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  

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Christmas…..

“Is there an A”?

“No”.  He draws a leg.

“Is there an R?” 

“YES!” 

I’m looking at my son’s Hangman phrase, and can’t figure it out.  I laughingly ask him if he spelled it right.  The two of us are killing time this evening, the night before Christmas Eve.  While my daughter G is at her piano lesson, P is keeping me company at Tim Horton’s.  He’s eaten his cookie and is drinking his hot chocolate and he can’t stop talking about Christmas.   The boy is eleven and tells me:  “I’m Christmased out!   I can’t wait anymore!  Tell me how many presents I’m getting!  Ok, then tell me what you bought for G!”  I remember how it was at his age, the anticipation making you jump up and down all over the place like a monkey on Red Bull, your mind thinking only of what you might find under the tree, and counting down the days with great impatience. 

So at Tim Horton’s, I’ve pulled out my notepad and we make a list of the food we’ll be having for our “réveillon”, the traditional French-Canadian custom of eating a feast late on Christmas Eve (usually after midnight mass) to celebrate Christmas.   Along with the expected tourtière,  bûche de Noël, sugar pie, sparkly juice for the kids, and wine for Mr. C & I,  we’ve added our own destined-to-be classics:  meatballs, onion rings, mozza sticks, and taco dip.   After talking about what we’ll do Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day, I suggest a game of Hangman to P.    He loves this game, and tries to come up with words and phrases that are as gross as possible, and giggles til his cheeks hurt while I try to guess.  If I guess and say it out loud, he does the silent laugh where he can’t even catch his breath.  I love these moments with him.

So we’re both very focused on our Hangman game, to the point that we become oblivious to the trio sitting a few tables from us.  We don’t notice who’s coming in or out of the coffee shop, or the cars driving by at the drive-thru.  We’re relaxed together, having fun, our guards are down, we’re happy it’s Christmas.   Then a man comes up to me on my left and hands me a wrapped present saying:  “Here Mum, something for the little guy.  Merry Christmas.”   Caught unawares, the words ”Thank you, same to you” automatically pop out of my mouth as I accept the square package wrapped in Christmas paper.   He quickly exits the coffee shop without looking back, walks to his car parked a few ways down, gets in, and drives off away from the building, rather than driving in front to the main highway.   By this time, my Mama-Bear radar has gone off, but I don’t want to overreact, and I want to preserve the good feeling that P and I have been sharing, so I set the gift aside and continue chatting with P. 

“Are we going to open it?”  “Later” I say.  And thankfully the warm & fuzzy mood is preserved, and we carry on with our game.  As we leave, he asks me again if he can open it.  “We’ll wait til we get home, and Mr. C and I will have a look.  It might be something very innocent, but I just want to be cautious.  It was a little weird, don’t you think, a complete stranger handing us a wrapped gift and walking away?”  I didn’t want to alarm him, but I also thought it was a good opportunity to show him that caution is always a good approach.   As we drove home, my mind was turning this over and over…..what if this is some kind of perverted prank and the “gift” is really a framed picture of something really scary or sexually graphic……what if it’s a crazy person giving out bomb-packages to unsuspecting people…..Did he give any presents to any one else at the coffee shop?  I couldn’t remember, I wasn’t paying attention.  I don’t even remember him walking in, and to be honest, I couldn’t tell you what he looked like, what kind of car he drove or any important identifying details of that nature.  I just remember his empty grocery-shopping bag.  

As soon as we walked through the door, P announced to Mr. C what happened at the coffee shop.  So I handed the package over to Mr. C and told him I thought it best if he opened it in private and let us know.  G, in all of her 14-year-old thought processes, piped in:  “It’s probably porn and he was stalking you!”  P, in all of his 11-year-old innocence, asks ”What’s porn?”  I, in all of my 43 years of existence, suddenly feel very weary. 

Mr. C opens the package on our bed, P waiting patiently in the hallway.   After a moment, P comes to me & hands me a small note, where the following is scrawled out:  This is a coin collection….it’s better to give.  Merry Christmas.”   The gift was a framed print of Canadian collector nickels and their descriptions…..along with over a  dozen nickels matching those in the print, some dating as far back as 1924, each in its own little cardboard pocket with a cutout in the middle to show the coin. 

I was mystified and flabbergasted.  All four of us crowded around, looking at this most unusual gift….and yet not so unusual.  My son has been collecting coins for the past few years and he & Mr. C are always rooting through Mr. C’s change to see if any old or unusual coins have turned up.   I read the note again.  This is the strangest occurrence…..I don’t know if he had other gifts in his shopping bag and if he gave any to anyone else at the restaurant.  In my recollection, it seems like we were the only ones he gave something to.  Regardless, how ironic that he should give this particular package to a boy who collects coins….it’s like kismet.  

As I write this, my mind is spinning with possible explanations  for this man’s actions….what if it’s stolen property?  But Mr. C. quiets my suspicious mind by saying that it’s just somebody who wanted to give this away and thought of a unique way to do it.  Ok, so it’s probably not stolen property…..what kind of thief would include a handwritten note with the ”stolen” merchandise that he was trying to get rid of?   

In my dramatic imagination, I’m going with the following possible scenario:  this man is alone in the world, is faced with his impending death, and is slowly giving away his treasures, hence the “It’s better to give” reference in his note. 

OR he may have made a decision to simplify his life after an illuminating, life-altering event or epiphany, and what better time of the year to give away his valuables then Christmas? 

OR maybe this was his father’s coin collection, and maybe his father while on his deathbed,  requested him to do this unusual give-away, and the son, puzzled, asked him how will he know who to give the gift to, and the father answered:   You’ll know.  And so maybe P gives off a “coin collector” vibe and the man knew he had to give the coins to P when he walked into the coffee shop. 

I thought of putting an ad in the paper that read:  To the kind gentleman who gave my son the coin collection at Tim Horton’s on Thursday, December 23, 2010 at approximately 8:15pm…..thank  you.    But that might embarrass him, even if I didn’t give any personal identifiers. 

Here’s what I really want to say to him: 

Dear Sir,

Your very small act has caused very big ripples in my heart.  I try to lead a life where I forget myself to be present to others, but I so fall short of the mark.  I become jaded and cynical, especially at Christmas, and for no reason.  I have abundance and blessings every single moment.  I get caught up in acquiring, even though what I acquire is small in comparison to others’ material acquisitions.  But small or big, it’s all the same racket, and only serves to alienate people from each other.   Preoccupations with “getting” abound at this time, and like kids at Christmas it’s a childish view of the world that should be left in childhood.  I’ve been moaning with a full belly about how I never have time to do what I think is important, that Christmas is all just one big commercial downer, that parenting is the hardest job I’ve ever done and why the heck doesn’t anyone warn you about this before you have children (like you would listen….).   You may have caught me unawares this evening with your gift, dear Sir, but I don’t think that it was random or coincidental.  Nor do I think it was meant only for my son.  The physical object, yes, the coins were meant for him.  But the act itself was meant for me. 

Sometimes, when someone is searching in her heart to know how to heal her soul, and what can she do to feel close to God again, her caring husband will hold her in those moments and with great wisdom and simplicity (because he knows her better than she knows herself), he will say:  What if you prayed about it? 

 Sometimes, when someone takes that advice and opens her heart to God on a morning before work and figuratively  falls on her knees, asking for His guidance, He gives a sign.  Maybe not right away.  Maybe it takes a few days, and one night, when her mind is not on her troubles, there’s the sign at her elbow, giving her a gift with a handwritten note that says: “It’s better to give.”

Dear Sir, I may be extrapolating something completely far-fetched from a completely meaningless encounter.   But you appeared as quickly and quietly as you disappeared, and if I wasn’t the overthinking type, I would have accepted this for what it is, a kind person giving something to a stranger.  This whole event would be out of my mind, and I would be in bed by now.  But I’m here, writing, and it’s going on midnight, which means it’s almost Christmas Eve Day.    Everything this week that has led up to tonight was like a whisper from Someone, and if I wasn’t so darned sensitive, I might have missed it altogether.  

Dear Sir, I was paying attention tonight, even if you caught me by surprise. 

It IS better to give, and with gratitude I’ll pay it forward.  Amen.

I’m still not exactly sure what I’ve been given tonight by this gentleman’s actions; all I know is that sometimes, you don’t need to know, you just need to open your heart and feel it transform you.  I guess that’s what faith does.  That’s what faith is. 

Now I can go to bed.  Goodnight, and merry Christmas to you and yours.

Love,

Chantal xoxoxo

If Regret Makes You Old, I Must Be 102

George Sand, the French writer,  said: “Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness.  Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.”

Kindness is my motto, it’s my motivation, it’s what I strive towards.  My daughter says I’m a goody-goody.  She’s 13 and  has to deal with way more than I ever did at her age.  So if she wants to think her mom is a goody-goody, fine by me.  She could call me worse.

It’s just that after 43 years of hanging around, I feel that all good stuff in life twirls out from the circle of  kindness.   It’s like watching cotton candy floss being spun in front of your eyes when you were a kid.  Yummy strands of sugar (kindness) which become flossy glossy puffballs to which everything sticks (laughter, joy, comfort, understanding, compassion); and when you let it melt in your mouth, it transforms itself into something else entirely  (satisfaction, happiness, fulfillment). 

If I’m to heed  Sand’s advice on guarding that precious treasure of kindness inside myself , I’m two-thirds of the way there:   I can give without hesitation, I can acquire without meanness.  I do those things with my eyes closed.  But losing without regret is something I haven’t mastered.  I hope that if I do live to be 102,  I can look back on my life and know I was able to accept losses in my life with no regrets.  But I’m eons away from scoring a kindness hat-trick. 

We are undergoing a major change in our family life.  As of tomorrow, my children, G & P, will  both live with Mr. C. & I full time.  This is big.  It’s so big that it deserves to be shouted out!  As you know, dear Reader, since the separation several years ago  (has it been six years already?), P & G have been living the nomadic divorced-family life of one week with one parent, the next week with the other parent.   During the course of those six years, both my kids  have struggled with this, each in their own way:  I spent many nights consoling my daughter G over the phone when she would cry and beg for me to come and get her because she missed me;  with my son P, the pain of being separated from me became too much, and he eventually lived with me for a short time,  and again with Mr. C. and myself during a time last year.   They’re well-cared for at their father’s, but eventually, they wanted to live in one house and be like their friends.  And the long-standing ache of living half the time in a place that they felt they didn’t belong took its toll:  G had a break-down at the start of the school year and chose to live with us (which came as a huge surprise to me, as the past year has been very difficult for her and I).  Mind you, G made sure to preface her decision with “It’s not because I miss you or anything like that.”  Ok, if you say so….. With G, you have to be a very good reader-between-the-lines in order to understand and feel what’s truly in her heart.

For P, he’s been on the fence for a long time, sensitive to his dad’s feelings, so when he finally came to us a few weeks ago with his decision to live with us, we were very happy, but we all knew it would cause conflict and heartache.  Both of my children knew their father would feel hurt, and they’ve tried in their own way to make it easier for him, with wisdom and grace beyond their childhood years.   This makes me so proud of them and so profoundly sad for them all at once.  

To say that I’m happy to have my children with me full-time is an understatement.  My heart is so full, I can barely articulate it without tears coming to my eyes.  So why the regrets?  This should be a happy time, a triumphant time.  And it is.  It’s all that and more.  I have my children with me again, and with Mr. C. by my side, we are a family, a true family. 

The regret comes from a crystallized moment in this whole sad story:  I regret that when I left their father, I didn’t stand my ground and bring the children with me, in the face of his empty threats that he made in painful anger.  I wasn’t able to see past my own hurt to know that his reactions would pass.    I regret that I took the easy way to avoid conflict with him and the legal battle that would have ensued.  What children need most in times of conflict is stability, and I was sure that stability meant for them to alternate between their father and I, because we both loved them, we both were able to care well for them, and we both wanted what was best for them.  The phenomenon of shared custody in divorced families is relatively new, maybe 20 years or so.  In theory, it’s a good plan, I believe that.  But in practice, it serves only to alleviate some of  the guilt that parents feel about causing this upheaval in the lives of their children.  Most importantly, the children are uprooted every week or so to live like gypsies.  For them, it’s like shifting sand, very little stability and constancy, always having to adjust. 

A regret is a painful self-reproach, something that one wishes to have done differently.   Divorce is alot like grieving.  There are stages and phases, and sometimes it feels like you’re going around in circles.    My regret is not that I divorced; I think it takes courage to face circumstances that you know are not salvageable and to make hard choices that will have serious consequences on everyone involved.   My regret is that in the face of making that really hard choice and being strong, in the interest of being as fair as I could possibly be and not cause any, and I mean ANY, financial hardship on their father, I let my fear of his anger and my pathological avoidance of conflict dictate my heart when it came to my children at that crucial time in their lives.  Sometimes, I feel I should have fought for my children, so that they would have lived with me, not because I’m a better parent than their father, but as it became evident in the years that followed, they needed me in their lives full-time.   That’s what would’ve been best for them; instead I believed in feeding them the rhetoric that having two loving homes was the way to go.   As it turns out, kids of divorced families don’t care about having two homes:  they only want one, they only need one.  P expressed his frustrations about kids in his class telling him how lucky he was to have two houses:  he doesn’t see it as luck, for him it’s a burden.  One night, as he poured out his heart, he said to me:  ”Divorced families should live in one house with four floors so that everybody could live together.”  I hugged him and said I thought that was a great idea, knowing that he wouldn’t feel that way if there had been violence and abuse in our past.  But in his 11-year-old eyes, in all of his budding wisdom, and knowing that he will never have his greatest wish of having his parents be together ever again, his solution to this unsolveable dilemna was a wishful reunification on a different wavelength.

Those losses that my children experienced in the past six years, because of decisions taken without their input or permission, losses that they were made to feel  because of choices made for them…… that’s what I regret. 

Now here come the hard questions: 

Is it possible that one can never experience a loss at the moment that it’s occurring without feeling any regret? 

Does being able to lose without regret, as Sand advises, does that come only later (and maybe much later)?  

Perhaps it’s necessary to regret losses as they are happening. 

And here’s one to wrap your head around:  Maybe it’s impossible to not regret your losses until you’ve regretted them. 

What if the biggest kindness that you can do for yourself is to travel the path of regretting a loss, so that you can come to a point where you can rejoice over that loss? 

I think I have a shot at that kindness hat-trick after all……..

Love,

Chantal

The Beech Tree Has Grown

I did it, even before I thought or said I would!    It’s official, my new book blog is up and running and you can go see it by clicking this link:

http://sentenist.wordpress.com

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do…..

Books, glorious books!

Chantal

Metapiphanies

Ever lean into the wind and have it hold you there, right where you stood?  

 We had winds up to 90km an hour here yesterday.  As I was walking to my car after work in the near-empty parking lot, the sun was shining in all its glory, and the wind!  Omygoodness, the wind was something else.  It whipped my hair up, it made the lapels of my coat flap so fast it looked like I had wings, it forced me to walk backwards sometimes, just to keep my balance.  And when I would turn to face forward again, I had to push hard against it to move forward.  So at one point, after turning back around to walk forward again, the wind blew my hair straight back, and with my hands holding tight to my purse & lunchbag, I stood there leaning into the wind and didn’t move.  I just let this strong invisible force hold me there.    I must have looked a little loony to others who were walking to their car, but I think they were too busy huddling against the wind to notice me. 

My day had been hectic at work, I was tired, there were the ever-present  family issues sprinkling themselves here and there throughout the day, and I was gearing up for the “second shift” at home of making dinner, cleaning up, etc etc etc.   But in that brief,  powerful wind moment, I had a little metaphorical epiphany, a “metapiphany” if you will:  leaning into this super turbo wind and being held by it was just like being married to Mr. C.    No matter what leaves or clouds are blowing around me, no matter what crisis comes up, I can turn around and face forward, leaning into Mr. C.’s  strength of character, his devotion to me, and his simple true love.  And I can do this with no fear of falling flat on my face, no worry of who’s looking or what I might look like when I do let myself go and trust that his love will hold me up.  He always has faith in me.   He’s just that kind of guy.

With my heart full of  joy & renewal at this metapiphany, I laughed out loud, into the wind.  I think I heard the wind laugh back.

Peace,

Chantal xoxo

You Shall Receive

She joyfully bounds up the stairs & asks if she can give me a makeover and pick out my outfit today.  It’s Saturday morning, I really don’t feel like putting on makeup, and lately all my clothes make me feel like an ambulating cream puff.    Yes, ok, sure, great! I say, knowing that she adores makeup, knowing that she looks happy,  and feeling that she actually wants to spend time with me.   This is the golden ring the therapist said to grab hold of when it presents itself.   Inside, I was cringeing and screaming NO!   I’m not a heavy makeup wearer:  a swoop of mascara, a swish of powder blush, and a swipe of lipgloss & I’m good to go.  Swoop Swish Swipe.  That’s me.  I knew this was not going to be a swoop swish swipe……

She’s already laid out the makeup palette and tools on my dressing table, has the flatiron ready to go, and she’s laid out three outfit options for me to select.  She moves around and talks like she was a real twenty-something makeup artist, instead of the going-on-fourteen girl that she is.  But I sit there quietly as she works her magic.  Don’t say anything anything that will burst this happy bubble. 

Foundation being applied:  This will even out your skin tone, Mom…..

I hate the feel of makeup on my face, and I know I’ll look like a frosted Poptart, and all my skin imperfections will be magnified.  Keep quiet, she’s actually touching you, after all those months of pulling away and cringeing from your hugs.  Don’t move, be still.  I feel like I am Saint Exupéry’s the Little Prince and she is my rose, and the fox is telling me that to tame someone and to get them to trust you, you must be still.   So I remain still in my chair, as she happily flitters around, eager to show me what she’s learned from her favourite website makeup artist. 

I’m giving you the Fun Fast Fall Pin-Up Look, she says. 

And we talk, she talks, SHE talks to me, opening a door to her heart and mind.  Small talk about makeup and colours, about Kandee Johnson, her favourite website makeup artist (did you know, Mom, that she’s a real normal person, not like a celebrity, she’s so cool and down to earth, and she does all these cool things, not just makeup, she bakes, like me! I’m going to make her pumpkin pie cheesecake for Thanksgiving dinner on Monday, ok? I wrote out the recipe, can I go do groceries with you and we can buy the ingredients?).  I smile through all her happy jibber-jabber, thinking SHE wants to come grocery shopping with ME….She tells me about her favourite show and what do I think of so-and-so on One Tree Hill?  We talk about banned books and she is listening to me, SHE is listening to ME, asking me questions, showing interest in banned books!   She shares her dreams of being a makeup artist and living in Ottawa.  She talks to me like I always imagined  teenage girls talk to their mothers, happy and confiding and trusting.  After several depressingly dark  long months of being ignored and/or being barked at by her,  I close my eyes and whisper thanks in my heart for this moment.   

Eyeliner, then liquid eyeliner, then mascara, mascara and more mascara…..she steps back numerous times, instructing me to look at her face  as she examines her handiwork, making sure the eyes are even, gently holding my chin in her delicate hand; she has such pretty hands, I think…..She frowns and amid oops and sorry, she says: I can always do the first eye real good, but the second one I have a hard time with…… No matter what, smile brightly, say it’s gorgeous and tell her how talented she is at this stuff. 

She does my hair next, straightening  my knotty curls into a modern-mom look.  I watch her as she expertly handles the flatiron and the comb and my hair all at the same time.  I make sure to say how coordinated she is to do that, how impressed I am with her skills,  that I’m not really good at straightening my hair now, let alone when I was fourteen…..And then I crash back into time, back to my own early teenage awkward years, when you’re learning to care for yourself and look a little clownish in the process….when you so want to be older, always older, and to look like the models in Seventeen magazine, but only end up looking like the ungrown-up that you are….when you take insensitive people’s comments to heart,  letting those shape who you become, rather than learning to recognize those who genuinely support you and embracing their love….when you take those scary steps into adolescence and don’t have the foresight or the wisdom to see that things will be ok, you will find your ground. 

I look into her beautiful face as she scrutinizes mine, and I relax when she gives a thumbs up, smiles & says Perfect!

I don’t even need to look in the mirror to know I look radiant.  I already feel beautiful in my daughter’s eyes.  It’s not her makeup wizardry or her hair-taming techniques.  It’s the boundless joy that we both feel, the relief of finally giving to each other after crossing some ashen wasteland, the security in feeling that one is receiving with an open heart what the other is giving.  After months and months of wishing that the time she will leave home could not come soon enough, I feel the tears come as she hugs me, as SHE hugs ME, in gratitude for letting her give me this makeover.   One day, she will have experiences and will have lived a little more to know that I am the grateful one.

But no tears allowed, it’ll ruin the makeup……

Love,

Chantal