Best Conversation of the Day:

Setting: In the car on the way to yuppy heaven, the farmers market

Regan: rant...rant...rant.... should just go to WAR and blow themselves up... rant... rant... rant
Christine: "Regan, calm down, little pitchers have big ears."
Regan: "Christine she doesnt even know what war is!"
Christine: "Are you so sure about that?? She just told you you were her 'assistant when she investigates danger.' "
Regan: "Isla, do you know what war is?"
Isla: "War?"
Regan: "Yeah war. What does the word war mean?"
Isla: "Well..."
Christine gives Regan the stink eye.
Isla: "It's this big big big beautiful bird. It's so so special and flys all around. Its big big but not so big and it flies to the pink Bella Sara horses...."

Best conversation of the day

Scene; Snuggling in her bed talking about what we were doing that morning.

Isla; "Oh no Mommy."
Me; "Whats wrong love?"
Isla: "I missed it all. I missed everything! The suns out now."
Me; "What id you miss?"
Isla; "The meteor shower, the moon, the stars, the comets! I didn't see anything!"
Me; "Well heres the thing Isla, you'll be able to see them tonight, the sun sets every evening and then its night so you can see the stars."
Isla: (Sounding relieved) "Oh good... Now wheres Colin Mommy?"
Me; "Hes sleeping on Mommy's bed."
Isla: "O.K. I want 'Os' for breakfast Mommy, with milk and a spoon."

Later on as I walk down the hallway I hear Isla and Colin

Isla; (sounding very sad) "Good morning Colin. Sorry, but we missed the meteor shower, the moon, the stars and the comets. But don't worry, they'll come back."

What I'm Learning as I say Goodbye

These past few weeks have been tough. I am in the process of loosing a woman who meant a great deal to me. Though I haven't seen her in years because of distance she continues to be a massive influence on who I am and what I do.

She is in fact part of a team of strong, smart, powerful women who have shaped my view on things as varied as political ideals, propriety, feminism and femininity, marriage, environmental awareness, and what it takes to through a good party. (If any one cares its copious amounts of liquor - Drambuie and Southern Comfort - and Disco, preferably Bonny M and when its closing time, a few melancholy songs from 'back home' with a wee bit 'o pipes)
Last week I wrote her a letter explaining how much she has formed who I am and I hoped she heard it. Tonight was my time to say good bye and I love you out loud.

I realized as I waited for the nurse to pass the phone over that there is no social protocol when it comes to saying the long good bye. There is no "How are you doing?" We know that answer; not good. Theres certainly no "How are you feeling" because we really know that answer and "Talk to you soon" just seems cruel. So I said Thank you, I love you and I am sorry I wasn't around more and I love you again. There was so much that I wish that one 45 second conversation could have held. But through tears those three things were the only ones I could get out. In return she told me not to cry, that all she wants is for us to have a big party in her honor and for us to dance. She told me she enjoyed life and she hopes I do to.

After each of us had our turn to say good bye my two sisters and I met at my parents house. It only seemed right. We got together and cried. We got together and started to refile through our parents closet in search of our life story and stories of the ones we have lost and are now in the midst of loosing. After the command for us to enjoy life the three of us decided tonight was a fitting time to look back and celebrate what our lives have been thus far. We found our stories and our celebration in boxes and boxes of photos.

This emotional walk down memory lane was done in the middle of our parents bed surrounded by hundred (thousands?) of images of tens of thousands of great moments and memories. Sitting there, watching our family being formed and grow in photos of weddings, Christmases, Christenings, camping trips, birthdays, dog walks, trips to the cottage, Bar-B-Qs, proms, anniversaries, showers, school plays, bike rides, etc etc etc I began to understand that right now, in my life, is the best part. It dawned on me looking through the images of those who mean the most to me, raising me, that right this moment I am sitting in the middle of what I am positive will be the best part of my life.

So much of the time I do my thing, parenting, wifeing (theres a new word for you...) even sometimes working, that I forget that as hard, tiering, financially difficult, stressful, and emotionally draining things are right now they are also so much fun. Even as a rather bizarre teenager I knew the home I came from, the family I had, was equal to a big win on a lotto ticket. I have people, I have roots and even still I thought I had to go above, go beyond. To do what, I wasn't sure, but I was convinced I should be doing something more. Yet here I am and it blows my mind that things have managed to get even better without not even one noble peace prize, oscar nod or book deal. In the finding of my partner, and the raising of my children I have found a way of reaching back to that golden time of my own childhood and realized that life is so much more then a set list of should dos and need to dos. My house may be filled to the rafters with the detritus that comes with young children and pets but it is also filled with more adventures, more fun and more love then I would have ever dreamed possible as a painfully awkward teenager. There is no number of banal distractions that should cause me to forget to appreciate that.

So today as what is possibly the last gift my Grandma will give to me me; she taught me the lesson that right now, even with its dirty cat boxes, dish filled sinks, piles of laundry and burnt dinners is what I will be holding tight to me decades from now. Because the on other side to that chaos and work are moments like I just had, holding my baby boy, warm and peaceful to my breast. Watching him dream and then sneaking a peak at Isla, limbs helter-skelter over top, around and under toys and pillows and bed clothes, talking in her sleep about horsies and rainbows. With the everyday comes the sublime, the adventures and the oh so (almost) sacred memories that make up what it is to be alive.

Today may not have been extra ordinary other then my all too brief phone call and the emotional evening with my sisters. It was a day filled with nursery school runs, lunch with a dear friend, an adventure with two kids, no map, a 40 minute drive and fierce determination to pick up a used baby carrier I scoped out on Kijiji. All of that followed by a experimental dinner invented on the spot. But each of those things, are the types of things that makes this life, a good life, one that I can enjoy, just like I was taught.

Contemplating Mortality through Motherhood

I know the exact moment I began to fear death. (Wow ain't that an opening sentence?) It was the exact second I felt Isla move in my belly for the first time. At that moment my understanding of what it would mean to leave this life changed fundamentally. Its was the beginning of motherhood that really taught me how massively important (a brutal understatement if there ever was one) life is.

At a relatively young age I had to confront mortality in a visceral, personal and devastating way when a close and beloved family member left us before what everyone thought was his time. Everyone in my family learned that our lives are not lived or lost in a bubble. When we are taken away our loss is devastating, the grief long lasting and the absence ever present. But even that understanding did not fully prepare me for the feeling that no matter what I had to hold onto this earth for as long as possible.

Before I had my own I heard the saying “Children give reason and purpose to life” and I would roll my eyes. I always thought that that was a heck of a lot of pressure to put on a kid. I would like to think that parents purpose in life isn't to make themselves so co-dependent with their children that if the kids some how mess up then all is not lost. But I think I was fundamentally missing the point of that statement. What it means is that there is nothing more important to live for.

I remember my mom telling me stories about the first weeks when she brought me home from the hospital. How, in the midst of folding laundry she would play the what if 'game'. What would she do if masked bandits forced their way into the house? How would she save me? What would she do if there was a fire? How would she get me out? The first time she told me about this I chalked it up to mild postpartum depression. And yet, no sooner was Isla in my arms was I thinking and preparing how to protect, guard and put myself between her and what ever potential threat I could think of. Now I do attribute some of that hyper awareness to hormones after birth. After all, it would make sense that thousands of years ago our monkey ancestors would need that boost of protectiveness to keep their off spring from the neighbourhood saber tooth tigers lunch table.

Beyond a rush of hormones I think simply going through the birth experience opens a person up to the fact that some times crap happens you wish wouldn't. Almost every woman I have spoken to about their birth experience has said that at one point they thought the pain was going to kill them. It might have been a split second before the reading, preparing, coaching, meditation, breathing techniques (or heavy narcotics) kicked in, But each one of us hit a point when we really thought we could not go on. I think facing that opens you more to 'the other side' if you let it.

Some moms I have spoken to about this have had those labour experiences you never want to hear. The stories you skim over in your “How to deliver a Baby” guide book, if the authors are brave enough to put them in. For those moms the trauma of facing a lethal tiger in the birth room leaves an indelible mark. It is not something that can be forgotten or that can be 'gotten over'. Facing their own, and some times their baby's mortality just as a new life is supposed to be beginning is not something anyone ever expects. That's a look into the other side that has profound effects on the way a person looks at raising a child or even more grandly, the way you look at life as a whole. Thankfully, thus far, I haven't personally had that experience. But I do feel that the moms who have do look at things in a different way. Not necessarily more profound but such a thing isn't gone through without it bringing change to a person.

But even your average labouring mom has a peek into the other side. To me it seems that in those last few hours of carrying that baby in our bodies mothers are walking the fine edge between 'here' and 'there', where ever 'there' is.

As a part of my own preparation to give birth to Colin I began reading “Birthing From Within”. I must tell you it was not exactly my cup of tea. It was a little too granola-y for me, a little too spiritual, a little too creative, just a little too much. Yet I read the whole thing because as a person who is employed to talk to Moms about to give birth, have just given birth or have long since given birth and are now focused on raising kids I like to read the parenting/birthing books that people are talking about. (My next read is Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother FYI)

Anyway at one point in Birthing From Within the author calls the state you enter into at the height of labour, when things are their hardest and when you are under the complete control of your body (the end of active labour into transition and the pushing stage to some extent) Labour Land. They explain it as a sort of head space you go into to block out the external world and you fully become all about whats happening internally. They liken it to meditation in fact.

I can say without a doubt I have visited labour land and its one whacked out place. The only way I can explain what that was like was I felt as though I was diving into the pain. It wasn't a wave washing over me as contractions are often compared to, I was deep in that wave just focusing on swimming with the current. Quite honestly Santa Clause, Colin Firth and Jane Austen could have showed up in my room and I wouldn't have given two shits. In those moments I felt like I was touching the other side. If I go really wavy-gravy it was like I had to go to the other side to bring my baby back from 'there'. Because the minute I pushed that new person out, looked in their eyes, there was no doubt that they just came from the place we all end up.

When my new babes looked in my eyes for the first time, I swear to you they both said the same thing to me;

“The big guy says “hi” and wants you to know that THIS is what love feels like, and he knows you will keep screwing up but forgives you for it, and don't worry, The Grandparents and Alex are doing fine. Now. Wheres the food?”