wishes

Strength and grace
Kindness to myself and my heart
Patience
Joy in small things

Merry Christmas

On Christmas Eve my parents took me to Chemanius for a wonderful buffet lunch and terrific production of A Christmas Carol.  The day itself, stockings and some gifts opened, the three of us worked at the Community Spirit Dinner downtown.  We got to help the process along and saw many people of all ages and situations have good solid meals, listen to beautiful choir music, and see Santa hand out gifts to the children.  After my shift, I headed home to a small bit of pita and hummus and my heating pad.

Yesterday the boys came home from Nanaimo where they'd had Christmas with their Dad and his family.  They were full of hugs and love and big eyes for the tree.  I made my children and parents a yummy ham and scalloped potato meal and it was lovely.  and finally... finally... I got to have my Christmas too.  Today and tomorrow will include ferry rides, as we head out for our Pattison Christmas with Andy, Michelle, niece Chloe and PatDad as well as new to the gang Diana and Marian.

Almost through December....

2011 is fast approaching.  what will it bring?  the ability to be kinder to myself?  health?  more time with my friends?  Some crazy work road trips for sure with cousin and best friend time scheduled in.  A weekend dancing with Mira Betz, Bellydance Superstars, a new joint art show with mom and who knows what else...

Mostly though, I ask for grace, strength, patience and courage.  I resolve to try to be kinder to myself, to remember that I am worth loving - just like everyone else.  Because I am.

Merry Christmas - blessings and love and laughter for us all in 2011.

Love bubbles

I have the most amazing women in the world in my life. 

Thank you for the love bubble we create together to help us get through this crazy world of love and laughter, tears and joy. Whether we talk once a year or every day, whether we dance together or work together or play together or gave birth together, whether we went to middle school together or university or the school of hard knocks - you are an amazing piece of who I am, what I've done and who I am becoming.  It wouldn't have been the same without you.  Through kids, divorces, breakups, marriages, mis-carriages, shows, dinners, drinks, cards, emails, texts, holidays, spas - every step has helped shape who we are - who I am.  There has been a shift in the universe - with the Christmas Student Show, with the lunar eclipse on the winter solstice, the tilt is coming our way ladies... and it's going to be amazing. It's not always going to be sunshine and laughter and no doubt there are hard things, terrible things ahead - but we're stronger together.

Hand in hand - arm in arm - let's let our light shine. 

Just let them try to pop our bubble.  'cause we'll throw them out on their ass.

♥ I love you. ♥

 

today my goal is simple

today my goal
is simple
but yet so very hard

be compassionate
be loving
be understanding

be all those things
for the people
around me

but more importantly
be those things to myself

know that I am worth
having someone to love
and being loved in return

it's in what you come out to...

There is a difference

between being alone
and being lonely
it's in what you come out to

Lately, the days and nights
Find them hand in hand

There is a difference
between being alone
when you know there is
someone to come back to

Let this full lunar eclipse

this solstice of the shortest day 

bring longer happier days

and maybe even someone
to come back to

when I'm alone

when I'm ready

Hold my hand

Saturday afternoon the boys and I picked up mom for our Spirit Christmas dinner volunteer meeting.  The Spirit dinner is where I found myself 2 years ago as I faced Christmas without my children for the first time.  An entirely volunteer driven event that for it's 20th year, strives to put on 3 sittings of full turkey dinner complete with crafts and Santa gifts for children, coffee cards and new socks for the adults - 800 people fed and loved on a day that no one should feel alone.  No questions are asked, no judgment given - anyone can attend and are treated with respect, dignity and as a welcome guest from any walk of society.  Last year I collected baking and cards for the dinner and this year again, find myself a volunteer for the day as the boys will be with their dad and Miss Shirley.  The meeting started with the board of directors doing a dance while this video played on a large screen behind them.  Tears came unbidden as I was surrounded with the feeling of love and unselfish giving in the hearts and smiles of the people in the room.

It is a powerful message - to have someone's hand to hold.  It is a powerful event - a powerful thing to be part of.  This team of mighty elves.  Hands to hold and love to share.  Mom will be helping with the buffet, Dad will be in the kitchen and I will be in Santa's workshop again.  The workshop is out of sight, organizing and augmenting the secret Santa gifts ready for the children who are registered and creating equally amazing and hopefully appropriate gifts for those children who arrive on the day.  It will be a frantic while as guests arrive for each sitting and we receive the names of kids who have arrived, and the sex and age of children for whom there is not gift yet prepared.  And then in procession as the guests enjoy a full turkey dinner with all the trimmings, we will be a steady stream of elves, taking gifts up to Santa to deliver as the children are called up one by one by name - a look of incredulous surprise and delight on many tiny faces.  Christmas will be teary.  I know that.  It is already.  But I also know that my lonely heart will find joy in the good work done that day.  That maybe in helping other people and being part of something so special as the Spirit dinner, I am showing my own children that we can all be part of creating a better world.  One person, one cookie, one smile at a time.  Now if you'll excuse me, I have some more cookies to bake...

How

How? Why? Questions I have been struggling with... working though this gelatinous goo my heart is trying to emerge from to find itself.

How do I learn to believe again that I too am worth being loved? How do I believe that I too am worth being held with soft words?  So many failed relationships broken by so many dark awful things.  How can I feel worthy of loving myself when so many have taken my open heart and rejected it.   How do I learn to trust myself again? How do I learn to trust another person with my heart?  Why can I be so strongly a proponent of everyone being worth having love in their life but I can't always believe it for myself?  How do I heal my heart?  I can celebrate and cherish the love I see the people in my life enjoying and discovering.  I applaud with my heart and soul for them.  but at the end of the night I go home alone.  and lately that's a lonely place to be.

Friday night was our Student dance recital.  I wasn't sure how I felt about it.  I pulled out of doing a solo - postponed until I feel it with the energy it deserves.  I went to have my friend Lindsay do my hair.  It's become almost a ritual for us. and she is so good for my ego.  and my hair.  I felt a bit more confident and worth who I know deep down I am.  It was a small audience.  But one full of small miracles.  My dad Jim had to have dental surgery we found out early in the week.  It was disappointing for my mom and I not to have him there but there was a miracle there.  In my mom's worry over me of late, she and my natural father PatDad have been talking.   And so he hopped on the ferry Friday morning and took charge of boy herding and feeding right down to picking up flowers so that there were flowers there for my mom from Jim.  It was pretty cool.  Okay - it was way more than cool.  Anyone who knows me, knows that's a pretty big deal. All three of my parents. It was like a little girl's earliest wish coming true.

The show started late.  Candace talked to the audience of how it had been a rough while for many of her dancers with the craziness that is life - broken hearts, broken bodies, damaged souls.  But that we were there together be it on stage or in the audience to experience support and joy through the dance.  Then all the dancers who behind doors or the curtain or seated in the audience got up to dance with the their friends and family before making their way up to the stage - I got to boogie with my mom who looked stunning and of whom I am so proud for so many reasons.  I didn't have enough MC material but managed to pull out bits and bobs from both the audience and my notebooks I'd brought.  I told bad belly dance jokes, talked up the Mira Betz weekend in January 2011 and thoughtfully ruminated on some of the deeper life lessons I took away from Rachel Brice in October.  Kenzie kept yelling things at me which helped with audience banter.

I know that I didn't dance particularly well or MC with the usual grace of articulation.  there was a lot of talking about dance being a safe place for us - a place where we won't be perfect and it didn't define us but that but it was part of us, a safe place to be who we were deep inside.    The evening was full of small miracles.  I saw some beautiful dancing and two of my troupe mates perform their very first solos.  The audience - though tiny in number was large in love for us.  My eyes didn't react to the new line of eyeshadow I was trying - another small miracle for anyone who knows of the struggles lately with my eyes.  My mom and PatDad were there together united to love and support me.  And after a curtain call and more booging on stage, many hugs and love, late that night we went home to collapse into beds well earned. tired and happy for the gift of love and safety that the dance and community we have found with each other surrounds us with.  Where will dance led me next year? What role will it play in my life?  I don't know frankly.  But I am forever thankful for the gift of sisters it has placed in my life and the journey it helps me on....

grant me grace...

It's so curious:  one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief.  But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses.  ~Colette

the tree is up.  the boys insisted yet didn't help until the very end.  busy with their own lives and preoccupations, excited for the play with Daddy and Miss Shirley and the Christmassy things to follow in the weeks ahead.

my son started to wrap something for his Dad for his birthday.  I asked what it was and he hesitated.  I asked again and he said he changed his mind and unwrapped it.  It was a stone heart I had given him from a trip to remind him I was always in his heart even when I wasn't there.  and my heart broke.

but on reflection - it is his to give and share with his open and generous heart as he wishes.  maybe, I would like to think, he wants to pass it on because now he is sure I am always coming back.  he picked out another heart today from the store to give his dad and Miss Shirley.  Their lives are moving on and the boys universe and family is expanding.  I am grateful that their hearts are open to that and they and their dad are happy.  We are a family unit of 5 now with 2 happy healthy boys and 3 adults who care very deeply about them. 

just please let it be next year soon and get me through December.

grant me continued grace and strength as I feel it slipping away so fast.  it is when I feel weakest like now that I need to remember I too am surrounded by love.  and that two boys have arms to wind around me and hands to hold.  because I am their mother.  and I always will be.

Get me through December

There's a difference between giving up and letting go.
Giving up is sacrificing what is rightfully yours.
Letting go is foregoing what was never really yours.
                                                        (EiramAele)

There is no energy, no strength left.

I sit with my hands folded quietly in my lap hoping my heart will find a way to heal and be worthy of love again one day.  Not knowing how.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcWN6gmDKT0

Letting the Beatings Stop

Was it really three weeks ago tonight I was on the cusp of perhaps one of the most important workshops of my life?  It was.  A five day workshop in Portland with Rachel Brice - one of the preeminent tribal fusion dancers in the world.  An intimate, 35 registrants only exploration of the 8 Elements of Dance from costuming to personal practice to drilling to being comfortable with improvisation to how to comfortably choreograph.  All this from a woman about whom I knew very little of other than by reputation.  Dancers adore her.  Her performance and instructional DVDs are widely practiced and watched.  To me, she was an enigma of reputation.  I had the DVDs but had, like with my others, had not made the time to watch or practice them (that's right- a dirty secret aired).  I'd seen a couple of u tube videos of her performance and was memorized.  A week.  In training.  With Rachel Brice.  I. Was. Going. To. Die.  After all, this is the girl who is winded and ready for bed after Sam's yoga and warm-up routines before the meat of her workshops even begin.  I knew it was going to be an incredible week of dance and I was going to at some point hurt and feel like the crappiest dancer alive but that I also needed this week away.  To be challenged to look at dance in another way.  To take that leap of faith that no matter what happened, I would come away a stronger dancer.  That no matter what happened, no matter how much I couldn't financially afford to take this trip to Portland.  I could NOT afford emotionally or spiritually not to.  Too many things and too many times over the past years have I had to pull out of things at the last minute.  But this.  This was too big.

Bags packed, an early Saturday Thanksgiving dinner with my folks and the boys, I headed off to the Port Angeles ferry on Thanksgiving Sunday morning to meet Emma and Candace.  It's been a crazy year for all of us and when we signed up and grabbed spots in those wild 48 hours there were actually spots to grab in May we had no idea where we'd be in October.  I almost pulled out so many times I lost count.  But there we were.  All in different spaces needing this trip for different reasons.  and suddenly we were on our way.

The space of the Studio - the NIA world headquarters was our haven - our safe space to learn and grow and each find out own way together.  It was almost sacred - over century old dance floors undamaged by time, big cathedral windows to let the light shine through.  Warm, welcoming and full of possibilities.  Rachel was a real person with a real sense of humour, kindness and warmth - all facilitated with such calm grace by her partner Sol.  There was circle and sharing time in the morning, yoga, check ins, crazy warm ups that made us laugh as the music got faster and faster, drills that challenged the way our bodies moved and the way we thought about dance.  Rachel shared things with us I never could have imagined.  and so did the 35 women in the circle from all over the United States, Mexico, Norway and Canada.  Many, like Candace, are amazing performers and teachers in their own right while many like Emma and I were drawn to the dance, not necessarily to perform but because it draws us like the warmth of a fire. 

The week had a profound impact on me and I'm sure I'll write about it in more depth in the months and years to come as I further try to consolidate and settle from the experience.  By Wednesday everyone was starting to feel tired.  Rachel had put us through a brutal improvisation exercise with no direction on purpose to then guide us through ways to improvise in a more comfortable way.  For people like myself who are not comfortable with the practice of improvisation - the cracks started to widen.  We talked about the experience, and it was apparent a lot of people were feeling raw.  Rachel led us through a simple meditative chant to help try to settle us.  There are no words to describe the feeling of the chant, the silence and words.  Mine were not the only eyes overflowing when the chant finished.  It was a call for students and teacher to learn together - to be safe together and protective of ourselves and each other - it was, for me - profound.  

The challenges continued through that day and the next.  I was not feeling like I was keeping up, didn't know why I was there anymore, lost focus and was ready to leave, quit dancing for the week, forever.  I wasn't going to dance at the Friday night hafla.  I was done.  All I knew and clung to was the sacred feeling of the space and how Rachel continued to gently push and teach and guide with compassion and humour and humility.  I could stay out the week, was learning so much, meeting such interesting women, but I was done.  One exercise I didn't have a ready partner and needed a break - I sat out.  After a bit I went into the change room where another woman was and we shared - so much we shared.  We hugged and cried and promised to partner up and protect each other.  And we did.  Jacky was and is amazing.  We went back into the studio and pick up the exercise - started to develop our half of the basic montage of what would become the dance we were to create and share with another duo (Candace and Lacy) for Friday night.

Friday morning came and with it the extra hour of yoga and drilling we'd arranged for those who wished it before the 12 o'clock proper time came.  I was so tired, emotionally, mentally, spiritually.  I needed to be there but still, I was not going to dance for Rachel that night.  How could I?  People were getting themselves settled around me in the space but I just sat quietly on my mat.  Waiting.  Somehow Rachel and I made eye contact.  Something passed between us and she came over holding a book open at a passage.  she handed it to me with a gentle smile and invited me to read it to myself.  Cautiously I looked at her and asked, "Is this going to make me cry?"  "It made me cry" was the honest reply.  I took the book [There is Nothing Wrong with you] and read.

"Spiritual Practice Doesn't Begin Until the Beatings Stop."

   I'm suggesting that you stop beating yourself.  Many spiritual teachers suggest that hatred is not the answer.  They say things about love, forgiveness, generosity and gratitude.  They hardly talk about beating people and hating people and this sort of thing.  They say, "Now, folks, this is the direction.  This is the way to go.  If you really want to wake up and end your suffering and find joy and peace and bliss, this is the way to do it."  And the response is, "Nah, I don't think so.  I'm not going to do that."

  So, here's the deal.  If you were to, say for instance, find the willingness to stop beating yourself for just one day, and if you turned into a more hideous person than you are now, the next day you could beat yourself twice as hard and catch up.  I'm just suggesting that you might consider taking the risk.

I cried.  Tears flowed silently and unbidden.  I smiled at Rachel and she nodded in understanding.  Later she shared more from the book with the class but I don't remember what.  I only remembered this passage.  And it changed everything.  The years of thinking I was never good enough, that I was the reason for my ended marriage and all the failed relationships beforehand.  Everything changed.  The beating stick disappeared for the day.  And that night - I couldn't wait to dance.  Because it wasn't for Rachel anymore.  I was dancing for me.  And I was happy.  Truly truly happy.

Is it all better now?  well, no.  I came back to Victoria and my life here raw, open exposed without a real chance to consolidate and heal and put a protective layer over the joy before being thrust back into the world.  The beating stick still has come out since I returned. Some days have been brutally hard.  But I remember faster to put it away.  The boys and I have started a short circle time in the morning to deep breath, hold hands and promise to go into the world with an open and loving hearts, trying to be the best we can be and to be there for each other.  It's an amazing few minutes and a more effective tool I have never seen for getting little boys ready to go in the morning.  I'm not perfect.  I'm not sure I'm a better dancer but I know my balance is better.  I know and am confident in the teacher I have in Candace that everything that is right for me about dance she has put me on the path to.  I'm excited about putting together a solo for the December show.  I've cracked open my training dvds.  I know I will train with Rachel again.  And - I can't WAIT to get to dance class.

a valid place and credit given where due...

this video makes me so happy.....  it is pure brilliance. I must find every single one of these movies and watch them all in a row...

I watched this video posted by a friend and former troupe mate of mine, Jennifer Thorimbert, after reading Carolena Nerrico's long await public comment on the divide or controversy that has been stewing in the world of American Tribal Style (ATS) belly dance.  Carolena created a set format, set it free for the world and watched as the world changed it, retaining the ATS format name without staying true to the original format or in some cases, not giving credit for where it came from.  Now a second or even third wave of belly dancers drawn to fusion and tribal, myself amongst them, have come back to the original format to learn ATS the way it was originally created.  Why do I count myself amongst those seeking to learn the original format?  Because even though tribal fusion is where my heart sings, both Samantha Emanuel (one of my greatest inspirations) and Candace Aldridge Sanchez (my teacher, mentor and friend) have always stressed that one can not claim to be a tribal fusion dancer without knowing ATS - without knowing tribal in it's original pure San Francisco originated form.  That resonates with me and I know I must strive to learn ATS in it's now termed, "old form" and be able to differentiate it from the "new form" or newly added moves.

Over the past almost five years I have been soaking up belly dance continually from Candace and when opportunities strike from Samantha.  I missed an opportunity to learn the General Skills format from Carolena herself in January but hope to find another.  I've had the fortune to learn from Collette, from Angelina, Jill Parker, Arielle, Faith and others - each with their own style and perspective and some of whom make me tingle to watch dance and to learn from.  Each workshop gives me the gift of reinforcing my love of the earthy form of belly dance offered in fusion and ATS.  I dance as often as I can, perform as often as I can, laugh and learn with my dance sisters as often as I can.  It is often a struggle against physical balance and chronic injury, but always, dance is a safe place - my retreat into joy even on the darkest day.  

Harmony Bellydance is hosting a gala next week called Embrace 2010 where almost all the dance performance troupes and their teachers in Victoria are coming to dance on stage with us.  You would think that wouldn't be a big deal.  But in the belly dance world here in Victoria, it is a very big deal.  Just about every style of belly dance you could think of from cabaret, to Egyptian, to ATS to fusion with wings and candelabras, veils and zills will be brought together.  There are often vast emotional divides between the different styles and troupes in belly dance and this is our chance to bring them all together - a showcase if you will for the teachers and their troupes.  In fact, it's so rare all these groups are together, it's a bit nerve wracking thinking of all the potential things that could go wrong.  But we are hoping it's a night egos get left and the door and we call come together to celebrate the forms of belly dance that give each of us joy.  

With all that said, it was amazing to see Carolena post her opinion right now which is gracious and heartfelt.  Seeing this video which encompasses so many amazing dance scenes from the movies, I am overwhelmed at the amazing reminder that for each individual soul, there is a dance that will resonate within them and make their heart sing...   every soul has a rhythm and a song...  and they all deserve a valid place next to each other...

 

all I know

I

I love you.

That's all I know in every atom of my being.

With you is where I belong.

With every atom of my being...

A hand to hold

Depression is an odd thing.  It creeps up on you in the oddest places and at the oddest times.  It can leave you sitting with your hands folded in your lap for hours, wanting to get up and do things but unable to leave your chair. 

There's the memory of the last times too - the drugs and the counseling.  The workbooks on self esteem and the fight against a body that turned the drugs into fat making it a spiral down into the darkest places.  And the vow you would never let that happen again.  But there it is.  Waiting for you in the quiet moments when you least expect it.

Oh, there’s life.  There’s the ability to get kids to school and lunches made.  There are smiles and laughter and long snuggles on the couch with your children.  There is the ability to sit at your desk at work, answer the phone and complete your work projects.   

But when it's quiet, the weeks the kids are away and your friends are all busy, depression is the quiet draw of your bed.  Just to lie down - wondering what you'd need to do to completely wrap things up and turn them over so you could turn them over - nothing would be lost. What would need to get done to just be able to disappear.  Knowing if you did, no one would notice you were gone for the longest time.

But you know you could never do that to your kids.  You remember your vow never to go back on the drugs and you know you have to just figure it out on your own.  You remember the feeling of their hands in yours when you walk together.  And from somewhere deeper down than the dark you find the strength to get out of bed for now.  For them.  So that they have your hand to hold.  But maybe more importantly sometimes, so that you have theirs.

dancing for my sister

I sit here thinking about my cousins Tracey and Jim as they spend their night in a Toronto hospital room waiting for the birth of their first child.  We've been looking forward to this baby for a long time and it's always been apparent in any of Tracey's photos with her friend's children that she loves them - she has that 'mom's joy' look.  Jim is a musician of some note as is Tracey a photographer and publicist - this new baby will be born into a house of creativity and love.  A baby will be born, but so too will two new parents for an amazing joyful challenging crazy journey....

Being a random abstract it made me jump to a few weeks ago when Sarah, Andrea and I were privileged enough to dance for my sister Michelle at her birthday party. It was an amazing energy and love filled experience as I have never been to one of her birthday parties.  Never been there for Christmas, just - really, never been there other than her christening several Easter's ago.  The life of a half sister on the other side of the family....  But that's another ramble for another day....

Michelle had lots of her friends there and the rest of her family.  My brother Andy, my PatDad, their mom Fran.  My aunt and uncle (Sandi and Pat) who happen to be my godparents were there too.  It was a big deal.  Fran and Michelle looked so surprised to actually see us standing there at the door - 'you really came'.  Yes, we really came as we hugged and were welcomed in.  We danced on the ferry in the sunshine and we came just for you.

It was a lovely party.  Michelle had organized everything so beautifully and with such precision.  She wore her friend's special tiara and there was no doubt who the princess of the day was.  Well deserved too.  You see, my sister Michelle is amazing.  She is a jeweler, a card maker, a stamper extraordinaire, a make up artist and consultant.  She volunteers teaching craft classes and is the most wonderful aunt to our 4 year old niece Chloe.  She does all this while maintaining her kindness and sanity, negotiating her way everyday with a diagnosis of "borderline personality disorder, panic disorder, and good ole depression" (her words).  She and her mom Fran speak to new patients at the hospital about living with mental illness.  She's not afraid to speak out against injustice or advocate for the support people with mental illness require to be the functioning contributing amazing people they are. She is even featured in a video talking about life with her challenges and the New View Society which is the drop in centre she often volunteers at (see attached link).  Having suffered with clinical depression a few times over the past few years, I know how easy it would be just to crawl back into bed rather than live your life the best you can.  So there is for me, a sense of wonder at how Michelle manages to live her life one day at a time.

There are good days and bad days for Michelle and this party was a good day.  In fact, I would call it a magical day.  I too have had bad days - many over the last few years as I continually adjust to life as a single parent and the challenges that and co-parenting brings.  I tend to disappear into myself when things aren't going particularly well.  I wasn't even sure I wanted to come to the party, let alone dance and was more than once tempted to beg off as I have for so many other things.  But this was Michelle.  My beautiful Michelle and she asked me to dance for her.  Dance - my lifeline to finding myself again, the place where other worries on my shoulders melt away in the moment.  I could dance for her.

When Sarah and Andrea and I arrived and settled into the party it was apparent right away there was a bit of magic in the room right from our reception at the door.  Before we went to change into our costumes, Michelle opened her birthday gifts and then I gave her a bindi to adorn her forehead with.  a symbol of beauty to honour her creativity and inner spirituality.  I had also decided to honour Michelle's mother and called forward Fran, Michelle and Andy's mom who I had lost touch with over the years - too many years.  I explained to the guests that when a child is born - it is that child we celebrate, but that we often forget that at that moment, a mother is born too.    The moment of being born into motherhood is one I celebrate every year with my birthing sister Angela acknowledging the bond and sisterhood that came in giving birth together so many years ago.  It was, I felt time to start celebrating that moment with other mothers and Fran was also given a special bindi to honour her birth into motherhood.

And so we danced.  We danced for love and joy and for that one radiant face in the room.  Michelle shone as we danced and for us, there was no one else in the room.  It was so appropriate that we ended with a circle dance where party goers who choose to join us did a simple circle dance that brought blessings down on Michelle who was placed in the middle of the circle.  Everyone laughed and clapped but no one more than Michelle.  And for the first time I danced for my Pattison family - who after 4 and a half years of dance being a central to my life have never seen me dance.

I think the day will remain so special because my friends and I give the gift of dance to my sister.  More importantly for me though as I reflect was the gift of being able to show my family that even though life has been crazy and stressful for me the past many years, that I am okay.

And now we have a new baby girl in the family as my cousins Jim and Tracey welcome Lenny (Eileen for my grandmother) into their lives this morning.  It's a circle completed....  Jim becomes a father but as this baby is born, so too is Tracey born a mother.  And everything will be okay. 

Andrea, Sarah and I with the birthday girl Michelle

The eyes have it

Yes, fashion statement
even in Grade 6

It's a funny thing - vision. 

I find myself ruminating on the quality of life my eyesight provides me as I head into week three of not knowing what is wrong with my eyes.  We take our eyes for granted - of this I have no doubt.  I have always known my eyes weren't 20/20 perfect - heck - I've been wearing glasses since grade 1 and stepped into bifocals when I turned 28!...

With our vision comes this whole amazing world of colour, of light variations, sharp images and depth perception.  There is the ability to watch the subtlety of waves carving designs in the sand, watch the flight of a heron, spot shooting stars.

And now, with that vision partially jeopardized, what do I face?  What initially started as a perceived makeup sensitivity at our photo shoot last August became an out and out allergy to some makeup.  But even with nothing on my eyes for weeks, the fuzziness and irritation continues.  Over 14 days there were 6 appointments with my eye doctor and the ophthalmologist on call.  My sensitivity to light became ridiculous and it was discovered that my eye pressure response to steroid eye drops was too dangerous to consider (yes - STEROID REACTOR - it deserves a super cape I think it sounds so crazy).

Practically it means that for now, choosing photos for the show mom and I are having in March has been put aside hoping that the clarity of sharp edges comes back.  If it's too sunny out, I opt to walk or bus it rather than drive and risk not seeing people in the dark shadows.  The hot weather that would normally have me frolicking happily outside with hat and sunglasses at the beach or people watching has me hand over eyes, only daring to go out with 2-3 pairs of sunglasses stacked in front of and behind my glasses (yes, truly a hot look).  The irony of being able to see distances and colour clarity comes at the price of not being able to focus on the monitor entirely.  If anything, I have learned the value of the ctrl ++ command to increase the font on a web page and how to adjust your monitor to make the fonts on just about anything large enough to fuzzily read.When I go out, the only camera that comes with me is the little one that auto focuses because I know I can't manually focus the lens for now.

Appreciate my vision?  damn straight.  I have begun considering how my day to day activities and passions might need to be adjusted in order to cope with a permanent vision situation should it occur.   I'm not giving up yet by any means and there are more appointments and tests between now and then. 

We are so blessed and lucky to live in a country where we have access to eye care.  With vision comes a freedom to experience the world in techno-colour.  I am surrounded by family and friends who listen with concern and offer to help or drive when they can.  My dance troupe even offered to dance with sunglasses on at the dragon boat festival yesterday so I wouldn't feel out of place if I had to leave them on.... 

I will appreciate with gratitude every day I can open my eyes and see my children smiling at me for as long as I can.

On the boat

Yes, a serious topic to start and perhaps too much so for a first post.  It is a topic I acknowledge raises many questions and hard edged emotions.  I have mostly kept my opinions to myself this week as I have heard so many harsh criticisms and judgments on the arrival of 490 souls on the MV Sun Sea.  The majority of immigrants try to enter Canada legally and wait many frustrating years before their papers are processed - it is a process that separates lovers and families alike.  I have seen the frustrations and efforts some of them face along the way and wish the process was easier for them. I do not claim to know everything about the process of immigration here in Canada, both legal and illegal ~ that is best left for political debate and academic research.

So maybe my heart is too soft and my brain too naive to live in this world I live in.  I just think there are things we forget as we decry the criminals and human smugglers who abuse our immigration laws.  People who take advantage of other people have no sympathy from me.... when lying cheating and breaking laws and hurting the most innocent is involved...  I wish them only to be found, prosecuted and penalized.  Hurting others, hurting the innocent, has no place in my life.  It is not about these people I write.

It is not too many generations ago that Europeans escaped for a new life to North America on ships - how many without papers or wanting a new chance for their life?  how many of those Europeans lied about their ages or stowed away boats or did what ever they could to gain passage be it indentured servant (like my great grandma Jean Sinclair from Scotland or great grandma Beattie from Wales).  How many people in the world born today in Eurasia and India are never given birth papers or acknowledged as being legitimate people?  How many people in desperate poverty and coming from tragic war circumstances no matter the side they are on are conned into believing they can escape to a better world if they come up with $45 thousand dollars or sell themselves to it.  are there criminals aboard this boat that was escorted into our harbour this week. most certainly and I truly hope they are caught and prosecuted - truly I do.  

The question I ask though, is how many others have been tricked, are illiterate, believe that they are coming to a better place legitimately, are scared and frightened and who's family have gone into unspeakable circumstances to buy their way onto this chance boat?  how many of the people smuggled into the country end up in prostitution and near slavery to pay off the smugglers, the people who sold them this chance.  the last two refugee boats Canada turned away ended up with people dying, one from being shot at their next attempted port and the others in a concentration camp during WWII.

I'm not saying these boats are right, I'm not saying that I don't think people should follow due process of trying to come to Canada.  I just think people forget that the majority of the people on these boats are not the criminals.  They have no idea of the furor, the illegality or the fact they are about to be tossed into prison.  I don't know what's going to happen to them, or the boat or if more boats will come or what the government will do.  I just think we forget that not so many years ago, it was us 'white' people escaping - sometimes doing whatever the con men, the human smugglers wanted to give ourselves and our future families a better life.  Just because we're here now doesn't give us the right to deny other people the chance for a new life too.  I hope the immigration laws are changed so people aren't forced to such desperate measures to be given a chance for a new life here like so many before us.

I can't tell you what to think or what opinion to have and I respect that you don't agree with me on this or many other issues I probably come across too soft on.  there are two or more sides to ever story and I will be the first to acknowledge that - always.  All I know and believe to the core of my soul is that every human deserves a chance to have their story told on it's own individual merit with the same compassion and dignity we would wish for ourselves, our families and our friends.