Archive for the 'Life' Category

Failing

This post is more about questions than answers.

There’s a lot of pressure on us to succeed: be a good parent, partner, child, employee, employer, friend. It doesn’t seem to ever end. Do we act based on what we desire, what we think is best for us, what we think we’re supposed to do?

Do we step on a track and just keep following where it leads, without evaluating whether or not it’s what we should really be doing?

The problem with the pressure to succeed is the fear of failing. Failure is such a loaded word. It’s hard to accept failure in one part of our lives and not let it affect other areas. For instance, just because parenting is the pits at any given time, doesn’t mean we can’t still be a good partner. Or just because we’re thinking that dropping out of school makes the most sense given life/family responsibilities doesn’t mean we can’t be a good employee.

These things don’t have to be connected but the message to be superwoman — to do it all — to be the best — is so strong that it’s hard to keep a head up when things are looking dim.

Green Candidate Info for Windsor-West

Because I had a hard time finding this information I decided to post it here for others.

The Green Party Candidate for next week’s provincial election is Jason Haney. His website is here.

Greens have policy statements on climate change, energy, income support, health, education, and local sustainability. I’m pretty sold on the position of one publicly funded education system for all children, but the focus on preventative health is a strong sell for me too.

There are links on the site to some Youtube videos like the one below.

Learn more about the Greens at www.gpo.ca.

Save the Cheerleader, Save the World

My daughter came home last night. I have to wonder if maybe I’ve saved her life.

I know too many kids whose families are divorced. They found living with one parent too difficult and either left or got thrown out and sent to live with the other parent. Of course it was only ever a matter of time before things got rough there and the kid is faced with going back to the first parent (if they’ll even have them back) and the alternative of setting out on their own, running away, moving in with someone they shouldn’t, or the unknown. The kids who bounced from one parent to another to a grandparent always described feeling alone, lost, like no one cared. I don’t want my daughter to ever feel that way.

So even though we’re in a tough place now, my daughter knows I love her. She knows I want her. I haven’t given up on her, sent her to live with her father, put her in foster care, or chosen one of the many other options I was presented with over the past week. I want her here.

I’m sad that she’s so unhappy, but with the team of professionals that is assembling, we’re going to do our best to see that she doesn’t slip into an unsalvageable disaster of a life. It’s hard when you see someone with so many talents, so much potential, just throwing it away.

I’m looking at the longterm, and I guess that’s both the joy and the burden of parenting. I have to think about what’s best for her longterm, what will give her the best opportunities in life, and not just what will make her smile today, in the short term. Parenting is more than ice cream and Lego. It’s also about hard and unpopular decisions, like moving to a better school district, toothbrushing, and dark green leafy vegetables. As her parent, I have to consider her future, and not to dragged down by her teen angst.

Home again, home again, jiggety jig

My daughter should be home by 4:30 p.m. today. Today the judge ordered her father to return her to me. He was found in contempt of court and read the riot act.

What a relief. It’s been a week and a half since he took her.

I’ll buy you a pony

Every divorced parent’s nightmare is probably that their child goes for visitation with the other parent and never comes back again.

I never thought it would happen to me. But it did.

My daughter went for the weekend with her dad, didn’t go to her aikido class, hasn’t been to school all week, and didn’t come home again.

The police say it’s not a criminal act, to contact my lawyer, to get to court. If there’s nothing criminal they don’t get involved.

I cannot believe that violating a court order is not a criminal act. Isn’t this kidnapping? My middle son cried in bed last night missing his sister. Thankfully the boys are safe here with me.

The school is recording her absences and will contact the attendance counsellor sooner or later — but how long does she have to miss school before someone will do something?

He’s been served, told to return her immediately…an urgent motion for civil contempt is being brought before the court… but still my kid is not at home.

How can he think that this is a responsible parenting choice? A week of school, sneaking around, hiding at her grandparents’ house? Is this what he calls good parenting?

What good is a court order if it cannot be enforced?

I’m boggled by the system.

It must be some pony.

Postpartum support

Canada’s most famous midwife (according to me at least),Gloria Lemay, wrote this sample letter in 2001 for families to share after the birth of a new baby. I don’t think she’d mind at all if you edited it to fit your family’s circumstances. The main point of it is that you please ask for help when you need it. It’s all part of mythbusting the incredible super-mommy-can-do-it-all agenda that mothers get coming at us from all directions.

And no, I’m not pregnant, nor have I any plans to be. The rural Ontario childbirth historiography I’m working on is putting me in contact with more of this kind of information than I’ve been near in the past few years and I thought this was important enough to share.

Postpartum support

-by Gloria Lemay

“Let me know if I can help you in any way when the baby is born.” … “Just let me know if you need a hand.” … “Anything I can do, just give me a call.”

Most pregnant women get these statements from friends and family but shy away from making requests when they are up to their ears in dirty laundry, unmade beds, dust bunnies and countertops crowded with dirty dishes. The myth of “I’m fine, I’m doing great, new motherhood is wonderful, I can cope and my husband is the Rock of Gibraltar” is pervasive in postpartum land.

If you’re too shy to ask for help and make straight requests of people, I suggest sending the following list out to your friends and family. These are the things I have found to be missing in every house with a new baby. It’s actually easy and fun for outsiders to remedy these problems for the new parents but there seems to be a lot of confusion about what’s wanted and needed..

1. Buy us toilet paper, milk and beautiful whole grain bread.
2. Buy us a new garbage can with a swing top lid and 6 pairs of black cotton underpants (women’s size____).
3. Make us a big supper salad with feta cheese, black calamata olives, toasted almonds, organic green crispy things and a nice homemade dressing on the side. Drop it off and leave right away. Or- buy us a frozen lasagna, garlic bread, a bag of salad, a big jug of juice, and maybe some cookies to have for dessert. Drop it off and leave right away.
4. Come over about 2 in the afternoon, hold the baby while I have a hot shower, put me to bed with the baby and then fold all the piles of laundry that have been dumped on the couch, beds or in the room corners. If there’s no laundry to fold yet, do some.
5. Come over at l0 a.m., make me eggs, toast and a 1/2 grapefruit. Clean my fridge and throw out everything you are in doubt about. Don’t ask me about anything, just use your best judgement.
6. Put a sign on my door saying “Dear Friends and Family, Mom and baby need extra rest right now. Please come back in 7 days but phone first. All donations of casserole dinners would be most welcome. Thank you for caring about this family.”
7. Come over in your work clothes and vacuum and dust my house and then leave quietly. It’s tiring for me to chat and have tea with visitors but it will renew my soul to get some rest knowing I will wake up to clean, organized space.
8. Take my older kids for a really fun-filled afternoon to a park, zoo or Science World and feed them healthy food.
9. Come over and give my husband a two hour break so he can go to a coffee shop, pub, hockey rink or some other r & r that will delight him. Fold more laundry.
10. Make me a giant pot of vegetable soup and clean the kitchen completely afterwards. Take a big garbage bag and empty every trash basket in the house and reline with fresh bags.

These are the kindnesses that new families remember and appreciate forever. It’s easy to spend money on gifts but the things that really make a difference are the services for the body and soul described above. Most of your friends and family members don’t know what they can do that won’t be an intrusion. They also can’t devote 40 hours to supporting you but they would be thrilled to devote 4 hours. If you let 10 people help you out for 4 hrs., you will have the 40 hours of rested, adult support you really need with a newborn in the house. There’s magic in the little prayer “I need help.”

Gloria Lemay, Vancouver, BC Canada 604 737 7063 August 2001

Needless to say, I had a bad experience after my third child was born, where I wish I’d asked for help instead of trying to entertain visitors. If I were doing it again I’d be a lot more assertive. I think.

Dreaming

I had a dream this morning. Getting ready for camping — enthusiast style: pack it in, pack it out. Bringing only a small pack, the rusty orange one I got for my daughter when she was about five, the one with the spot for a water botttle. Clean underwear, bug spray, mosquito netting. A rectangular woven basket in my arms with some other things that would be divided into the packs of the small group of us going, the one that I filled this weekend with towels and raincoats from my house, packing to move.

Grabbing my cell phone as I run out the door, giving instructions to my parents about childcare, how to reach me, rushing out the door so I don’t miss my ride.

Waiting in front of a house (some house, none I’ve lived in) by a no-parking sign — waiting and waiting. No ride. Knocking on the neighbours’ house to see if one of the group is still there, finding out that Patrick (in 1993 we did bad children’s theatre together in Toronto) — and everyone else, left hours ago. The group was long gone. They’d given me a false departure time, completely intending to leave before daylight. I was devastated. Crushed. But then not surprised, like this had happened before, with other people, in other circumstances, and would probably happen again.

edit:

I forgot to say the reason why I blogged this at all. When I woke up I felt totally sabotaged by my dreaming self. I wondered if my dream knew all along that the group was planning to ditch me, and if so, why would it do such a thing? Rob, the ever optimist, suggested that maybe the mind just watches the pictures as they appear, and interprets them as we go along.

Real Estate for the Dead

Please note: This post is not meant to criticize or offend anyone who has experienced a death of friend of family and has had to make these decisions. It’s only intent is to bring attention to a practice that seems to me to go unquestioned, when there may be other, viable alternatives worthy of consideration.

There is an increasing trend for places to be owned, to be attached to names, to be logo-fied. At the university of Windsor we don’t just have a student centre, we have the “CAW Student Centre”. The buildings include the Toldo Building, The Jackman Centre for Dramatic Arts, Chrysler Tower, Chrysler Halls North & South — these are the names of local funders, who’ve made donations to the university. In the community, parks and greenspaces follow the trend too. People own property and build fences to keep others out. It carries on throughout life, until the ultimate in real estate ownership: a graveyard plot and tombstone, yours forever.

I’ve been telling people around me for years that I want to be cremated when I die and I’ve recently realized I don’t want to be responsible for using up even more land after I die. I don’t want to be tied (figuratively since I’ll be ashes) or have my memory tied to a single geographic location. When I’m done with my body, burn it up so it’s certain I’m dead (irrational fear of premature burial, thank you Edgar Allen Poe) and use me as compost to plant something — or else sprinkle me in a favourite place. I’m planning on living a good many more years so I’m not quite sure where that favourite place is yet.

many tombstones
Original photo: Crossover by Gemma Grace

I definitely know I don’t want any deadland. I feel no draw to the cemeteries where my grandparents are buried. I do feel drawn to the houses where they lived and where I visited them, to the things of theirs that I use in my home or have hanging on my walls or sitting on my shelves — these are the places and things that remind me of them. When I’m telling my children stories about them and their lives we look at these treasures. There is nothing for me at the cemetery.

I do wonder at the amount of money that people spend on tombstones and plots and upkeep (not to mention caskets) and I wonder how it came to be that this is now the standard in our society — that people have accepted this as “what must be done” when someone dies. I wonder what those spaces would look like without the markers — if every marker were instead a tree would we still have air quality problems here? Is it that people fear being forgotten? That without the stone there is nothing to remind the living that they even existed? Or is it the living that want the stone and land? To make the act of remembering a physical exercise (go to the cemetery) instead of an emotional/intellectual one (talk about the dead, think about them, etc)? or is it something I just don’t understand?

I’d rather invest in my family and community now, and leave the space for the living — not because I have a need to be remembered, but because I can’t rationalize consuming resources after I’m dead. I just won’t be needing them.

Graduation Day

Today is graduation day. I’ve enlisted the help of friends to help gather my children from the 3 different places from which they will come for the ceremony. One is at a track meet, participating in the last event of the day. My friend will wait for him to run his race and then bring him to the ceremony. If all goes well he’ll make it just in time. I have wonderful friends. Rob will chauffeur the gang to the university so that my parents will not have to walk in the heat. Afterwards we’ll have Chinese takeout, gift of my mother. Sounds like a great day.

picture of graduands

I’ve just come from picking up my gown. It’s an awfully awkward concoction and so I looked for some pictures from past graduations to see how it’s supposed to go together. I found this pic and can see that indeed it is an odd design that doesn’t seem to sit right on any of these people, except maybe the man on the left with the yellow tie. I don’t understand why the floppy part (hood?) is falling off everyone and that no one has ever noticed or tried to improve the design. I’m going prepared with a pile of safety pins. For the money and effort I’ve spent on the degree, I expected a little more. Who wants to be all falling out of their clothes?

Reflecting back to other graduation days, I can’t help but think of BtVS: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and her high school graduation at the end of Season 3.

scoobies graduation

What a mess that turned out to be! Monsters, demons, zombies, and a vicious mayor… and somehow Buffy got the entire class together to fight them all and win. What an awesome gal.

I’ll do my best today to block out the other things on my mind these days: dealing with an ex-husband-lunatic, navigating new relationships with old friends, trying to sort out what I want to do with my life now that this stage is over. Vampire slaying seems so straightforward — all you have to do is do it (oh and survive I guess). I understand the burden, but today I envy the simplicity. I’ve learned so much from Buffy, including how to prepare for graduation: I’ll have a wooden stake hidden in my sleeve and the kids will have a crossbow each, just in case we’re visited by the undead. Bring it on!

Taloola Cafe: Best Coffeehouse in Windsor

I’ve been meaning to go for months but it never worked out until today. This morning I went there for tea with my friend Lisa. I also had a “texture” cookie, all full of raisins, seeds, apple and yummy goodness and the desserts are vegan (even the choco-chip cookies — only place in Windsor with a variety for vegans as far as I know).

The place is really special: you choose your own teacup from a beautiful shelf full of one-of-a-kind cups, the walls are covered with gorgeous cloths and artwork. You choose your tea from a book full of samples where each page has a description and sample of the dry tea ingredients. They are also licensed and serve espresso and sandwiches. The neighbourhood is calm and there’s an outdoor patio area. Tomorrow I want to go back for the live performance by local artist Ron Leary.

What a treasure — I just wish I’d made it there sooner.

Where to find them:
Taloola Cafe
396 Devonshire Road,
Windsor, ON N8Y 2L4
519-254-6652

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