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

Welcome and Good Morning

I’m scrolling through my archives.  I don’t do that very often, because it feels weird sometimes to read what I’ve written.  Like  listening to my recorded voice.  But I’m doing this now, because I’m feeling impetus, I’m feeling the Autumn wind whipping my soul into a new direction.  So I’m not caring too much that what I wrote in the past might sound dweeby to my ears today, nearly a year after I took a self-imposed exile from Ain’t Life Strange. 

I suppose I never really left…..throughout the past months, I’ve composed, edited, deleted and re-written numerous posts in my head.  I just didn’t give them life.   Struggles with censorship (self-imposed or otherwise) and my too-highly developed sense of caring what other people think was a factor in taking a break last November.   I was also entering the “Mother of a Teenage Daughter and Tween Son” stage of my life.   It was a grim stage.  Edgar Allan Poe grim.   I found it hard to write anything that I could take pride in when I was cruising the Land of Kid Anger and Parental Disappointment in an inadequate Ford Pinto, when what I needed to navigate that territory was an armored tank.    My bedside  journal shows that I was dismal even in my most positive writings.  And sometimes, when you’re immersed in difficult circumstances, it’s hard to write anything that doesn’t relate to those circumstances.   But it is good now.  The Gremlins who had taken over have beaten a merciful retreat for the time being, long enough to give back Love its rightful place at the heart of our home.  I continue to be amazed at the power of Love, especially to heal, and I look forward to sharing more of my precious  moments with G and P  in Ain’t Life Strange. 

Speaking of amazing……

I am living the ideal life with Mr. C.  It’s not a perfect life, it has struggles and hurts, but it’s the wonderful life.   We balance each other, he’s the goofball to my serious Sally, he is reason to my emotion, I am comfort to his worry……He continues to be the man I need, and more.   Our disagreements and pouting sessions have light and tenderness written all over them,  with reconciliation  just around the corner.  This married life keeps getting better, and I know I’m very lucky to be feeling that.      

And  now I’m burning to write here again, with ideas and thoughts bubbling and floating around in my head and heart.     I might be jinxing myself by saying this out loud, but I have another creative endeavour in the works, something that makes me very happy to do.   It’s not a secret, I’m testing out writing a book review blog, just to see how it feels.   I know there are millions of book review blogs out there already, but just as I write in Ain’t Life Strange for my own happiness and to nourish my passion for writing, the book review blog will also be written to give life to my passion for reading.   In other words, I’m doing this mostly for myself.    Having said that, it’s your meanderings among what I write , dear Reader, that make the beautiful delicate sunbeam fall across my creative heart, insipiring me to write more.   Once I’ve ironed out all the wrinkles in the book review blog,  I will let you know of the ”official” launch.    It won’t be next week, but I’ll try and have something up and running by the New Year.  That’s 3 months away.  I can handle that.     

Reading back in the archives, I sometimes feel I’m not so different now than I was then…..and yet I am.  I am more so.   

Welcome back.

Love,

Chantal