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.