Kindness to myself and my heart
Patience
Joy in small things
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
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
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
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
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
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
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
to come back to
when I'm alone
when I'm ready
Sunday, December 19, 2010
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....
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....
Saturday, December 11, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
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