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.

When Things Shift

An hour in the sun over coffee and a cookie.

A Saturday morning date with a different way of seeing things, with a few good questions.

Allowing a friendship from one chapter to write some life into another.

Seeing that indeed, What is in the way *is* the way.

We never know which small moment will become The Moment.

The moment when what was hidden is suddenly seen, when what was missing is found, when life is breathed into a an ember of hope, and in turn Hope sparks yet more Life.

That was today.

To Remember

The boy scored his first basket.

The girl has a solo.

I sorted the Lego.

We laughed at dinner.

It was so boring and normal and we were happy, except when we weren't, and then we were fine not being okay for a while.

This was a glorious weekend.

What Must Be Done

There is nothing to do than that which must be done. That's one of the truisms of adulthood and on the day that that which must be done is hard, it's a truism that sucks.

Today has to be hard. Today had fillings in it for one of the kids and so I sat in the hallway and cried while a kind man filled a couple of the many holes in that kid's mouth. There was nothing to do but get it done, but the doing was hard - there is no sedation offered mothers (a short-coming of the system I suggest). I'm tired now.

Today has Phase 2 grief in it over the fire trucks. Or is it Phase 97? Not sure, but today is the day after learning the first option, and that means today is sad because the first option sucks. It just does. It wouldn't have mattered too much what that option was - it was destined to suck, and therefore today was destined to suck. There's nothing to do but live with the truth that option A sucks and probably it's going to be a few days or weeks or months before option B and C and D make themselves known, before we know whether or not they suck too. Before we trip across the option that does not suck, that brings life.

On days like today, I am tempted to try to create things to do that do not suck. That are not hard. That don't make me cry.

But another truism of adulthood is that the hard days won't leave you alone. Until you make space for them, they'll just keep tapping on your shoulder, demanding to be borne. They can be delayed, but they can't be avoided.

So today I'm all in on doing what must be done. I'm going to cry a lot and indulge in the bleaks. And in the morning, maybe that which must done will be smile-making, joy-giving. Or maybe it will be plain. Don't know. I'll do it then.

Chased.

I have decided that I am optimistic about 2016. Despite the first day's repeating of several challenges that I was sure I had decided I was leaving in 2015, I end this first day of the year all kinds of certain that I'll be swimming in a deep ocean of goodness for the next twelve months.

There is one teeny, tiny obstacle to bathing in all this goodness: my fondness for fear. I have long been expert at keeping fear folded in my wallet, ready for any excuse to be pulled out and shown to any and all. When I was 8, it was fear of fire. When I was 10, it was fear of nuclear war. Lately I seem to like my fear of climate change and/or earthquakes quite a bit. I've also collected a fair number of more existential fears: fear that we are not who we think we are; fear that we have failed The One Test That Matters; fear that the stakes are higher than I thought; fear that I misunderstood it all.

Oh fear, what a faithful friend you have been.

However, I am really, really committed to my plans for 2016 so I must be caught. Because of course, I have been chased. Or at least, I'm willing to believe that it is truth-ish that Perfect Love chases out fear, and that I have been outrunning said perfect love for a while now, fuelled as I was by all that fear. And so I'm going to believe that having been chased, I can slow up enough to be caught and let all my fear get chased out.

Obviously, this has been an option for a while. But 2015 taught me that fear served me not at all - the worst things happened, and the anticipatory fear I'd borne didn't make those things any easier to manage. It was so irrelevant. It just didn't matter. Hard things were happening and we were doing them, and doing them actually made them a lot less terrible than fear had told me they would be. Fear is such a fucking liar. Anyway, if fear isn't going to equip me to handle all the terrible that is surely still to come, I think I'd like to just put it down. It has been so heavy.

I'm going to try to throw a bit more hope in my wallet instead, and then just go hunting for the goodness. Good morning day, I'll say. What goodness do you bring? That's what I'll say this year.

I think it's going to be awesome. Getting caught by Perfect Love is probably pretty great.

Waiting is Hoping

The gift of 45 minutes alone, unplanned, unspent, un-agenda'd.

The pressure of 45 minutes alone, unplanned, unspent, un-agenda'd.

Today I read somewhere, The Christmas you struggle with is not Christmas at all. And my heart said Amen. Because my Christmas, the one I love, is the one where we work at watching for Light. We watch for it in all the dark places of our lives and we really devote ourselves to spying the spots twinkling in the distance and if grace allows, perhaps we even realize they are not all that distant after all. The Christmas I love is the one where Hope is promised and The Wait is the point. It is one where we remember that the end will be the end - all there is is right now and what we are hoping for right now. Our Hope is the Present.

The rest - the frenzy and the consuming and the dreading and the pushing and relating and the pressure... none of that is Christmas. All of that is just a box with the wrong label on it. That is something else altogether. That is a big mess of ugly that has nothing to do with Christmas.

Waiting for that part to be over... well, that is part of it too. We move through it full of Hope that we will not be ruined. That goodness may rise from the ashes of a burnt out relationship, that the gift given will in fact be a gift needed, that our generosity will be spent in the right directions and that at the end of it all, our real Christmas will be bigger and more memorable than the rest of whatever was packed in that box.

The gift and the pressure - always wrapped together. But grace is seeing the gift and smirking at the pressure.

Wishes

"May this year be one of alignment, heart-fuel, and gentle courage."

Today I was given ostrich socks and a coupon for a hug a day. Someone bought me lunch and Starbucks bought me breakfast. I have a new-to-me-Pokemon card and only somewhat misshapen Mars bar.

Yesterday was the last day of 41. It was the last day of hoping for firetrucks. It was the last day of pretending not to be ambitious at work. Some big things ended yesterday, and there were tears and tender, weary togetherness and a subtle adjustment of the compass heading.

This morning we woke with puffy eyes yes, but maybe clearer vision. I went to yoga and moved through surrendered heart to the sweet balance between the mystery of what lies beyond our sight and the certain support of what lies beneath our feet. So much balancing - half moons and eagles and warriors; so much aligning left and right, above and below, heart and body, soul and sole. A practice that last week left me rageous (!!), this week left me joy-full and rested.

The rest of the day has been quietly lovely. Kindnesses at every turn, and of course the Facebook love that is a sweet gift. The last message has been from my friend Lisa who wished me the wish above. Alignment. Heart-fuel. Gentle Courage. They were today's words but I didn't have them until she gave them and once I got them, I knew they had been with me all day. They were the heartbeat of my practice this morning. They are the words for the year ahead. They affirm and confirm our best hopes about how this world works, about who the Creator might be and how we are loved.

As one year gave way to the next, I was reminded over and over and over again that we are not forgotten. That somehow, in some way that matters, we are noticed and known. We are not alone.

Happy Birthday to me.

Jack

Jack died.

Jack is our neighbour across the lane. He died last week at the age of 69, not enough years but years lived fully. His wife Rosa is heart-broken, and surrounded by her daughters and their children, but still so, so lonely.

Yesterday there was a mass for Jack at the sweet little Catholic church down the road. I had a nice cry of gratitude that the church offers so much solace and rite and ritual for grief. There are words and actions for everybody to follow as they work their way through the loss and get to the other side of death, where Life continues for all, even Jack if we've guessed right.

For most certainly, a funeral reminds me that we are gazing into a darkened mirror, and all of this is guessing. We're of course reminded that we do best to guess in the direction of love. We've got hope, faith and love and love is the very best of the three. We can hope like crazy, and choose faith like we're crazy, but in the end, loving is where we'll lose our crazy. Oh, love.

Raising kids on love is some damned hard work though.

This week, I'd have preferred to be raising kids with JOY!! or FUN!! or AWESOME!! But those have been in such short supply around here. We are in the depths and we don't know up from down most days. We hope like crazy that this isn't going to sink us. We are faking faith when we can't summon up the real thing. And we're choosing love as often as we can. But love is... steady. Sturdy maybe. But not necessarily light-hearted. Not hilarious particularly. Our worn-out, tired love feels a bit threadbare.

The hope and faith is that the love remains. That it is fuelled by source that is eternal and unending.

I just kind of wish that instead it was fuelled by cotton candy and Red Bull. We need some of that too-sweet-love. The kind that rots your teeth, but feels so good.

The thing is, it isn't cotton candy, Red Bull love that Rosa is weeping over tonight. She's not missing how FUN!! and AWESOME!! Jack was. She's missing the sureness of him. The slow, steady certainly that he was hers.

Sigh.

Indeed

Our wandering away from the habits of church and Christianity is almost always a peaceful wander. Our settledness with being Jesus-y at our best, and vaguely hopeful at our worst is almost always fine. Except for the days when it's not. And Easter Sunday is most assuredly a day when it's not.

I am not dying to be at church. I do not miss my messy judgey heart at the beachside baptisms. My faith in the resurrection would not be strengthened by passing a basket - a basket of bread, a basket of eggs, a basket for tithes. In fact, all of those make me angry.

And yet. And yet. And yet.

I am sad, so sad, that I don't have it in me to be giving my smalls what I was given: the storybook faith that grew and evolved to this place. For how can they get here, a place I love being almost every other day of the year, if they don't first travel through there? Through all the places I went first? How will they know about light overcoming dark? How will they know that death has no victory, no sting? How will they know that Life Wins, every time, because Jesus won, that one time?

The corner of my heart that believes in a God that notices each of us, that notices me - that corner believes that God notices my smalls, knows them and loves them and will bring them to where they need to be. But the corner of my heart that scoffs at that other corner is certain if not me, then... then they're fucked. Oddly, that corner is also the corner where the faith I am glad I outgrew lives. The corner where I've packed away the part where we believed we could somehow get something so catastrophically wrong that eternity would shift. Why do I unpack that box? Ever? Sigh.

This weekend, we celebrated the marriage of a friend. She has married her beloved, another woman we have come to know, and for whom we are thankful. And as they agreed in front of us, and their friends and their family, I cried as I so often do at weddings. But I cried, not just moved by the hope that each twosome brings to each wedding, but moved by the miracle that these two women could choose each other, and in public, in front of anyone who cared to join, be legally married. When I was my children's ages, this was impossible. Impossible. But yesterday it wasn't.

Those who chose not to celebrate with our friends - people who should have been in the middle of it, dancing with their daughter, cheering this love - they chose not to believing that's what God thinks they should do. They missed out on the sweet joy of yesterday because... because in their time and their world, God would rather they quit on their own sweet girl than carry on with her if she's going to love another sweet girl.

This isn't why we don't do church or Christianity anymore. Not exactly.

And yet. And yet. And yet.

It is the part (a part) of the story I don't want my smalls to learn. A part of their inheritance that they'd best not be bequeathed.

This weekend was all kinds of light and dark, all kinds of dead and nearly dead. And so today, I cling to my heart's belief that the resurrection is real, that Life Wins. That whoever Jesus is, his story is still True (if not accurate), and therefore, the story I'll build my hope around. The story I'll hope my own life finds a way to tell to our smalls, in its own small way.

One way or the other, this Sunday, it still matters: He is Risen.