Let the real writers write

Always around this time of year I find myself in an emotional rut. 

This is not a euphemism for depression, friends; I know it’s a rut because though I’m not particularly unhappy, I’ve grown very, very weary of the daily grind. Each day seems like something to endure. Mornings are scramblier when you have to locate hats, mittens and snow pants and then tell the owners of those things that they must put them on.

Over and over.

And over.

The walk from parking lot to desk is long and arduous and that each work day begins and ends in darkness, well, it doesn’t help.

Two nights ago, I stopped off to get Valentine’s stuff and after homework we spent the better part of the evening writing out cards for a total of 43 kids. It meant there was a lot of spelling supervision, a lot of repeating to a four year old that these Valentines were not for him. It meant telling him this 37 times.

And during this time of year, when this sort of thing is finally wrapped up and you notice it’s already 30 minutes past the usual bedtime, you must fight the urge to skip all routines and send them straight to bed. But you’re weak (due to aforementioned weariness) and have no fight left, so you promise yourself to have them brush with twice the effort in the morning.

It’s also the time of year when writing preoccupies my every thought but in a way that demoralizes and defeats me so that I actually do very little of it. The internal voices are louder on bleak cold snowy grey days, almost scolding.  You have nothing worthwhile to say, let real writers write.

It’s precisely the time of year a person like me needs to find inspiration anywhere she can. A long run on the treadmill, a few pages from an Anne Lamott book and one from Jon Kabat-Zinn too to help quiet those too-loud voices; a helpful post from an inspiring blogger (oh and this one, and this one and this one too and also this article!), a rich red glass of cabernet and if at all possible, a spicy hearty bowl of something good Shaune has cooked up.  

Sometimes a look back through the archives helps to remind me that I’ve done a good job of documenting the kids’ lives here and should continue to do so, though I don’t dare read any post too closely for fear the critics will provide more proof why me and writing will only ever amount to nothing. 

How about you? Are you feeling it too?

Here are some pictures I found on my phone.

We're spending a lot of time in arenas.

This is happening.

Can someone please point me to a tutorial on taking selfies? What was I doing when you all were perfecting your mad selfie skillz?

Naveen often demands tacos for every meal. Sadly this plate here would never meet his standards. Salad? I didn't say to put salad on them! Nope these were for Shaune.

There's a lot of this happening.

I make this simple salad just about every weekend. Chick peas. Cilantro. Avocado. Juice of two limes. Feta.

I love our kitchen.

Web building.

Our front yard view.

The long road to Spring

We’re more than halfway through a new month of a brand new year and you’ll be comforted to know that nothing much has changed around here. Mornings are still harried as I race against the clock to get myself and two boys out the door looking our parts: me – business casual, them – ready for running, jumping and whatever they do that has worn out the knees on just about every pair of pants they own, all the while remembering everything it entails: a packed lunch and backpack, dry mittens, hats, zippers and snowpants, homework and signed notes, and often, a toy or well-loved stuffy to bring the familiarity of home to where they spend their days.

Many mornings go as smooth as these things can, meaning I’ve used minimal bribery for cooperation, I’ve not had to yell (too much) to be heard, and our goodbyes are said without tears or resentment.

But many mornings have been the exact opposite of this.

Our nights fare about the same: pick-ups spent gathering wet mittens and hats, slapdash dinners from whatever we remembered to put on the grocery list, homework and note-signing, bath-times and bedtimes, and a generous glass of wine to tie it all together.

Always a glass of wine.

Since I posted last, I’ve read halfway through two books, built three Lego vehicles, straightened out four junk drawers, donated five bags of clothes, and ice skated for the first time in almost 26 years. I also started drinking more water, and watching The Guardian on Netflix.

Two words: Simon.Baker.

It’s that long, hard part of winter and I’m doing my best to make the best of it. By practicing radical self-care (as Anne Lamott calls it), I’m hoping to cheat the system. I’m cleaning and purging, organizing and hydrating, reading and sticking to my routines. I'm also staying far, far away from sugar and cuddling the kids as much as I can.

And if I can remember to do it, I’m thinking good, wholesome, positive thoughts. Sometimes it's the only way to neutralize the winter blues.

One morning last week, I woke Naveen up, and held his sleepy little body on my hip.  With his arms around my neck he asked me if it was the weekend yet. It was only Tuesday. I kissed his head and tried to think of a way to answer that without making it sound like Saturday was eons away. 

It sure felt like it to me.

Santa left Jenga under the tree for Deaglan. We played the intended way a few times but he found more fun ways to use the wooden pieces.

Please ignore the empty raisin box. And the empty playdough container. And the unswept bit of floor.

That's a tiny Lego Mutant Ninja Turtle on top of that tower.
 Leonardo, to be accurate.

There's been lots of time spent in our favourite pajamas.

Lots of time spent watching our favourite shows. With Raphael.

 

Are you impressed with my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle know-how? Naveen always is...he asks me at least five times a day who my favourite Turtle is. I always say  the same thing. Hands down Michaelangelo, Dude!

 

And I got to wander a thrift store for a few hours to start this gallery wall.

 

What about you, what are you doing on these long cold winter days? 

 

An Ode to Robert Redford

One evening, in early April, when Deaglan was just four months old, Shaune and I grabbed the baby monitor, two ice cold Coronas corked with fresh lime and headed to the front porch. It was the first patio night of the year. The first swallow of alcohol I’d had since before I got pregnant.

We sipped our beers in silence. There was plenty to see on that warm spring night, the soft tinkling of lullabies from the monitor our background music.

Cars drove slowly past, their windows rolled down, and the people within smiling and friendly. Bikers and hikers moved along the sidewalks, in no hurry to reach their destinations. Even the red maple out front swayed gently in the temperate breeze, its luscious green shoots seeming to inhale the air all around; giddy with the exuberance that spring could be here to stay.

I always think of that night when I’m up to my elbows in February’s shenanigans.

It’s doing me in I’m afraid, and yesterday might have been the last straw.

In the morning a hard rain fell. It began after I’d already left the house which was nothing short of spectacular considering I needed to make multiple stops on the way. I arrived at work and caught sight of my reflection in a window: Alice Cooper with slightly better fashion sense. 

By late afternoon the rain had turned to icy slanting snow rendering my hoodless coat ornamental and my umbrella near useless. And at the car I could have wept when I realized I’d left the snow brush and scraper back home on the ledge of the porch.

I wasn’t cut out for this kind of ambivalence.

If April is the Robert Redford of weather, golden, handsome and weak-in-the-knees  dreamy like in The Way We Were, then February is Jason Alexander in Pretty Woman. Short, yes, but full of unnecessary drama and kind of mean. Definitely no George Costanza.

Which is all to say, February you suck.

I’ve raised my white flag, searched out solace.  I've taken extreme therapeutic measures: curative chocolate, remedial movie style popcorn and necessary but moderate doses of Argentinean Cabernet.  

I’ve also made regular commune with the great shamans of my mind – Fashion blogs, Netflix, and of course Anne Lamott who says in Help, Thanks, Wow, The three essential prayers  on page 27 “If I were going to begin practicing the presence of God for the first time today, it would help to begin by admitting the three most terrible truths of our existence: that we are so ruined, and so loved, and in charge of so little.”

Let me boldly add this fourth terrible truth - I really thought global warming was going to kick February in the teeth for good.

How's February treating you where you live?

Mostly because of Deaglan

When I was two, I remember a day when my mother was laying on her side on the floor of our mud hut, the neighbour ladies were helping her through labour, my sister Halima was about to be born. I was crying and kicking her in the back wanting her to turn around. To see me.

Almost forty years have passed and I still recall how it felt to not have her full attention that day. She was the only one back then who I wanted to be with, the only one who mattered and the only person who showed me true affection.

When I was adopted into my Canadian family, crowded with other kids, some of them still babies; I switched the need for my parents’ attention off, I was seven after all. But an existential loneliness followed me right into my thirties. Nothing ever replaced my mother’s love.

When Deaglan came along, I realized that I could give him what was no longer available to me after I left Bangladesh; find relief, finally, from that loneliness.

I reread Anne Lamott’s Operating Instructions recently where she wrote this:

"Before I got pregnant with Sam, I felt there wasn’t anything that could happen that would utterly destroy me. . . .  Now there is something that could happen that I could not survive: I could lose Sam. I look down into his staggeringly lovely little face, and I can hardly breathe sometimes. He is all I have ever wanted, and my heart is so huge with love that I feel like it is about to go off. At the same time, I feel that he has completely ruined my life, because I didn’t used to care all that much."

And like everything she writes, this filled me with recognition because of course it’s exactly how I have experienced motherhood.

A few nights ago it became clear to me that Deaglan does not understand why I tend to Naveen so often.  If we are sitting, Naveen is sqinched in beside me. If he isn’t sqinched to my side, he’s  melted into my lap. At restaurants, a flamboyant fit ensues if I even hint that he sit across the table. And while lying down, he’s almost always nestled into my armpit.

I’ve mentioned my boys’ competition for my affection before, but this is something else. I’d been taking for granted that my just-turned five year old understood that Mommies always have to take care of the babies first. It never occurred to me that Deaglan could see that Naveen is no longer a baby, he'll be three in the Spring.

I could kick myself for how wrong I've been in my assumptions. 

We were laying there, all three of us on the king sized bed one night, me sipping wine and reading, while the kids watched one last show before bed. Deaglan asked if he could have a turn to cuddle beside me. It caught me off guard because his request was not pouty or demanding. 

It was a brief quiet second, one which knocked sense into me.

I'd have be more clear with this five year old of mine, this boy I have loved so big that it's impossible to measure. I would have to start pulling him close on purpose more often, give him a turn in my arms especially when he didn't ask. I'd have to let him know that I needed him beside me just as much as I need his brother. That my love for him had only grown since that first minute we met.

This is an old picture of Deaglan and me. 

Working your way to a mediocre day - a how-to

If you wake up Sunday morning, miserable and ready to fight with whoever makes too much eye contact, there’s really only one thing to do: see if you can get rid of your entire family for a few hours. It helps if your husband can be convinced that he owes you one. Capitalize on even the faintest hint of imbalance to buy yourself some solitude. You took the kids to a friend’s yesterday so he could work on the floors uninterrupted?

He clearly had the better deal.

Once he agrees to get himself and the kids out of your hair, it’s in your best interest to get them ready and out the door – you don’t need him wandering aimlessly looking for the baby’s shoes. On a good day this can rub you the wrong way. Today? It could push you over the edge.

Once they’re gone, make yourself a second cup of coffee and take five minutes to soak in how rotten life is.

And mental note this – write it down if you have to: The next time you’re feeling vulnerable and emotionally generous, promise to keep your theories to yourself. Telling your already fed-up and cranky husband that you might be suffering from a low-grade depression due to weaning your two-year old will most definitely come back to haunt you. Because when next you are acting irritated and unreasonable for seemingly no good reason, he will wax psychologist and suggest you look into hormone replacement therapy.

He won’t care when you accuse him of having paid attention to that Oprah episode.

Drink your coffee and read a few pages of Anne Lamott or Jon Kabat-Zinn but whatever you do, don’t check your Facebook account. If you do, you’ll selectively hone in on only those friends with suspiciously flawless lives – you know who I’m talking about: they’ve already run 10K, cleaned their houses and are now enjoying some educational outdoor time with their perfectly behaved children. And it’s not even 9 am.

Decide to do something that will make you feel better but keep your expectations low. Feeling even a smidgeon better than this will be an improvement.

I suggest cleaning the upstairs bathroom. Especially if looking at the disarray of downstairs due to renovations is making you crazy enough to commit yourself just to have a clean room to live in. Scrub the toilet. And the tub and the sink. You may have to go so far as the floors.  

It’s possible you’re feeling this bad.

Once you get going, you’ll naturally move onto the bedroom. Vacuum up the crackers next to your bed – stop berating yourself for letting the kids eat in your room. It was the only way to get them to settle down enough so you could enjoy one lousy glass of wine before starting the bedtime routine after a long day at work.

Prepare yourself for their return. Have a plan because your husband will likely storm through the door acting entitled and overwrought – after all, he just had the kids for two hours and will point out that you of all people should know how much work that is.

When the kids get in, bring them upstairs because there is no furniture in the living room. Put the baby gate up, turn on Treehouse and tell them you’re going to take a shower. Don’t feel guilty for putting TV on mid day because they were just at the splash pad for a few hours, they could use the break.

Try to resist the urge to weigh yourself before getting into the shower– it could wreak havoc with your delicate emotional state. But if you do give into the urge, don’t (and I repeat, DON’T) weigh yourself a second time to verify that you indeed are down two pounds. It could be a technical glitch with your digital scale and your temporary high, that sense of possibility that all your hard work at the gym is paying off finally, will be short lived, reinforcing that you do actually have a crummy life because on top of everything else you are bloated, overweight, homely and unfairly afflicted with adult acne.

And because it's now your turn to entertain the kids, go somewhere you can tolerate. Costco has a lot going for it. Woo them with hotdogs in the cafeteria and fulfill your need to restock the things you're running low on.

Especially on my lowest days

I go through Anne Lamott phases more than you might think.


She might just be my all time favourite writer. I've read most of her books a few times each and I can't say that I haven't loved every word she writes – she’s generous and the opposite of self-important, not smug, inclusive, human, relate-able, honest and incredibly funny – and she gets me.

Oh I know we've never met but I'm certain that we must be kindred spirits. 


I own Bird by Bird, her guide on writing. It’s easy and funny and so, so good - I've told you that before. I’ve read it at least half a dozen times and in the off time, when I need a little inspiration I open it to a random page and can always find something relevant. I’ve borrowed most of her other books from the library multiple times.  


She writes those kinds of books where only the paper copy will do. I'd like to own them all.

There are so many days each month where emotionally I feel like I’m barely surviving. The bickering between Shaune and me, the nagging feeling that I’m failing at something – work, parenting, marriage, friendships, my physical health.

Her words are a balm. Like I'm not the only one who has felt this way. 


Take last week when I fell off the wagon. I’d been eating really well for the past few months – eating “clean” as my friend Pam puts it. I’d cut out whole wheat and started eating sprouted grains and cereals without a trace of sugar. I tried only to eat lean cuts of meat, lots of green leafy vegetables and healthy nuts. I increased my water intake, started drinking almond milk, added green tea in the morning and cut out most sugar.

And you know what? I felt fantastic.

But then I came back from a week's vacation and well I was tired and sunburnt, overwhelmed at being behind. I didn’t exercise on my week off, ate steak and ribs and not enough salad, drank more wine than normal. It was the first week in over a year that I didn't didn't run or go to the gym. I felt like a failure. I felt afraid that I'd lost my momentum.  


She says of beauty: Sometimes in certain lights, I could see that I was beautiful, not in spite of but because of unusual features - funky teeth, wild hair, acne scars. My mother's nose, very English, with pinched indents at the tip and what she called horns - incredibly helpful to my self-esteem as a child...and my father's crooked teeth. Cellulite that would make Jesus weep...This culture's pursuit of beauty is a crazy, sick, losing game, for women, men teenagers, and with the need to increase advertising revenues, now for pre-adolescents, too. We're starting to see more and more anorexic eight  and nine-year olds. It's a game we cannot win. Every time we agree to play another round, and step out onto the court to try again, we've already lost...


I decided to be gentler on myself and begin again. 

Every year during a certain month - I honestly can't recall which one it is - there are Pro-life picketers outside of the hospital on my way to work. A lot of older men with thinning hair and beer-bellies, little old ladies, presumably their wives, walking up and down the paths surrounding the hospital holding their anti-abortion signs. 


I find it an offensive time-waster to even read their messages. 


When my sister was pregnant at 15, a lot of people had strong opinions when she was given the option to abort the baby. She didn't go that route, her daughter is now close to 30, but those people, the ones who made it clear there was only one choice, life, well they never once came by her tiny apartment, with so much as a casserole, where she struggled as a single teenage mother day in and day out. 


Not once. 


When I read this a few years ago in Grace (Eventually) Thoughts on Faith, well I realized this was exactly what I'd always wanted to say to those people: 


I also wanted to wave a gun around, to show what a real murder looks like...I could not believe that [people] committed to equality and civil rights were still challenging the basic rights of women...Most women like me would much rather use our time and energy fighting to make the world safe and just and fair for the children we do have and do love not to mention the children of New Orleans and Darfur. I am tired and menopausal and would like to be left alone: I have had my abortions, and I have had a child. But as a Christian and a feminist, the most important message I can carry and fight for is the sacredness of each human life, and reproductive rights for all women are a crucial part of that. It is a moral necessity that we not be forced to bring children into the world for whom we cannot be responsible and adoring and present. We must not inflict life on children who will be resented; we must not inflict unwanted children on society.


I know this is a controversial topic for some of you who drop by here. If you have something to share please, please be respectful. 

More

Tonight after dinner when Naveen caught me at the freezer, sneaking the ear off of a chocolate bunny, he ran fast to where I was, looked up with his enormous brown eyes and pleaded,

“Chocate? Chocate please Mama.” I rolled my eyes, peeled the electric blue foil wrapping off an egg and handed it to him.

A few minutes later, when he’d swallowed the last bit, chocolaty spit coating his chin and shirt, he gestured the sign for “more”. Again with those eyes. But this time I refused to let them stir me.

“Nope. Chocate all gone!”

When he asked a few more times, the fingers on both hands scrunched together, repeatedly making contact with each other, something he’d learned at daycare eons ago and saw that I still refused, he walked closer and began slapping my legs.

“Go ‘way Mama, you go ‘way!!”

This is how he deals with us lately when we deny him.

He then launched into a tantrum right there on the blonde laminate in our kitchen. Slightly detached from experience, I walked around him, tidied the dinner dishes and went back to helping Deaglan with his homework, keenly aware that this smallest of my boys was now howling my name and crying real tears.

I thought about how he must have felt: crazy wild with frustration and desire. I understood it – knew that it never goes away; we just learn to express it civilized.

It was such a contrast to my day. I’d been quiet inside, wordless. There was a desert-like quality to my thoughts, barren of the usual lush emotions, lost from my own needs, as if I was in a dream; one of those voiceless screaming dreams where no one hears my panic. And I felt the tightness in my throat, an achy thirst, aimless in its search for just the right thing.

It took a while to find it though – I’m slow to understand even after all these years with myself. I read a bit of her and it revived me. I remembered again for the gazillionth time that I need to feed my soul regularly or I will not thrive.

I gently coaxed Deaglan through connecting the dots, coloured the triangles yellow while he worked away on the red circles and eventually Naveen quieted, found my lap and snuggled into me.

This was yesterday morning. The Easter Bunny left Deaglan a scooter which he lost interest in within three and a half seconds. However, he refused to take this helmet off. Naveen received a bubble-blowing lawnmower which he lovingly referred to as "Vakoom" all the way to the park.

My religion

Can I get personal?

A few weeks ago I read something and it knocked my socks off. I've thought of little else since.

Well that's not true.

I've thought plenty about wanting to lose a few pounds. How nice it would be get all the laundry done. You know? Have a spotless laundry room even if it's for one single measly day. I've also spent a considerable amount of time contemplating chopping my hair off. The heat does me in every summer. Almost the whole time I was in university I had it short. I'm not sure, but I'll bet I've already broken some sort of Guiness record for wearing one hairstyle consecutively. Is a ponytail even considered a style the way I throw it up?

But this one line I read, in Anne Lamott's book has left me reeling. It's come at just the right time. My insides are lining up. Acceptance has seeped it's way across my landscape. Gratitude has been my daily hymn. I want to be more about love and less about ill-making. And just so we're on the same page, it's personal because I don't often want to burden you with my religiosity. It matters little to me what you believe. But I know what a thing it is for some people. Even some people very close to me.

So usually I just let it be all mine. My spiritual life keeps me going every day though. It's my engine. My fuel. The food I need. You get it, I'm sure. Without prayer I'd be a trainwreck. And it's not like I can quote scripture. It's not about that for me. Although I'm always in awe when people can. Knowledge of that sort always impresses me some. I don't go to church either. I've tried but it doesn't really fit me. Maybe I'll try again someday. Who knows?

No, this thing that has taken over me the last few years is nothing profound. It happens to most of us if we're lucky. We realize that life is short. We have a choice to live it happily or not. We can be attached to things and let them consume us. Or we can know this:

Only God is our home.

Take that with you. Don't let it scare you. Let it knock your socks off.

And speaking of holy, it doesn't get much more heavenly for me than watching this kid wobble around.

The freedom to write Bird by Bird

Shaune tapped my book. “Are you giddy with excitement because The Smurfs are back?”

I lowered Bird by Bird a little, looked at the trailer for the new movie, rolled my eyes and picked up where I was reading again. It had been a mild source of amusement between us since Rosemary had burned me a copy of The Smurf’s Greatest Hits a few years ago. Although she was there, she seemed to have forgotten all the painful parts of my childhood. Her kid-like capacity to paint everything with pink frosting was infuriating.

“Yeah, I’m beside myself,” I replied.

“I can’t believe you guys were so into it.” He insisted.

“It was one of Matthew’s shows. We liked it because he liked it.” I knew this would stop his teasing. I didn’t want to have to whip out the Matthew card but it was the truth.

“Oh.” He left it alone after that. A quick pain stabbed through me to see that I’d turned a light moment so grave. A little over a year after his passing and I still was not able to discuss my brother with anything close to levity.

I looked back down at the book.

In this dark and wounded society, writing can give you the pleasures of the woodpecker, of hollowing out a hole in a tree where you can build your nest and say, “This is my niche, this is where I live now, this is where I belong.” And the niche may be small and dark, but at last you will finally know what you are doing. After thirty years or more of floundering around and screwing up, you will finally know, and when you get serious you will be dealing with the one thing you’ve been avoiding all along – your wounds. This is very painful. It stops a lot of people early on who didn’t get into this for the pain. They got into it for the money and the fame. So they either quit, or they resort to a type of writing that is sort of like candy making.

“It’s a good memory.” I offered. “Kinda like our reluctant affection for Dora because Deaglan loves her. You know?”

“Yeah, I get it.”

There.

Another Band-Aid to cover the ugliness. A moment-by-moment discipline: I practiced restraining my ego again, the part of me who would rather have ranted on and on about how unfair it was growing up in that house. I stopped myself from launching into a twenty minute word montage illustrating what childhood had been like for me.

Lamott’s words were now drowning out everything I’d trained myself to believe, everything I’d feared. All that had ever stopped me from writing.

Even if you never publish a word, you have something important to pour yourself into. Your parents and grandparents will be shouting, “Don’t do it, don’t sit down, don’t sit down!,” and you’ll have to do what you did as a kid – shut them out and get on with finding out about life.

This is what I came up with for the prompt: tv show from your past. Maybe you watched it, maybe you didn't and it was just something that everyone else talked about. What feelings does the show evoke? What memories does it trigger?

Do you like how I snuck in a book review of Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird? I wish I could express how enchanting it was. How I wanted to sit down and write every single time I read even one paragraph. How  I yearned to stalk her until I could pinpoint her whereabouts and then insist we discuss everything. I wanted to ask her how she could know me so well to be able to write a book so suited to me and my desires. I wanted to quote several pages at a time in my writing until it became quite apparent what I would be doing. Plagerizing.

If you don't believe me, please read it for yourself. Make sure you buy a copy because you'll find it impossible not to dog-ear and highlight it. And then after you've read it, and you find yourself at the library trying to get your hands on everything else she's written, don't be mad.

I've got all of her books on loan indefinitely.