes I was able to know exactly how she's dealing with things, what she feels, how she's doing. I'm sad that she and Darlene are done. . . but I really am so awed by her bravery, her strength and her honesty. I'm glad she entrusted me with even some of what's in her heart.
We walked out to the parking lot together and I helped her load her car, after which she gave me the biggest Terri-style bear hug and said "Hon, you've been such a joy, I'm so glad that you joined." I thanked her and told her that she was awesome and I meant it. She really is.
Sunday, February 19, 2006
old school solutions
I own my mind, but sometimes even i don't know how it works! The other day i was working and most likely documenting either someone's myocardial infarction (heart attack), or chemotherapy protocol, maybe it was a psych consult, or the ever popular 'stomach problem'? I don't even know -- so many patients every day, it all blurs together! So, for some reason i can 'double track' -- do my job, plus think about everything else under the sun!!! So, like always, while i work my mind seeks diversion from the monotony of illness and so much technical jargon. . and i just started thinking about how when we were kids, my sisters and i used to feedtorn up strips of bread, raw, beaten eggs and milk to our dog, Blackie, when we ran out of Alpo! This was our parents' solution to put off a trip to the store! I wonder, was this good for Blackie?!!! What do you think?!!! So, I started to think of other 'make do' methods or ideas that either our family came up with to fix things, or stretch things, etc.
These are pretty old school things. . my time of reference here is the 60's and 70's. . some penny pinching practices that could seem pretty smart or pretty dumb. .some products that i haven't heard of in decades.
*Mecca ointment -- this smelly, goopy stuff came in an orange tin and always made an appearance if we had an infected wound, which we seemed to happen quite often with the 3 of us falling and scraping our extremities. We hated Mecca! It was like something from the 1800s.
*ketchup clinging to the bottle? We put a bit of vinegar in there, put the lid on, shook it up and used up the dregs.
*cod liver oil - yeah, this stuff was sold in different forms - i think?- our mother happened to choose the 'fish oil taffy'! YAY! Our grandmother probably told her to give this to us to stave off illness? I can still see us lined up in that moss green carpeted kitchen on Paradise Road and each ingest a whopping spoonful of thick, amber-coloured, fish guts molasses. (it was disgusting beyond words) We still got sick. . and we never saw that jar of sludge again! Thank you, God!
*broken crayons -- It seemed that large, megaboxes of crayons didn't stay intact very long. We would take the broken bits, remove the paper and put them in old muffin tins, heat them in the oven to melt, but not stir them. Then let them cool in the tins until they were hardened. We popped out the multi-coloured crayon pucks and had fun!!!
*chest cold? My Nana would make this witch doctory 'mustard plaster'. . slather it on our chest and cover this over with flannel. It heated up. . it stunk. . I don't even know if it did anything? but i had the displeasure of being mustard plastered!
*spoke flappers -- all the boys in our neighbourhood would affix playing cards to the spokes of their bikes wheels with clothes pins! Made this cool snapping sound as they rode around!
*caps -- if you were a kid without a cap gun in the 60s. . . all you needed was a stone! You placed your roll of caps on the sidewalk - pound each circle with a rock and POW! smoke and a flash! vvvvery exciting!
*cleaning windows -- for some reason, my mother and grandmother seemed to advocate the use of vinegar and water sprayed on the window, and they wiped this off with newspaper!!!???
*skipping dilemma -- If you wanted to skip and didn't have 2 turners. . . a telephone pole would do in a pinch!
*baking --- if you wanted to make some tarts and didn't have pie filling, or didn't want to make any filling . . . jam will always do the trick. If you wanted apple pie but only had green tomatoes, you could make them taste just like apple - apparently. *seems weird!* I have a 50s recipe book. . they were really into ersatz back them - maybe a WWII residual?
*game from a sewing box! -- girls in the 60s would regularly raid their mother's sewing baskets for packets of stretchy elastic cording. 2 'holders' stood across from each other holding the elastic at calf level. The jumper would have to jump over this elastic limbo line in any old way she wanted. Everyone would take their turn. Then the holders 'raised the bar' and so on and son on. .
*run out of milk? living on a shoestring? -- this was so gross, but mothers everywhere would mix up powdered milk, add some 'real milk' to fool us *AS IF!!!* and we would be made to drink this blue-tinged, icky-tasting pseudomilk. Sometimes there would be pasty bits of undissolved powder. UGH.
*mercurochrome -- this was a neon-pink tinture that was a MUCH cooler solution for scrapes and cuts than Mecca ointment!!! Of course, our mother didn't use this cool pink stuff, we got the crud in a tin that attracted stray dogs and insects! bah!
*silver all dark and yucky? No Silvo in the house? A tube of Crest would be the next best thing. When we had the cleaning of the silver chore, i remember using toothpaste!
*curlers too uncomfortable? Every Saturday night was get ready for Sunday morning time. We all had our freshly-washed hair wound up with these hard plastic 'rollers', affixed with these equally hard plastic pins. . try sleeping!!! strips of rags tied to your curls were much easier to sleep on - at least your head wasn't 2 inches off the pillow, forcing your neck at this weird angle. Being a girl back then was such a pain!
*new life for a ball game -- it was strangely popular to hack off one leg of a pair of your mother's pantyhose, place a small rubber ball in the toe - remember those tri-coloured, red, white and blue balls? and do these strange 'hitting the ball against the wall' games with this device!
Well, those are just a few things that came to me. I'm sure you have our own memories of things from your childhood, maybe things your parents did to economize, products you had in your house. I love thinking about the stuff that's in the recesses of my mind. . is that a sign of age-ing?!!!!!
These are pretty old school things. . my time of reference here is the 60's and 70's. . some penny pinching practices that could seem pretty smart or pretty dumb. .some products that i haven't heard of in decades.
*Mecca ointment -- this smelly, goopy stuff came in an orange tin and always made an appearance if we had an infected wound, which we seemed to happen quite often with the 3 of us falling and scraping our extremities. We hated Mecca! It was like something from the 1800s.
*ketchup clinging to the bottle? We put a bit of vinegar in there, put the lid on, shook it up and used up the dregs.
*cod liver oil - yeah, this stuff was sold in different forms - i think?- our mother happened to choose the 'fish oil taffy'! YAY! Our grandmother probably told her to give this to us to stave off illness? I can still see us lined up in that moss green carpeted kitchen on Paradise Road and each ingest a whopping spoonful of thick, amber-coloured, fish guts molasses. (it was disgusting beyond words) We still got sick. . and we never saw that jar of sludge again! Thank you, God!
*broken crayons -- It seemed that large, megaboxes of crayons didn't stay intact very long. We would take the broken bits, remove the paper and put them in old muffin tins, heat them in the oven to melt, but not stir them. Then let them cool in the tins until they were hardened. We popped out the multi-coloured crayon pucks and had fun!!!
*chest cold? My Nana would make this witch doctory 'mustard plaster'. . slather it on our chest and cover this over with flannel. It heated up. . it stunk. . I don't even know if it did anything? but i had the displeasure of being mustard plastered!
*spoke flappers -- all the boys in our neighbourhood would affix playing cards to the spokes of their bikes wheels with clothes pins! Made this cool snapping sound as they rode around!
*caps -- if you were a kid without a cap gun in the 60s. . . all you needed was a stone! You placed your roll of caps on the sidewalk - pound each circle with a rock and POW! smoke and a flash! vvvvery exciting!
*cleaning windows -- for some reason, my mother and grandmother seemed to advocate the use of vinegar and water sprayed on the window, and they wiped this off with newspaper!!!???
*skipping dilemma -- If you wanted to skip and didn't have 2 turners. . . a telephone pole would do in a pinch!
*baking --- if you wanted to make some tarts and didn't have pie filling, or didn't want to make any filling . . . jam will always do the trick. If you wanted apple pie but only had green tomatoes, you could make them taste just like apple - apparently. *seems weird!* I have a 50s recipe book. . they were really into ersatz back them - maybe a WWII residual?
*game from a sewing box! -- girls in the 60s would regularly raid their mother's sewing baskets for packets of stretchy elastic cording. 2 'holders' stood across from each other holding the elastic at calf level. The jumper would have to jump over this elastic limbo line in any old way she wanted. Everyone would take their turn. Then the holders 'raised the bar' and so on and son on. .
*run out of milk? living on a shoestring? -- this was so gross, but mothers everywhere would mix up powdered milk, add some 'real milk' to fool us *AS IF!!!* and we would be made to drink this blue-tinged, icky-tasting pseudomilk. Sometimes there would be pasty bits of undissolved powder. UGH.
*mercurochrome -- this was a neon-pink tinture that was a MUCH cooler solution for scrapes and cuts than Mecca ointment!!! Of course, our mother didn't use this cool pink stuff, we got the crud in a tin that attracted stray dogs and insects! bah!
*silver all dark and yucky? No Silvo in the house? A tube of Crest would be the next best thing. When we had the cleaning of the silver chore, i remember using toothpaste!
*curlers too uncomfortable? Every Saturday night was get ready for Sunday morning time. We all had our freshly-washed hair wound up with these hard plastic 'rollers', affixed with these equally hard plastic pins. . try sleeping!!! strips of rags tied to your curls were much easier to sleep on - at least your head wasn't 2 inches off the pillow, forcing your neck at this weird angle. Being a girl back then was such a pain!
*new life for a ball game -- it was strangely popular to hack off one leg of a pair of your mother's pantyhose, place a small rubber ball in the toe - remember those tri-coloured, red, white and blue balls? and do these strange 'hitting the ball against the wall' games with this device!
Well, those are just a few things that came to me. I'm sure you have our own memories of things from your childhood, maybe things your parents did to economize, products you had in your house. I love thinking about the stuff that's in the recesses of my mind. . is that a sign of age-ing?!!!!!
Thursday, February 16, 2006
how are you?
This post is about you. I usually talk too much anyway!!
How has your week been so far? Have you been working? having some days off? What have you been up to in your leisure hours? Any cleaning or fixing up? playing some music? studying? Anything you love on TV that you enjoy watching?!
Have you been well physically? emotionally? spiritually?
What do you think of the winter olympics? been keeping up? (me -- just minimally, very little)
Are you excited to think that spring isn't far away?!
What's your new favourite little thing these days? a tool. . a make up product. . . a favourite item, book, CD, fave breakfast cereal, etc.
Do you have any comforting winter rituals that you enjoy? like putting on your robe and slippers and curling up? maybe going out to do some kind of winter activity, then warming up afterwards?
How's your car behaving these days? good, i hope!!?
Are you cooking up plans for vacation time sometime during this year?
Seeing your friends? Entertaining?
Are you volunteering any place? thought about it? even donating blood or something? food for the food bank, etc? sponsoring a child in another country?
Seen any good movies at the theatre lately? Any on your must see 'big screen' movie list?
Rented any good ones?
Well, i'm kinda sleepy. . .so i'll sign off. . but I really hope that you're having a good week!
bye for now.
k
How has your week been so far? Have you been working? having some days off? What have you been up to in your leisure hours? Any cleaning or fixing up? playing some music? studying? Anything you love on TV that you enjoy watching?!
Have you been well physically? emotionally? spiritually?
What do you think of the winter olympics? been keeping up? (me -- just minimally, very little)
Are you excited to think that spring isn't far away?!
What's your new favourite little thing these days? a tool. . a make up product. . . a favourite item, book, CD, fave breakfast cereal, etc.
Do you have any comforting winter rituals that you enjoy? like putting on your robe and slippers and curling up? maybe going out to do some kind of winter activity, then warming up afterwards?
How's your car behaving these days? good, i hope!!?
Are you cooking up plans for vacation time sometime during this year?
Seeing your friends? Entertaining?
Are you volunteering any place? thought about it? even donating blood or something? food for the food bank, etc? sponsoring a child in another country?
Seen any good movies at the theatre lately? Any on your must see 'big screen' movie list?
Rented any good ones?
Well, i'm kinda sleepy. . .so i'll sign off. . but I really hope that you're having a good week!
bye for now.
k
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