Thirteen

Weird.

As if luck had something to do with it.

This week I read that the daughter of a couple I met one time, with whom I share many friends in common, has died. She was little, and she had cancer for many, many months, maybe many years. Her dad's facebook page has lots of pictures of her sweet bald head in various moments of the journey, and ends with a picture of the coffin he has built for her with his father and brother. It is gutting.

Yesterday I saw a friend I don't see often anymore. It is the ten-year anniversary of her brother's murder. It took but a moment to remember with her, and the gutting truth of his story was tear-making all over again, the pain of it as acute and wrenching 3650 days later.

She is walking alongside a friend who's daughter drowned last summer in circumstances that will never be clear enough leaving only questions that can never be answered. This woman was anchored by motherhood, and in its absence, now just drifts on her own sea of what the fuck.

When one week brings this many brushes with unbearable, all there is to do is bear it with. Even if it's just a psychic with.  I will carry some of the unbearable for a time believing that somehow the cosmos works together for good and the piece I carry with them is a piece they don't have to bear alone.

All there is is with. With weighs more than luck I think. At least today.

Twelve

So, the point is people show up.

Stooping is a thing we do because it brings us goodness. We sit out there, and people show up and we feel loved and noticed and known and connected. It's all about us. We'd be lonely without it.

We talk about stooping, because who doesn't want to talk about the things that make us feel like tomorrow is possible? 

It turns out though, that all our stooping evangelism has an unexpected outcome: people know to show up.  

We love a lot of people. It's not a sure thing that it's reciprocated so we keep it on the down low. And one of the couples we love texted just before seven tonight to see if there was stooping. They hadn't stooped before (well, that's not true - we've boat stooped with them a hundred times, but never street stooped) and were nearby and wanted in on the action.

They pulled up, full of second guessing - "we're crashing! we should go. we're sorry. we'll go get wine." Nope. Pull up, sit down and wait for the shit show that is daily life chez nous to settle down enough for cheap wine to be found and a bag of chips opened.

Turns out that life has taken yet another turn for the awful for them this week. Turns out cheap wine and shitty salsa and an hour on the stoop takes the edge off. They left feeling less hopeless for a few minutes.

And us? We were just weak with gratitude. For them and their friendship, but also for the good fruit that comes from a good gift well-enjoyed.  We didn't invent the stoop - we've just enjoyed it. And as we've been fed by the friendships that have grown there, we get to pass it along to a few others and that makes us feel all kind of rich.

Tonight we go to bed like millionaires; friendship millionaires, again.

Eleven

My girl is a total liar and cheat.

It's such a happy moment for me! Finally, not alone in this family. Husband and son are fucking honest do-gooders.  Well, that's not true. But their crimes run to the mundane candy-thieving and thing-breaking-then-covering-up variety.

The girl committed fraud. Forged my signature. More than once.

Sadly, she did it in her agenda which as documents go, is pretty public, sitting right there in her book-bag and all.  And while I have definitely left it to her to bring me said agenda to sign, and have not commented when she doesn't, I have also been known to open it from time to time. Had she given it thought, she might have weighed the odds for been caught a bit more heavily.

The crime of course, is serious. Forgery is a trust-breaker, and hopefully between now and tomorrow morning, I'll have taken some serious action. I'm not great though, at the consequence part. Feeling terrible and contrite as she does, seems like consequence enough. Telling her teacher is going to be TERRIBLE for her.  Isn't feeling bad bad enough?? I'm not sure.  I'll probably ask around, and certainly if you reading this have thoughts, you should pass them along.

But the parenting gold for me is after the consequences, when we get to fix the trust. When I get to notice and point out how trust-worthy she's being, and point out how much better that is for all of us. That part, I'm going to really feel good about.

In the meantime, I'd like to believe that this is a moment that she will remember forever, that will shape her into her adult self in some kind of amazing way that she uses in sermons and motivational speeches in her lucrative career as Someone Earth Changing.  Probably that won't happen.

But probably it will be a pretty big moment for me in my parenting career. A moment where despite wanting to shout and yell when she would not say words for SO. MANY. LONG. MINUTES. I managed to stay quiet and cuddled. I found a way to be the person I want to be when I grow up, and it was like a little tiny parenting miracle.

This does not mean I got it "right", as far as her moral development goes.  Probably the right thing to do here is a bit more serious and a bit heavier on consequences. She could be ruined forever.

But I did get it Right, as far as my heart goes.  I can live with myself tonight, and feel hopeful about our tomorrow.  Winner winner, chicken dinner.

Ten

Pushing water uphill.

Brushing teeth while eating an oreo.

Cleaning a house with children at home.

It was that kind of day.

So read through November 2012 posts - I did that instead of write, and it made me glad I wrote before, because there's some good shit there. And by good shit, I mean, words I still believe and that I'm still glad I wrote down.

Nine

We are surrounded by goodness.

I am surprised over and over again by how hard it is to live in the goodness, but in any given moment, if I take 12 seconds to close my eyes and breathe in deeply, I can visit the Goodness that is right there lingering at the edges.

A family I don't know rode by on their bicycles this afternoon.  In the 12 seconds it took for them to ride by, I heard the father letting his son know how dumb he was for holding the handle bars in the particular way the son had chosen. I knew that tone of voice - the exasperated one that is just so tired explaining so many obvious, you-should-know-by-now things to the children we share life with. It's a voice I use too often. As I heard this dad, I wanted to shout "Shut your mouth! Breathe in deep through your nose and notice the Goodness that is your family out together! Then breathe out and LET THE FUCKING HANDLEBARS GO!"

Then I wondered why I don't shout that same thing at myself more often.

But today I practiced, just a tiny bit. I breathed in once or twice with my eyes closed and felt the Goodness. It was pretty nice, and seemed to help me notice that things really are pretty good today.

I have some friends, and some friends of friends who are in the middle of the shit. I know the Goodness is hard to come by for those guys these days.  But from here, I can see it for them, and I wonder if the 12 seconds of breathing makes a difference when things are extra terrible. I'm not about to suggest it, but I wonder.

I do think this only works 12 seconds at a time. I'd be interested to know how many 12 second pauses you can get in a given day, or hour even. I bet it's not that many, but I'd also bet that you probably don't need that many to notice the Goodness more easily.

I'm going to keep at it; I'll let you know how it goes.

Eight

Where does your help come from?

Mine comes from the Maker of Heaven, Creator of the Earth.

It is helpful to believe that said Maker and Creator lurks in the heart of (wo)men - I have made a habit of collecting help from whoever is willing to offer it.

Of course, it's also helpful to believe that there is a Maker and Creator, that there is a Heaven and an Earth. More than half the time, believing those things is help enough. When it isn't, it is a help-start and it is not usually long before the rest of the help shows up, one way of the other.

I like using words like Maker and Creator. Even the word "God" is a bit loaded for me nowadays. I have several indigenous voices in my world that use Maker and Creator, and my yogi friend has used Creator once or twice I think.  I like sharing some language with people outside my own circle - it is a concrete, verbal reminder that my own words aren't definitive or adequate. I am always looking for words that count more people in the story, as many people as we can squeeze in.

Heaven is a tricky one of course - I should probably find an alternate one of these days. But inasmuch as I need a word for all that we can not see, Heaven serves me well. Earth is under my feet, my sole word. Heaven is everywhere else, my soul word.

I've got good help I guess is what I'm trying to say.

Seven

Count yourself in friends.

That's what I want to say tonight.

This weekend my aunt threw herself a party.  She invited her people to come over and celebrate her. And when she sent out the invitation, we all said yes. Because, party.  And because, Auntie Cana.

Then the party happened and she stood up in front of her family, chosen and given, and said thank you. She said thanks for showing up.  For showing up for her party, but mostly, for showing up for her. She said it had been a hard few years with various terrible illnesses and body failures, but that she was so thankful that her people had shown up.

This was a deeply backwards thing for her to say because my aunt is the show-er upper. She's the one who gets shit done, takes care of people, takes care of her people.  She is capable and kind and good -deep down in her heart good. And capable. Did I mention capable?

I don't think anyone showed up at her party thinking, "Shit, it's been tough for her these last few years. Better do the old girl a solid and put in a face." I'm about a thousand percent sure everyone thought what I did:  "Celebrate Auntie Cana?! Yep. I'm in."  No favours, no obligation - pure pleasured joy at getting to show up for someone who always shows up for us. And cake. There was also going to be cake.

We underestimate ourselves so often. But we matter so much.  Just the showing up part matters so much. Sometimes it's true that it's not the one of us specifically, but the mass of us collectively that matters, but that mass requires all those ones to show up.  This is true of funerals, wedding, elections and birthday parties.  Each one of us has to count ourselves in so that all of us can stand together and say, This moment matters; You matter; You are loved.

And sometimes it's true that the one of us is the only one that matters. Some days our child only needs their parent. Some days our beloved only needs their beloved. Some days a stranger only needs someone who is willing to say, "how can I help".  Some days it's just YOU who is needed.

Auntie Cana is just one of many people I descend from who counted themselves in, who knew that just showing up with what you had to give is what matters.  And this weekend, because she knew to count herself in, we all got to count ourselves in, and there was the magic that happens when we all know we matter.

Please count yourselves in friends. Otherwise, we all miss out on the cake.

Six

Sometimes I forget what we're parenting for, or what direction we're headed, or something like that. I just can't keep track of the point and I get all lost in the irks and irritations of sharing life with three other people who are relentless in their commitment to getting their own needs met, mine be damned.

Today my boy got super-disappointed. And in his disappointment about a need ("need" my ass! want! that was fucking want! seven-year-olds are morons) not being met, he was super-rude and super-belligerent and since we were in public, super-embarrassing. In those moments, I feel so much pressure to be really big and loud with my corrections and to be sure everyone around us knows I don't take that shit. I want to be one of those mothers that has a look that shuts a kid up, and failing that, offers a tongue lashing that does and that no one forgets.

Frustratingly, being that parent always leaves me with a hang-over. The indulgence is never worth it, and the belly ache of knowing I have not one time ever been inspired to goodness, kindness or self-control by being berated wrecks the rest of my day.

Today was a day when I had the reserves to do what feels least terrible in the long term, which is to offer seemingly bottomless opportunities to turn the SS Asshole around and start over so that we can get to a solution. Seven minutes later, we finally arrive at a workable solve, and off he goes to get his "need" met, while I recover over my spinach salad.

Fifteen minutes later, he returns and he is mostly fine except for a hint of not so much. He puts on a brave face for his dad and grandma  -  everything was great, it totally worked out, I was so right about all that - but the weight of the not so much is way too much and in minutes he is weeping quietly behind a chair.

What do you need my sweet boy? What happened?

He pulls me away to a corner and confesses through his tears that it wasn't at all great, that it didn't work out even a little and that he got it all wrong, and I get to explain about cheap therapy math, and about how $4 is a small price to pay for learning that sometimes we do need a grown-up to help us figure stuff out, and that sometimes waiting for a grown-up is better than losing all we have trying to do something on our own just because we're impatient.

And then he waited in the corner for his dad, as long as it took, and then his dad gave him two dollars to try again, and this time it worked, and this time it was great.

As they walked away, I said to my mom, "I guess that's why I don't want to yell and shout and put the fear of all that's holy into him: I want to be the one he'll come back to afterward when it all goes to shit, the one he can confess to when it doesn't all work out."

Tomorrow (or the day after - nothing is certain after all) I will lose my shit with that child. I will shout and tell him I am done with the rudeness or the mess or whatever the hell the straw is that breaks this camel's back. But I won't be proud of it, and I won't pretend it works or that it's the right thing to do.  Not for this mother, it just isn't.

And if he grows up to be a murdering psychopath, well then I will apologize for getting it all wrong I guess.

But today? Happy Mother's Day to me.

Five

I think I only had four days worth of things to say.

Also, I don't particularly care for the number 5.

That makes this particular effort in 30 days of writing particularly awful.

Sorry.

We are away this weekend, staying in a rented house. It is really very lovely, a house where everything appears to be on purpose. It's very soothing to be in a house where there the extraneous is extricated.

The owners have no children.  And maybe a storage locker somewhere else full of all the shit family members have passed along over the years? Surely to God there's a storage locker.

Where else does all that oppression go? How do people find ways to get rid of the items a parent or grandparent thought worthy of treasuring? My whole soul needs to get rid of it all, but I. Can't. Not the christening dresses kept for 100 years. What would happen if this rogue daughter-in-law was the one who left them at the Sally Anne?? or my grandmother's purse? It's awful, but it's from Birks and it has a blue silk lining and it was still here once she was gone.

The bitch of it is, I know better. I KNOW that sentiment is useless, that the purse has none of Grandma in it, that I know her no better keeping it. Lord knows those christening dresses are doing the world no earthly good packed into one of the downstairs closets.

Watching families run from the fires in Alberta this week, none of them are staying behind to load up Christmas decorations from 1942, or stashes of cards sent from friends, circa 1987. They are grabbing their people, their passports and maybe a computer if there's time.  They may find themselves missing the clay pigeon handcrafted in kindergarten back in 1977 or maybe pining for the tea cups and saucers a grandmother (which one?? I don't even know!) collected over the years. But probably not so much. Probably they will miss knowing they were home and that they were safe a lot more.

When we get home, I will probably declutter a room, or a drawer. But it probably won't be enough.

There's no perfect ending to this post... I warned you. It just ends all cluttered up like this.

Four

Alternate Title: Unreliable.

I read somewhere that Meryl Streep said the most valuable thing her mother taught her was to be capable. Or maybe that was what she most hoped to teach her daughter. I don't really remember exactly - my memory is unreliable. I do remember thinking capable is pretty worthy as far as great gifts to give children, and daughters in particular. We talk a lot, SJ and I, about being "actors", people who believe that we can act in any given situation and make things happen. Being an actor is a version of being capable. They both mean being able, over the course of this life, to get shit done. A belief that what we (in the wider, global sense) do matters is kind of what makes the world better. The many who are "audience", who sit and watch; the many who do not know themselves to be capable and therefore count themselves out of doing when doing is needed - I think they might be why Trumps get elected.

Probably my mom and dad taught me to be capable. Certainly, in most situations, they have been actors and lived life in front my brother and sister and I in such a way that all three of us are actors too. It only goes wrong if we all 'act' at the same time in different directions...

But this week being an actor doesn't matter too much. That life lesson, while important and valuable, isn't the one saving me.

The thing my mom taught me that is making this week possible is that we're unreliable. And by we, this time I mean feelings.  Our feelings are unreliable - they aren't always telling The Truth. To be clear, they are almost always telling A Truth, just not The Truth.

This week, I'm pretty certain the world is ending. I have reprimanded a senior in the grocery store for being an asshole (she was, but I probably shouldn't have been); I only see ugly things - I spied 3 really awful looking engagement rings yesterday; all my friends are having a terrible time with important things, and the one who isn't is sure to soon; my children though lovely, seem troubled by things I can not nail down and thus can not fix; my body is a collection of minor grievances that could be killing me, but are probably just permanent low-grade irks.  I feel certain everything is terrible, everywhere. I feel low on love for all the people I'm supposed to love. I feel like I've made a series of terrible mistakes and that goodness is no longer available for me.

Somehow though, through a divine mercy, I am able to remember this other thing: my feelings are unreliable, and can not be trusted. They may be true in this moment, but they are not The Truth. The Truth is not bent by my feelings: The Truth is that goodness is always available for me and for all, and the discipline of looking for that goodness will trump feeling its absence. That's The Truth.

I'm glad I'm somewhat capable, but I'm profoundly grateful I know about The Truth.  That's my Mother's Day gratitude right there. Thanks Mom.

Three

My friend stopped by on her way home from counselling. She just needed a quick refresher on how to parent. So she asked someone. And that someone reminded here of what she knew, and she's gone home remembering what she knows and feeling like probably she'll be able to parent another week. Weeks even, if things go well.

Here is my current mantra on parenting, having noticed parenting seems extra hard for a lot of people I know this spring:

It's all my fault and there's nothing I can do about it.

It's all your fault and there's nothing you can do about it.

Are your kids failing in new and horrifying directions? All your fault. There's nothing you can do about it.
Are your kids sad and depressed, bleak and blue? All your fault. There's nothing you can do about it.
Are your kids unable to find two sock that match most days? All your fault. There's nothing you can do about it.

This, my friends, is the good news. For realz.

We dream them, imagine them, conceive them, birth them, adopt them, bring them home, feed them, teach them, guide them, wreck them. It is really and truly, all our fault. They didn't ask to be born.

And we can't undream them, unbirth them, undo what has been done, for nothing is as final as that which has happened. There's nothing we can do about it.

Probably you're squinting really hard to see the good news.

The good news lies in the weirdness of English language very tense. "There's nothing you can do about it" in this case must mean, "There is nothing you can do about what has been." But at the very same time, it cannot mean, "There's nothing you can do about it moving forward."

And therein is the Life: you can not change them much, it's true. But for all that is our fault and that we can do nothing about, we can still do this: repent. Change direction. Change our own self. That is one thing we can do. Actually, probably the only thing we can do. It's part of what I figured out that time I realized I could only parent for outcomes in me.

So my energy goes to changing me, changing this heart, changing my own outcomes in the hopes that more grace for me, more life for me, more hope for me somehow becomes more grace for them, more life for them, more hope for me.

Because this too is true friends:

Are your kids hilarious and witty? All your fault. There's nothing you can do about it.
Are your kids resilient and kind? All your fault. There's nothing you can do about it.
Are your kids wearing two socks that kind of work together? All your fault. There's nothing you can do about it.

XOX friends. We got this.

Two

Neighbouring is my favourite.

It's really the only Jesus-ism I can hang my hat on: love God and love your neighbour, that's all that matters.

Loving my neighbour is generally pretty possible. In my day-to-day I hardly ever run into someone I can't be kind to. And kindness is where love starts as far as I can tell.

The thing about neighbouring that I think maybe some people don't know, is that all of us have to go first. Waiting for someone to start is what wrecks neighbouring. Two people waiting for someone else to start is a recipe for loneliness at best and more likely, resentment and sad and eventually probably war.

Good Neighbouring is smiling first, saying hi first, and asking for help first.

What??

Yep. Good neighbouring is asking for help first. I think.

Giving help feels so much better of course. Being free with all we have is all kinds of good and right, and helping a neighbour is always the right thing to do. But probably not the first thing, not if you're practicing Good Neighbouring. Because of course giving is also elevating. Even when it's done humbly, there is an inevitable lift of the One Who Has over the One Who Has Not, be it an egg or a shoulder to cry on. Because Good Neighbouring depends on mutuality, this lift undermines the heart of good living together. At least it can.

So instead, we show ourselves to be the least, the last and the lost. Because of course, we are. Not a one of us doesn't start a meal short the rice vinegar from time to time, or raise a child short the patience every now and then, or paint a deck short the time, every time. By exposing our Not Enough we don't just give another the chance to give, a worthy gift to be sure. But better yet, we give the first opportunity for a Me Too experience, the very heart of neighbouring.

You fail and forget and flounder? Me too.
You wonder if you were really meant to parent those children? Me too.
You find this life at times overwhelming and too much? Me too.

Oh, the wonder of Me Too, that lets neighbouring bloom.

It is holy, this reminder that not one of us Is Enough, Has Enough. That's what Jesus was telling us: between God and our neighbours, we will find our way to Enough. But surely to God, not on our own. Jesus was all over the part where all on our own, life's a disaster. To pretend otherwise would be to say we don't need a God, we don't need our neighbours. That pretense is where death lives.

But Life? Life lives on the stoop, where Jesus is known in the sharing of food and wine and tears and laughter. Where we bump into the sacred in those who, when we confess our need, our Not Enough, say Me Too.

That's what I think about that.

One

There.

First word.

The rest of the words will follow eventually. Certainly they have been insistent lately. So many words to put down, or put out, or put away. So many words needing a place to be.

And therefore, 30 days of putting them down, putting them out, putting them away. Finding them a place to be.

Good neighbouring. I must give that some words. Maybe all the words, just because that really is the only point. Everything else leads to that. Love God, love your neighbours; nothing else matters. That is all I have left now, and so that is where everything goes.

Yoga has been the how of my faith these last months. It has been making a physical faith for my soul, creating a quiet corner where I can be still and know, even as I move with that breath of mine. Inspire: take it in. Exhale: let it go. That has been the rhythm of my faith and it has been good. But not good enough. Or maybe, Just Not Enough. It has made space for my body and my mind and my soul to love God, and has surely fed my love for my neighbours. And still, Not Enough.

And so after many weeks of intending, I find myself doing. Doing the part where I write it down, where I build a scaffolding of words around the ineffable*. Where I create a record of my witness. Where I leave documentation that speaks to that which has made itself known to this heart, and that which I want to remember. Because of course, the cruelty of it all is that I forget. That we forget. That we are a forgetful people who can not remember long enough the goodness that has been given, and so quickly we then become tight-fisted goodness hoarders. Our generosity is the first thing to go. My generosity is the first thing to go. But maybe if I write it down, create a record, document what has made itself known - maybe then I will remember, and in the remembering, loosen my hold on the goodness given so that it can land where it ought to be.

There. It is begun.



*It gave me great pleasure to look that word up and realize it was the Perfect Word.