Is It Just Me?

I’m trying to stress less.  My job is a little stressful, my family life has its own necessary peculiarities that are stress-inducing.  So I’ve unplugged myself from the world of current events and news in general as much as possible.  When the news broadcast comes on during my classical music radio programme, I turn it off.  I don’t watch TV, so that was an easy one to forego.  I ignore newspapers, I removed all the news websites from my favourites on my computer.

Nevertheless, I live in this world, with people, and so naturally SOME things will filter through.  For example, I would not have known that there was the Republican National Convention going on recently, had Mr. C. not chatted about it with his family on the phone.  I tried to tune him out as he carried on his conversations, but there you have it, now I know.  Then, some non-news websites carried the story about Clint Eastwood’s speech at this convention.  I tried to ignore that too, but there you have it, I’m curious, and now I know.

I try to stay away from all the information that is thrown at us because it’s overwhelming.  There’s just TOO MUCH INFORMATION.  Most of it is IRRELEVANT.  And NARROW-MINDED.  Also, some people, like Mr. C., can be aware of current events, take it all in, have opinions about them, even find them funny, and they can still sleep at night.  Other people, like me, who don’t have a highly-developed sense of humour, ruminate and ponder, toss and turn, worry and fret about all this narrow-minded, irrelevant, much too much, information.

Along comes Clint at the Republican National Convention.  The mystery guest speaker.  Now, I like Mr. Eastwood, great actor, director, one-time mayor, that voice, those nice crinkles around his eyes.  This is a man with whom you could sit down and have a conversation about something or nothing.  You get a sense that he’s a straight-talker from the heart.   Which is why it wasn’t so much his identity at the convention that was a mystery, but the fact that he was actually endorsing the Republican candidate.  Didn’t Mr. Eastwood publicly support same-sex marriage?  American politics is confusing.  Amusing, but confusing.

The Republicans and their Stepford Wives are not to be mocked, however.  Back away from them slowly.  They should be feared for the subterfuge and false sense of hope that they create, kind of like the bully in grade school who pretended to be your friend but slowly turned everyone against you for no reason and proceeded to make your life a living hell.  At a time in when mass shootings and horrific violence are once again at the forefront in the U.S., why would the Republican party feel it was a good idea to have a guest speaker known around the world for portraying a vigilante cop?  “Go ahead, make my day” was shouted from the Republican crowd at the convention.  Does this makes sense?  See what I mean by amusing but confusing?

Even Mr. Eastwood seemed confused.  Notwithstanding his bizarre chair talk with President Obama and his off-colour jokey-jokes, it seemed like he wasn’t really sure himself why he was making this undeniably ad-libbed speech.  At one point, he urged everyone, no matter their stripes, to come together for change.  And he didn’t even seem that convinced himself that Mr. Romney was the answer to the prayers of the country; the message I got was this:   President Obama was given the opportunity and could not deliver, so let’s try someone new, and because the only alternative is Mr. Romney, let’s give him a try; not that Mr. Romney has proven himself, but heck, there’s no one else to vote for.

Being married to an American has certainly raised my saturation point of American culture, but it has also given me new paths to understanding people.  But sometimes, the American way is just too different from how I’ve lived all my life.   So when Mr. C. and I talk American politics, or gun laws, or health care, or Canadian history versus American history, I wisely hold back opinions I might have, as I’ve learned that much will be gained in insight if I listen and mull things over first before giving my take.  This lesson, unfortunately, has not yet been learned by the kids, who relish the opportunity to pit what they know of America (i.e. what the media feeds them) against Mr. C.’s arguments, which can be vociferous and patriotic (I think he surprises himself).

I’m at a loss as to why I’m affected by an octagenarian’s halting speech about a political party that I distrust (along with most political parties….does that make me apolitical?) in an election I have no say in, in a country that is not my own.  Is it because I find them circus-like therefore easy to make fun of?  But I don’t think politics is funny….is it because I take it too seriously?  Is my husband’s nationality the reason?  After all, he is my lover and best friend…..would I care as much if he were not American?

Ah…it’s because I care.  I care about what happens in this world, I care about what happens in the U.S. because it will ultimately affect me in ways near and far.  Some may say that I don’t have the right to voice these thoughts and opinions, but they are more thoughts, less opinions.

From a PR point of view, Clint Eastwood’s appearance was more damaging than not, but after reading the speeches of Mr. Ryan and Mr. Romney, they didn’t need anyone else’s help, they are a damage tag-team unto themselves.

But from an ordinary Canuck’s point of view, Clint Eastwood’s appearance was an oblique confirmation that even the glitterati are as confused and maybe a little weary of the game of American politics.  Maybe it’s not just me……

His Girl

This is what you were made for.   Quiet contentment.  Joy.  Love.  Hope.

She still lives in you, that woman from not-so-long-ago, and yet she seems from another century:  her face to the light, beautiful in her fragility, heartstrong and loyal, bathed in glowing white and gold.  Heck, you can even see her luminescent gown swirl about her as she stretches her arms out and twirls in the forest, her trusted white mare (Shadowfax?) grazing nearby.  (It helps to have an image, no?)

She waits patiently while you stumble through this desert.  You didn’t know she was you, you didn’t know then how happy you were.  You’re not sure when the wheels fell off the bus, but they did.  That doesn’t matter anymore.  What matters is you know she’s there inside you, now.  You are incredibly fortunate, you’ve known the love of a parent who loved you unconditionally.   You have children who know they are loved, and who return that love tenfold.  And lucky you, you have a man who sees through your pain, and loves you even more.  Do not, I repeat, do not leave him in a lurch, where he feels he’s in a no-man’s-land, trying his best to help you, and knowing his best will not be enough because you, his girl, cannot find it in you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and face those demons down.

This is your moment now.  Those ancient demons, Shame, Guilt, Regret, Living in the Past, they have all lined up for you, and are ready for this most final of showdowns.  You know what you need to do already.  This is nothing new.  What is new is the peace you’re feeling inside because you know what you need to do.  It won’t be easy, and it will take time.  She knows this, and you know this.

But you have to get out of your own way.  This is very important and bears repeating:  Get out of your way!  You are not the enemy, it’s the voices in your head that brought you to this precipice, daring you to jump.  He has talked you away from continuing to be engulfed in the whirl of depression, and now you have what you need to walk yourself back to her, back to you.  You have to honour the commitment that he makes to you every day.

All you need is all you have.  All you have is all you need.  He needs his girl back.

 

 

Mothers In Arms

I cross the lawn to her right away as she steps out of the van, leaving the others to gather around Little M.   She has been in my thoughts all night, and when I opened my eyes early this morning, it was her that I thought of first.  I hold her close to me and hug her, tell her I have no words to express what had happened.  Suddenly out of nowhere “But I love you very much, you are very strong” tumbles out of my mouth, without any effort.  Her tearful face pulls back, a tired face like that of a little girl who has cried most of the night, and she says:  “I know you know what this feels like.”

What “this” feels like is watching your child nearly die.  “She” is my children’s stepmother, wife of my ex-husband, mother to their boy, Little M.  I will call her Elle.

Mr. C. and I, my son P and my daughter G, had trooped out to our front yard, to greet Elle and my ex-husband, and their Little M, like they were surviving heroes.  In a way, they are.  They had just spent the night at the hospital, following Little M’s terrifying near-drowning in their pool the previous evening.

Little M stands in the driveway, bare-chested, with the two little stickie clamps still stuck on his four-year-old body; he is pale but talkative, and he seems almost proud to show them to Mr. C, like they were medals awarded to him by the paramedics and doctors for his bravery at coming through this most scary of episodes.  We all stand and watch him munch on the cookie that G has given him,  we are awed at him pulling through, and we’re quietly drinking in this moment of gratitude.  I feel peace wrap itself around us in the morning sun, like a silky ribbon, a calm reassurance that it’s ok, he’s ok.

It had all happened very quickly, as these things usually do.  G spotted him going under and yelled out.  In a flash, Elle was in the pool, scooping Little M into the arms of his father.  Everyone’s quick thinking and even quicker reactions probably saved Little M’s life.  In tears, G had called me while the paramedics were there, and I drove over to see what I could do to help.  Which wasn’t much, really, I had no idea what to say, what to do.  So I hugged my kids and tried to reassure them and their dad that it was going to be okay, that I had met the ambulance carrying Little M and his mom as I was driving over, and they did not have their lights flashing, so he’s going to be okay.  The three of them left for the hospital, and I drove back home, pushing down that horrible feeling that kept rising in my chest, that feeling of thinking your child will die before your eyes.

I’ve gone through two of these traumatic experiences with my own daughter G, and Mercy brought her back both times.

I ponder God’s hand in these experiences.  I don’t believe God actually interferes in the sense that we think He should, because that raises the impossible question of why does He spare some and not others?  Death is a part of life, and life and death are part of the plan, His plan.  And, anyways,  I don’t think that that’s the kind of power God has, to slice through humanity, deciding who lives and who dies, who He’s going to rescue today and who He’s not.  I think that’s reducing God to something of a caricature,  and who am I to say what God thinks?  His power is above that.  I’m not as Bible-savvy as I aspire to be, but there’s surely something to be found in there to reflect on.

This is what I do believe:  God was standing right there on that pool deck last evening, knowing that Little M would survive.  They may not have felt it at the time (then again, maybe they did),  but His Spirit flooded the hearts of P and G, of their dad, and of Elle, as they frantically did all they knew to get Little M to breathe while waiting for the paramedics.   In our darkest, most terrifying moments, He is the ultimate.

And there is nothing darker or more terrifying for a parent than to receive the sudden, face-slaping reality that you could lose your child.

When Elle married P and G’s dad, I thought I would find myself feeling bereft somehow, (as Mr. C. had not yet glowed into my life), but I wasn’t.  I have liked her from the first time we were introduced at P’s soccer game all those years ago, when she wore her hair long and straight.  Since she’s had Little M though, she has cut it into a stylish, practical bob, like most new mothers do.   She is a vibrant woman with a fabulous smile, quick to help anyone in need, bravely soldiering on through her own difficulties and ready to shoulder anybody who needs it.  She works hard to build a good life for her family, and I take much solace in the fact that she compliments P and G’s father so well; my children’s well-being is always important to me, and his happiness with Elle and Little M can only bring good blessings to my own children.

When I talk to people about Elle, I know they expect me to be catty about her, or to say things to disrespect her.  But this is not how we roll in our modern, blended family.  As revolutionary as it seems, the adults in the family have genuine concern for each other, and we all try to hold the children’s best interests at heart, even though we sometimes blunder through the maze of parenting.  When I talk about Elle, I sometimes jokingly say:  If she wasn’t my ex-husband’s wife, we would probably be friends.  

As I think about the events of the past twenty-four hours, I wonder why I say “probably be friends”.  We may not be girlfriends, but we are friends in the “I’ve got your back” kind of way, a friendship built on many unspoken things, a deeper understanding of two women whose families happen to overlap, who try to be allies in the growth of both families, and who now share another bond.

We are mothers in arms.

Shiny, Glossy Parent

Which is harder:  being a teenager, or being the parent of a teenager?  Ok, let’s try this one:  Is it better to be a teenager, or the parent of a teenager?  As a parent of the P & G Teen Show, I may have had unrealistic expectations and fantasies of how things would be with them at this stage.

I was a teenager 32 years ago.  In 1980, I turned 13 years old.  Pierre Elliott Trudeau returned as our prime minister, Jimmy Carter was the U.S. president, and John Lennon died.  As for me, I entered the 9th grade at the only Catholic high school in the city at the time.  My parents couldn’t afford this school, but there was no way in their minds that I was going to a public high school (my children attend public school, because there was no way in my mind that they were going to relive my experiences in the Catholic school system…..funny how that works).

So I spent the next four years wearing an unflattering school uniform, trying to fit in with kids who came from money and who had their whole futures planned out and paid for, and struggling with my school work.

I made some friends, but I always felt I was on the outside looking in.  I was not invited to the cool kids’ parties, I never had a boyfriend, never had a date.  I was one of the unpretty girls that went along unnoticed, even by her teachers.

Not being athletic, but wanting desperately to have friends and be part of something, I tried out for the girls’ powder-puff football team….they actually called it that, rather than flag football as it’s now known.  It was the first year the school had such a team, so they accepted just about anyone who tried out.  In my second year, I tried for the junior girls’ basketball team, and humiliated myself at not being able to even complete the suicide drills.  I guess the coach felt sorry for me, and gave me the job of being the team’s watergirl instead, which was great, until the day I couldn’t find the team’s uniforms in the laundry room.   Such was the end of my sports dreams in high school….

I struggled in my classes, with math and sciences being my hardest subjects.  Years later, as I looked over my report cards, I expected to see that maybe I had excelled in languages or history, but no; I was a straight-C student.

When I turned 13 years old, I was facing the Big Four that all kids then and now face:  sex, alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs.  A difficult experience as a child had ensured that, as I grew older, I would become more introverted and shy than I naturally was.  My parents loved me, that was certain, but I think they were at a loss with how to raise a teenage girl in the circumstances of the day.  The world they came from was so different, and the pressures they faced financially at that time were so great, and I loved them more than I could imagine, so that it was easier for me to give them a sense of security that I was okay, rather than be openly rebellious and defiant.

Teenagers scare me.  Always have.  Even when I was a teenager they scared me.  I’m afraid of them like I’m afraid of big birds and strange dogs.  It’s like when animals are communicating with you but you don’t understand them, and so you become a little apprehensive when they approach you, you know?

But once I get past that apprehensiveness, there’s a gold mine.  There’s funny conversations, deep connections made over talks about World War II, mundane acts of kindness that make you forget the messy bathroom.  There’s hearing about new friends they’re making, and actually meeting some of them, and actually finding I  actually like these new friends of theirs.  There’s recognizing qualities of the child that used to be, in the young person who stands before me now (even though often the child and young person are indiscernible).

For my P and G, who are young persons on the verge, it’s a very different world of struggles that they face, as technology has ramped up the Big Four factor in ways we cannot even imagine.  And for me and Mr. C., as parents in this new world, we are also learning the language, and learning how to move forward as parent/step-parent (that’s a whole other post in itself!).

So, harder to be a teen than to parent one?  Better to be a teen than to parent one?  The answers are like the surface of the water, mutable as time moves forward.   Which is why teens and parents of teens need empathy.  Not sympathy.  Empathy.

As I gain experience as a parent, I’m finding that a teen needs a parent to be lustrous.  Sounds odd, I know: a shiny, glossy parent.

But when you think that lustrous reflects light, it begins to be evident that a parent must reflect light back to their child, even if difficult circumstances hurl anything but light at the parent.   What you reflect back to them is love and guidance, another stone set on their path to adulthood.

Now let’s see if my lustrousness can reflect clean bedrooms!

Love,

Chantal xoxo

 

Strange Days Indeed…..Most Peculiar, Mama

Seven months is a long time to be away from my little blog.  I’ve missed it more than I can say.  In the past seven months, not much has happened and yet so much has.  I’ve wanted to write about certain things, many things, funny and sad things,  then Courage would exit the stage backwards, bowing out before turning and hightailing it to the nearest bar.  Ok, the nearest coffee shop.

I ask myself:  “What could I possibly add to what has already been said about anything?  Have you seen the blogs out there?  There are some really good blogs out there!”  But that’s not the point of Ain’t Life Strange.  I don’t write to stand out, I write to sort out.  And methinks it is time that I return to the sorting out in a writing kind of way, to find my voice again, because in John Lennon’s words:  “Nobody told me there’d be days like these…..”.

He was evidently surprised by his being left out in the dark by everyone else, because he repeated this line three times.  And frankly, so am I.  Surprised, I mean, that I too feel left out in the dark by everyone else.  We are the most informed society to have ever breathed, and we are stumped when things happen in our lives, things that have been happening over and over again to just about everyone that has lived, and we are left with a feeling of being the last to find out, the last one to get the party invitation, oblivious up until now.

I’ve had that chorus in my head, sticking like an earwig (or is that an earworm?).  In any case, to all of Life’s more trying offerings that have come my way in the past little while,  I’ve been rolling my eyes and thinking: Really?!?  If I had known then what I know now blablabla……

Then John’s song infiltrates my brain, and there it is, I’m stuck singing “Nobody Told Me”  for the rest of the day and sometimes straight into another insomniatic night.

I’m sure my circumstances are not any more trying than what you, dear Reader, have gone through:  raising a teenage girl, raising a teenage boy, raising teenagers (it bears repeating), learning to be a parent with Mr. C. as opposed to me being the parent and relegating Mr. C. to the sidelines (that man loves me….if I didn’t fully grasp it before, I get it now), dealing with work pressures, having my values challenged, balancing everyone’s needs without forgetting my own…..like writing.

Out of all the ways I express myself, writing is the only way that the depth of my heart and mind comes through; it’s only in writing that I know I am being genuine and reflective.  Clarity and meaning reveal themselves, and I am sometimes even left breathless by what comes out.  It’s as if by writing, I know I am real.  I write, therefore I am.  I know that you get this, dear Reader.

Picture it (or Google it):   John Lennon’s little dance, in his white suit & hat, walking down a city street, holding Yoko’s hand (she’s not dancing, why was she not dancing, I wonder….)?  He was very graceful in a goofy way, wasn’t he?   This is the dance I’m now doing:  a goofy, pirouetting dance with my pen, in the face of these strange days that have indeed been and that will certainly come again, these strange and peculiar days that nobody told me about, not even my own mother.

I’ve missed you.

Love, Chantal

xoxoxo

Barefoot On Broken Glass

I don’t want to hear how it will get better.  I don’t believe it will.  It was lost somewhere in the past and I cannot retrieve it or make it into something that is remotely salvageable.  There comes a time in a mother’s life when she must accept and surrender.  Some children are attached to their parents, they are emotionally tuned in to each other.  Some children are attached to their peers and to any adult other than their parents, regardless that their parents care for them and do all that is humanly possible to keep the child close. 

Sometimes a mother will have to stand alone and be outraged at policies that do nothing for her child’s development, policies that encourage her child to be secretive and to not share crucial information with her mother.  These policies are designed by law and wholly supported by schools, and specifically exclude parents.  Sometimes a mother will have only one recourse at her disposal, and that’s to voice her anger at those officials who are purportedly responsible for her child’s well-being.  And when a mother sometimes does this, sometimes there will be silence at the other end, but not a shameful silence.  No.  It’s a silence of disbelief at the mother’s overreaction.  It’s a silence that says:  You are angry for no reason.  Shame on you for being so angry and for jeopardizing your child’s trust in us, her school counsellors, we who know your child better than you do.  Now because of your overreaction, we told your child, and your child will no longer feel like she can talk to us, we who are much better at parenting than you could ever hope to be.  We hope you’re proud of yourself; are you humiliated yet?  You should be. 

And sometimes the silence is shared by those officials, but not with the mother.  They share it with the child, the same child who is peer-oriented, and the child is happy to know that those adults care about her much more than her own mother does.  Her mother is an over-reactor, that’s the implication.  A nuclear over-reactor.  All the child’s friends say so, and the mother is the laughing stock among those wise and sophisticated 14-year-old peers.   And among those university-educated, professional women who hold important titles and have years of experience dealing with peer-oriented children, including being mothers themselves. 

What’s a mother to do?  She cannot protect her child from the psychological consequences of certain actions that her child has decided to do.  Anything the mother says is overriden by the All-Knowing school counsellors, and most important, her child’s decision to take matters into her own hands at 14 years old is lauded by these same wise gurus of child psychology.  This leaves the mother out in the cold, standing barefoot on broken glass.  Wherever she turns, any step she takes, will be a misstep, and will result in pain and bleeding. 

Sometimes a mother must stand still and not move.   She wants to scream and holler at the top of her lungs.  But it’s futile, nobody will hear her anymore.   The question is how long can she stand still before the glass under her feet start to feel like icepicks?  She must be patient.  Surely there is a glass-sweeper that will come by soon with His broom and dustpan, to clear a path that she can walk on again without cutting her feet.  A path where she will be able to take her child by the hand and the child willingly will walk with her mother on that path, trusting her mother to guide her, just like she trusted her mother all those years ago when she learned how to walk. 

Fat chance of that ever happening, the mother thinks.  Sometimes the mother loses faith.  She thinks she can regain it by being patient and trusting the One who brought her this far.  It’s all she has left.

Her feet are hurting, though.

Love IS About Holding Hands……

Mr. C. and I have not had a traditional courtship (does anyone say that anymore?).  As the readers of this blog know, he was randomly reading blogs on WordPress one night in September 2007 (was it a dark and stormy night in  Florida, I wonder?).  He  read one of my posts that struck a chord with him, left a comment, and the rest is history.  We corresponded in writing, fell in love with each other before we even met face-to-face, eloped in March 2008, and it wasn’t until October of that year before we were actually living together.  Unorthodox and unconventional, and yet we fell in love through our letters, which is old-fashioned, especially in the times we currently live in.   Who has time to fall in love anymore? 

As in any marriage, we have our struggles, we are not blissful 24/7.   Our courtship was old-fashioned, but our daily life is modern:  we get to work for a living, we get to raise teenagers, we get to enter mid-life with all of its attendant aches and pains.  There are many fluctuations in our life together:  our moods, my weight, his luck on poker night with the guys.    Three years in, and we are still learning things about each other, as I suspect we will be for the rest of our lives.  I am reserved and serious, even in private; he LOOKS reserved and serious (because he’s tall, and his silvery locks give him the air of being distinguished), but really he isn’t (reserved and serious, I mean).   We’ve both had to make compromises in that respect; he agrees to hold back on the PDA, and I agree to hold his hand in public. 

Holding hands is not something I remember doing  in my past lives.   What I DO remember is the sting I felt at my son’s soccer game, maybe a year after I had separated from his father.  His father attended the game with his new bride-to-be.   The three of us were sitting together on the sidelines, cheering and chatting, being very cordial with each other.   At one point I glanced over and saw him gently take her hand in his, and they remained that way, holding hands in public, while I was thankful for having worn sunglasses, as they did more than protect my eyes from the sun in that moment.   This was not a gesture I could remember him doing with me.  It just goes to show you that when things are not meant to be, they are not meant to be.  

But when they ARE meant to be…….

Mr. C. has a way of knowing what’s good for me and making me do it whether I like it or not.   Like eating popcorn at the movies instead of smuggling in something “healthy”, or suggesting I take time to visit with my out-of-town family, or holding hands in public….. Because although holding hands with him in public feels very natural, it did not come naturally for me.  Mr. C. is more of a “What you see is what you get” kind of person:  straightforward, honest, happy-go-lucky, glass-half-full.  Me? Not so much.   Nor is holding hands an automatic gesture that I extend to him; for him, as soon as we exit the car, the house, the store, he holds out his hand to me and waits while I fiddle with my purse and my keys and straighten myself out.  With one hand in his pocket, the other extended out to me in mid-air, he is patient, waiting for the woman he loves to finally put her hand in his and walk with him. 

I can learn to love you.  That’s what holding hands means.  Every time we do it, Mr. C. and I are relinquishing the selves that everyone else sees, and we turn to each other and give trust.   Three years later, he and I are still marvelling at how sweet and new our love can be.  It came upon us so suddenly, and yet it takes its time to reveal the true joys of being committed to each other.  It’s love in the slow-life lane, and I am warmed by the gradual dawning of how holding his hand, in public, brings a special innocence and trust to our relationship.  Much like those beautiful letters we wrote to each other, in the beginning.    Back then, we were apart and could not hold hands, and so our words took over.   Now, we hold hands like children, facing the same direction, allowing patience and trust to intertwine and solidify us.

If you were to ask Mr. C. why he likes to hold my hand, he would say with a grin: “Because it makes me happy….you don’t mind that I feel happy, do ya?”.   See what I mean?  Straightforward, honest, happy-go-lucky……but it would have made for a very short post

Love,

Chantal xoxoxo

 

 

 

 

A Digital Frame State of Mind

If you’re a parent of a teenager, reassure yourself that this is the hardest thing you will ever do.  At the moment, this is the most positivity I can offer.  Be prepared, like a good scout, because people without children, and parents with younger children, will be very quick to judge you (just as you were very quick to label and blame those parents of teens for their children’s lousy behaviours when you weren’t even a parent yet).

Parents of adult children will look at you with a knowing smile tinged with sympathy,  and give you the “It’s a difficult time, but they are so worth it in the end”  line.  This can make you feel much worse than you realize because when you’re in the teenage trenches, thinking that your child is worth it is the furthest thing from your mind!    You are torn between sending them to boarding school or locking them in their rooms until they turn 25!    So when someone cheerily  points out that “Children are worth it!” , you feel guilt ON TOP of feeling like a crummy parent.  THEN they finish you off with “But I’m so glad it’s you and not me!!”  and run in the opposite direction to their post-teenager lives.  Crushing, I tell you.

Last summer, I thought I’d tackle the difficulties I felt at parenting a teen by making a scrapbook of my kids with pictures from birth until they were  about 3 or 4 years old.  I wanted to remind myself that my little girl was at one time a sweet, funny and very imaginative child who loved her mother, and that one day she will be that way again.  The scrapbook  turned out real nice, the kids thought it was great, and I take it out every now and again to travel back to a happy time.   But the scrapbook wasn’t enough.  Summer came, Fall took over, and parental despair set in with Winter’s cold breath.   

Mr. C. gave me a digital photoframe for Christmas; once I figured out how to use it, I loaded it up with over 400 pictures that I had on my laptop.  These were pictures from the time I separated almost seven years ago up until now.   I put the frame on my desk at work, because I spend so much of my day there, and it’s like watching a movie of our lives.   Having the pictures come up randomly is even better, because I can see how much my kids have grown, and how happy we were even in those harder years of adapting to the separation.   

There’s a calming effect seeing pictures of my daughter at seven juxtaposed with her when she was twelve, and it gives me hope and reasssurance that it’s going to be ok.  We’ll weather the stormy seas of Ocean Adolescence and we’ll dock someday on Grown-Up Island.   Those pictures are proof to me that she is a funny girl, making faces for the camera, posing with a museum stuffed skunk & holding her nose; she is a thoughtful girl, reading a book, caring for her hamster; she is an imaginative child, setting up make-believe restaurants in the dining room nook  & serving up real meals;  she’s a loving person as she hugs me during a walk in the park at Thanksgiving.  There she is, laughing and smiling with her brother on his birthday.  Here she goes, walking around Ottawa with Mr. C. on one of our first trips as a new family.

It’s a real struggle to stay balanced and focused on parenting your child once they morph into a Gremlin.  My tendency is that I take on all of the bad and blame myself.  Which is not balanced.  It’s a sick guilt-twist where I’m making it all about me as a parent, taking the focus off of my daughter, her behaviour, and discerning what she really needs.  Being a good parent demands that you step up to the plate and make those very hard decisions that will make Cruella deVille seem sweet and wonderful by comparison.  Sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t.  Sometimes I see how my loving persistence pays off, other times I’m just too darn tired to fight and I let this-that-and-the-other-thing slide without doing anything about it.  I  now stand in solidarity with other parents of teens, and I am no longer trigger-happy and pointing the judgment gun at them (parenting is really the most humbling human experience).   Because it’s really not about me.   

It’s about how I see my child.  What G needs from me during these awful, awkward teenage years are my eyes on her.   I mean this literally and figuratively.  When she has these spaz moments and I think there must be an alien who’s inhabiting her body, I take a deep breath, go to work,  turn on my photoframe, and I wait.  My workday unfolds amid the slideshow of my family, who mean the most to me than anything else I can think of.  Pictures scroll by…. I remember that Fall picnic at the lake, or that first-day-of-school outfit with the fluffy white angora bunny on the sweater, that Christmas party at daycare when she was three, or our first SuperBowl party she put together in honour of  Mr. C.  I shine on all the emotions attached to those  images.  My digital frame state of mind lets me reach into my heart and find the compassion to comfort her when she’ll need me to.   I forgive her the angry words that she spit out in a fit of rage, and I  figure out a way to bring it up later in a way that she’ll know I’ve forgiven her and that I love her despite all that. 

 Because when I feel that my child is a brat, it’s hard to see my child.  I only see my self, my hurt feelings, my repressed anger, my failures, my self-pity.  Putting myself in a digital frame state of mind during the workday gives me the reflective time I need to respond to her in ways that she needs me to when the workday is over.    The pictures act on my subconscious; they bring the outside into my soul and work their magic on my heart, so that I reflect back to her what I’ve seen throughout the day.  Which is not my anger or my hurt.  What I’ve seen in my digital frame state of mind is my child’s essence and what she needs from me. 

The day will come too soon where she will need me less. 

The Digital Frame State of Mind:  no chemical dependency, and cheaper than the Guilt Trip Special. 

 

Love,

Chantal xoxoxo

Chantal avant NFL

We don’t have cable.  Which means my American husband does not get to watch a whole heck of alot of football.  But THIS weekend, CTV is broadcasting 2 games Saturday, 2 games Sunday.  Mr. C explains it’s the playoffs, you see.  I understand playoffs.  The NHL holds an 8-week-long playoff season.  The NFL playoffs seem kind of short by comparison.  However, it’s not how long you can go, it’s what you do with the time you’re given that counts.   Yes, you can infer from that whatever your mind conjures up.

Mr. C asked me what will I be doing while he’s watching the double-headers.  Oh.  Guess I should occupy myself.  I was counting on spending some time with Mr. C, being as the kids are at their dad’s this weekend.  But ok, we can compromise.  We’ll run errands in the morning & I’ll keep myself busy the rest of the time.  What to do, what to do……take down Christmas decorations.  Read on the treadmill. Vacuum.  Watch a movie. 

Yes!  Watch a movie that Mr. C would probably prefer NOT to watch with me.   I cozy up on the bed with a blanket and some tea & settle in to watch “Coco avant Chanel” with Audrey Tautou.

I usually only watch French films in French without subtitles when I’m alone, which isn’t very often (not that I’m complaining), so this was a treat.  And I was not disappointed.  Gabrielle Coco Chanel was a true pioneer in how she navigated through life as an orphan at the turn of the century, struggling to make ends meet as a seamstress by day & cabaret singer by night.  She becomes a cynical self-assured young woman, who detests society’s shackles placed on women at that time, yet understands that in order for her to achieve any kind of dream she may have outside of a marriage of convenience, she must submit to being a kept woman.  Jaded and stern and oh-so-serious, she shuns love and doesn’t believe in its possibility for her or for any woman.   Until she meets Arthur Capel.  

The scenery is great in this film, the dialogue is sharp, funny, poignant.  But most of all, most of all, it’s the scenes with Coco and Arthur.   I’m a romantic, I know, but there aren’t alot of romantic movies that I find can really sweep me away.  This one did.  

You want passion?  Check out Coco & Arthur in the backseat of his car on the beach in Deauville. 

How about romance?  Put on your waltzing shoes as Coco stands out in her little black dress, glowing in the arms of Arthur, who is one of the most dashing romantic characters I’ve ever seen as they twirl around the dance floor of the casino.  

You want to see how a man looks when he’s falling in love?  This is the film for you. 

How about the gallantry and civility that two men pursuing the same woman show each other?  It’s all there. 

Throughout the film, her style is evident and is practically a character on its own; she seems to have been very much a woman of simplicity and a great believer that reserve is the best aphrodisiac (“A woman is closest to being naked when she is well-dressed.”) 

For me, this film was as if I was witnessing a woman’s grand passion finally being awakened only to have  it yanked away.  We see how she channelled her passion for living into the empire that became Chanel.   We never know what we are capable of accomplishing until we experience life and live all that is given to us, even in tragedy. 

In difficult circumstances throughout her early life, Gabrielle Coco Chanel did not submit to the dire circumstances that presented themselves to her.  She did not succumb (at least not for long) to possible defeat.  When fired from her singing gig, she snagged costumes on her way out in order to have something to wear at the next (then unknown) audition.  When her sister left her to live with a baron (which must have felt like sheer abandonment), Gabrielle Coco Chanel plucked her courage and presented herself at her future benefactor’s estate, tacitly accepting the role of mistress.  When she was faced with marrying for convenience, she took the as-yet-rarely-ever-done-by-a-woman decision of striking out ”to make my own fortune” with a hat shop in Paris.  When life dealt her the ultimate blow of depriving her of the love that grounded her, she let her soul flourish amid textiles and scissors, imagination and determination, resulting in the emergence of la maison Chanel.

 I may not have a little black dress, my perfume collection is but one lonely little flask, I may only dream of ever wearing the classic Chanel suit.   But I AM French, and as Mademoiselle Chanel said:  “There is no time for cut-and-dried monotony.  There is time for work.  And time for love.  That leaves no other time.”  

There is a time for football, and there is a time for love.

Dear Reader, the second NFL  double-header is almost over.  I’m glad that Mr. C has had time to watch something he clearly loves ……it’s evident by the way he talks to the TV downstairs, cheering when the going is good, muttering his disapproval when the going is not so good.  But now  I think Mr. C will be the happy recipient of a French lesson…..

Bonsoir,

Chantal xoxo

2010 in review

Considering I didn’t do a lot of writing here in 2010, these stats gave me a nice warm fuzzy.  And thanks, WordPress, for showing me that the big picture is as important as the brushstrokes:

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 9,800 times in 2010. That’s about 24 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 5 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 187 posts. There were 5 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 685kb.

The busiest day of the year was October 9th with 58 views. The most popular post that day was Thank You and Goodnight.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were blogsurfer.us, facebook.com, search.aol.com, advantagesofmutualrespectandfairplay.com, and bigextracash.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for philippe claudel, john lennon, empty stage, three fairies, and wolf cub.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Thank You and Goodnight November 2009
10 comments

2

A Film (Or Two) A Day…. October 2008
2 comments

3

A New Wind Blowing October 2008
4 comments

4

Wolf Cub, Do Your Best March 2009
2 comments

5

The Ideal Life, according to Mark Twain September 2007
4 comments

Thank you to WordPress for giving me the coolest place in cyberspace to write.    And thank YOU, dear Reader…..no man is an island, and no woman can live without chocolate.   You are the chocolate in my writing as I navigate to the mainland. 

Love,

Chantal xoxoxo

P.S.  A most special thank you to Mr. C, at Advantages of Mutual Respect and Fair Play, who is my top referrer of readers.     Among other things