Category — Domesticity

I had high hopes of launching a little onesie/kids’ tee company late last fall but our garment provider neglected to come through in time for Christmas (sorry Zee Spot, you dropped the ball.) I was, however, able to pull together a little sample for my new nephew Benjamin. Here he is sporting the very first Badge of Honour onesie.

Oh, and here is the little logo I designed.

Maybe I’ll get things rolling later this year…

I am one of seven children.

There are numerous blessings being part of such an enormous clan. Like never being bored. Always having a playmate. Epic Christmases. Camping under the stars lined in sleeping bags like sardines. Unforgettable van rides with resident seat buddies. Always having someone to call (the phone list never runs out.) Learning stuff from big brothers. Teaching stuff to little sisters. Performing full-blown musicals with dancers, singers, choreographer and back-up. Being portioned toast and jello squares by toss from the head of the table. Filling an entire pew at church (for some reason this gave me an enormous sense of pride as a kid, like this is our row.)

In the last week and a half I have had the opportunity to twice visit with five of my six siblings (save for my sister in Australia, we miss you Lynn!), plus parents, spouses, nephews and nieces. It is a rare occurrence these days (which I am still coming to terms with) and times together are filled with good conversation, much affection and heaps of hilarity.

Like when my sister Kristen, up visiting from Las Vegas with her husband PJ and their adorable little boy Ben, says: “This might not be a real memory, this might be one of my made-up memories, but let’s just check…” before beginning a story. We all burst into side-splitting laughter. This is coming from the sister who created imaginary holidays to foreign lands and told them to her teachers while her own mother was, helpfully, one of the teachers on staff. Things usually got sorted out pretty quick. It’s moments like these that make me ache to spend time as a whole family as often as possible.

My whole life I have been focused on the good of having 6 siblings and 4 parents. And there is SO MUCH GOOD. But there are also down sides. And they seem to be growing with time.

There are more regrets. More missed moments. More misunderstanding. And more people to keep up-to-date than seems humanly possible.

I am trying to make concerted efforts to share more with my family. To call them just because. To send out emails with exciting/important news. Share more pictures. Share more of myself. But it’s hard. Even though it’s my immediate family, with so many I can feel like I am spreading myself thin. My husband has one sister and two parents, his circle is small and I am sometimes jealous of the simplicity of his arrangement. But I would never change things in my family. Never in a million years. Because we love so much. Because we Groot clan are a beautiful mess. Because we go on trying to care for each other as best as we can. And in the end that is all that matters.

Dad, Grace, Mom, Chester, Mike, Heidi, Rueben, Jesse Fin, Sloane, David, James, Jocelyn, Judah, Kristen, PJ, Ben, Michael, Madeleine, Matthew, Lynn, Barney — I love you.

photo above by crumpets and cakes

the blog goes silent. for months. and you wonder where your friend is. you wonder why your favourite blog has fallen quiet. i can tell you. she’s pregnant. unwillingly camped in a dry, barren desert we veterans call the creative badlands.

it happened at lovelydesign and at champagnewednesdays in their first few months. and it’s happened here. first with madeleine and now, again.

yes, i am expecting.

so here i sit at the kitchen table sipping a tumbler of flat gingerale while my one-year-old fills tupperware with oats by the handful.

(baby number two is due at the beginning of august.) :)

It was 8 o’clock. We’d just put our one-year-old daughter down to bed when the house surged into a liquid lull, blackness filling our cavernous living room like a bodum of steeped coffee grounds poured out cold. We went in search of the lone flashlight. The one plugged in the wall near our sliding front door, temporarily ours, though no doors in this house are at the front of anything. The outward glow, like a hum, drew our hands to the handheld device saved for just the occasion. Our first power outage. No anomaly on the island. A storm was coming, they’d said. I’d laughed it off standing on the deck, enveloped in the autumn murmurs, quivering pines, scent of salty tide greeting the sun’s disappearing fingers. It had been three weeks since we arrived and I knew the evening’s calm. This night was no different, I thought.

The laser stream, white through air, led us up the landing to the jars of water my husband had just finished filling. Cute, I thought. He’s preparing. Then I thanked him out loud. We gathered the tea lights, scattering them on shelves, windowsills. There was no use trying to read, attempting to pass the time in a room of pitched midnight…

_____

This is part of an essay I am working on at the encouragement of a few close friends. (Thank you.) Here on the island we are learning to live without. Our power goes out with some regularity and we are without water at present. The pipes froze and burst in the well pump house so we are living off a small ration we brought in from the mainland, boiling what we need. For the first time out of necessity I washed clothing by hand. Madeleine had been very stomach sick and badly soiled her coat and blanket. These items couldn’t wait. So, I boiled a pot of water and steeped them, scrubbed them, wrung them, hung them. We saved the excess water. We’re saving everything.

I can’t exactly describe how it has felt to fumble around with candles, feed a baby in the dark, wash every dish in the house with a few inches of water, other than very GOOD. It has felt good, in these small ways, to live without. To figure it out together. To be in need. To rely on neighbours. To receive concerned calls from parents. All of it has felt good.

Is this why people in the vast majority of the world have such a vibrant faith and why, here in the non-need of North America, we wane? Need nourishes faith.

Today is Buy Nothing Day. Perhaps we must abstain, to intentionally go without, to establish this need.

The day you walked I cried. Four, seven, fifteen steps from piano bench to coffee table glass. All smiles. Head up. Pure concentration. Feet rising from confident heart in your frame, tall.

You deliver toys with intention. One shelf to another. Shelf to table. Table to shelf. One by one. Back and forth.

These are our days. Dishes drawn from cupboard. Filled to full. Devoured. Floor swept, face washed, dishes cleaned. Placed back behind wooden doors for hours. Repeat again.

We pass the deer and her two fawns to deposit our things in the garbage shelter. Keep the lid tucked on. Keep the wood top latched. Two bears have swam to the island. Two bears we don’t want to meet at our door.

The recycling depot is a place to make friends. Kids dive in the newspaper bin, giant. “Its because we don’t have a swimming pool,” smiles a mother carrying a bin of mixed plastics. Yes, just the ocean. But it’s fall and it’s cold and winter is nipping at our heels and we’re thinking of carrying in the firewood to start heating this enormous house of glass.

Later, at the Knick Knack Nook, the island thrift shop, we comb shelves for treasure. We deliver our things to the counter. You — a small rainbow-coloured xylophone (you carry the mallet,) the God made friends book, a pair of slippers and a pair of gloves for infant hands, a photo holder, a walkman for listening to the tapes recently dug up, and a lovely sweater — for when you are a bigger girl — from Marks and Spencer, no less.

“That will be $3.70,” the nice volunteer sing-songs from the counter. But I only have plastic. They even take cheques she informs me (only on the island!) but I’ve left them at home. I offer to go to town to get cash if they could just hold my things…

“Oh, I’ve got it,” she says, drawing a 10 dollar bill from her wallet. “This is a perfect Bowen moment,” she chuckles, handing me the money. “Just drop it by for me anytime. My name is Lyn.” And with that, she’s out the door.

A perfect Bowen moment, indeed.

We’ve been welcomed to the village. I may never want to leave.

Sitting down to write, here at the dinner table, the Pacific laid out before me, sipping tea while baby sleeps and indulging in a slice of carrot cake from Whole Foods reminds me of the way I felt during my first days working on the second floor at the CBC. Awe. Am I really here? Somebody pinch me.

Our dream really has come true.

The days so far have been filled with mother meet-ups and visiting with the Cowper family. We’ve sipped tea outside Daniel’s handmade house and entertained around our dining table.

Matthew comes by for a swing on a porch every day or two. We borrow their hammock.

I wandered into the Bowen Island Family Place last Tuesday and was enveloped in this intimate island community. This is one of my greatest joys as a mother: the instant community that forms around children. Two days at Family Place, a dozen introductions later, and a lovely mom named Victoria invited me to her mom’s group. I got thoroughly lost on my way there. Luckily Madeleine napped as I crisscrossed the island, finally making my way to Caroline and her daughter Katie’s beautiful home. Caroline, a former campaign finance lawyer from Washington, DC, bare-faced and effortlessly beautiful, welcomed me at the door. Her husband John, who owns an amazing travel company, came in to say Hi.

Bit by bit I am piecing together people’s stories. I’m hungry to know why people live here, where they’ve come from, how they make it work, what other roles these devoted mothers fill. One, a recent transplant from New York, left a career as a social worker and is writing copy so she can stay home with her little one. Another a forestry worker, another a teacher. Some from Toronto, Vancouver, many new to Bowen, just like me.

I plan to get back into the writing saddle while we’re here and have connected with three potential part-time nannies for Madeleine. One a student hopeful for a career in childhood education, one a composer/musician recently moved from Brooklyn, and one a mom with a daughter two months older than Madeleine. We’re taking the week to decide. I can’t wait to have two solid days to sit with my books, pen and MacBook and create.

It feels right in every single way that we’re here. Everything is flowing. A friend of mine, a deeply spiritual person, gave me this advice many years ago: Follow the way of peace. Now, not every part of of our life at present is peaceful (we’re unpacking boxes while the three of us nurse colds and we’re cranky, oh, and I killed the largest spider I have ever seen this morning) but at every turn peace is meeting us.

It’s like I can hear God saying “Yes.”

happiness looks like…

Madeleine’s first birthday party this weekend, at Burnaby’s Foreshore Park. Photo taken by Julia Heinenon.