Category — Writing

I am sitting in the Outhouse, the cool coffee shop near my house, stealing an hour away from the kids while our nanny/babysitter watches Madeleine and Thomas. Alexandria comes two mornings a week. I usually still have the baby while she takes Madeleine to the park or the library. Sometimes I lie in bed ad watch a video. Sometimes I organize the house. Sometimes I make stuff. Rarely I write. The words have been few since our little boy arrived. Unlike the birth of Madeleine, when the words came like a flood, today I am a woman of little poetry,

One thing I can always draw from in these dry times is the stories of others. I am making time to sit down and talk to one new woman each month and hear about her journey, listen to her heart. This is where the Seeking Eve stories are coming from right now. I had hoped to have had the book laid out in the computer by now, but I am finding this part of the process very slow and I need larger windows to really get into the design — so I am making cards and other little crafty projects (felt star ornaments for the family this year) in the little windows afforded me. Another Christmas window missed to sell the book — I have to give myself grace in this — I am human. And I read somewhere once that publishing is not a race, that you should enter it when you are really ready. 2012 is the year.

Grace.

It’s something I have been learning a lot about. The words I have been hearing over and over for the past few months are this:

Just be who God has made you to be and the rest will take care of itself.

Motherhood is so full-on that I don’t have it in me to do anything else that is not life-giving. So, if a project — even a project I LOVE, is feeling like labour, HARD, then it is not for me. This has been so life giving and helpful and freeing…

The card line I started, lost and found goods, has begun to take off here in Toronto. A top shop in the Distillery District sold out of their first stock in three days and have asked to carry the line exclusively.

This Christmas was my first away from Vancouver and family. Michael really wanted to stay here in Toronto so the season was restful, which I think, in the end, was super wise. Michael averages 12/13 hour work days so we don’t see a lot of each other and work is incredibly demanding. Such a change from our Bowen Island days when he worked from home every day. Our goal is one more year in this role and then he’s going to apply for the Oxford post-grad diploma in History to help him get into his PhD. We’ve learned that he can do his job from London, so a move there may happen in a couple of years. If we live in the U.K. for 3 years it will save us 2/3 the tuition costs.

I am hoping to take some kind of course this coming year. I am craving intellectual challenge.

I have a number of opportunities to write for print and television but am trying to trust the timing on my career, wanting to be at home with Madeleine and Thomas and giving my ALL to them. Madeleine’s babyhood is long over and I just see them growing out of my arms in a BLINK.

I have decided to go ahead with my internet fast for one month, to see what I will see. So, from January 1 to February 1 I will be offline. Each day I will be writing a letter to my friend Marisa who will post the progress here.

Happy New Year, one and all.

I don’t mean to be a Debbie Downer, but is all change good?

I am weary of computer technology. Yes, I own a Mac. Yes, I blog. Yes, I Facebook. I spend time on these things in fits and starts, as I feel led, working hard to not be led by compulsion.

I see the world around me running full-tilt into the arms of a technological lover and I’m having trouble understanding why.

Screens aren’t faces. Scanners aren’t hands.

Maybe it’s because I’ve become a parent and I am hyper-aware of the misuse and missed opportunities surrounding technology.

For example: Our local library has a self-checkout system. I go there once a week with Madeleine and Thomas for story time. By the time 11:30 AM rolls around, we are tired, hungry and I am one mama juggling a writhing two-year-old and an infant strapped to my sweaty, over-dressed body.

We approach the counter helter-skelter. I want to make eye contact. I want my child to pass our carefully chosen pile of books to a librarian. I want HELP. So, I smile and ask the woman behind the counter if she can help us check out our books. I hope she’ll smile at Madeleine. Hope she’ll strike up a conversation about the books she’s picked. Hope she’ll encourage a love of reading. Hope Madeleine will have her own memories of the librarians at her childhood library, like I do. Instead of helping the woman asks me if I need a tutorial on the checkout machine. No, I think, I’m not an idiot. No, your machine is not fool-proof. It usually takes me three tries to get all of our items successfully on the screen and, oh, I’d like my daughter to meet you and, oh, CAN’T YOU SEE I NEED A HAND?

The Toronto Library is seeing major cutbacks and the Literati (led by none other than Margaret Atwood via Twitter) are fighting back. But the truth is, our library staff are working themselves out of a job.

Is this change good? I can’t see how. When lines are long and people are in a hurry, perhaps self-checkouts at the library expedite the process. But when there is no line and there are young eyes seeking connection, looking for help, the technology is not the greater of the two.

The computer is not, never will be, better than you.

“The more we give away, the more we discover how much there is to give away. The small gifts of God all multiply in the giving.” ”He who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.” - Proverbs 11:25 NIV

- Henri Nouwen

Image: Mark Tansey, Myth of Depth, from Adbusters Tactical Briefing #19

“For months, tactical briefings from Adbusters have poured into my inbox. The advertisement-free anti-consumerist magazine and foundation at the centre of the Occupy Wall Street movement has one aim: to address global social and economic inequalities and the undue influence of corporations. No small feat.

Since September 17th they have staged an ongoing series of demonstrations, sparking a worldwide sit-in. New York is simply the epicentre of a world-wide movement. Here in Toronto, my adopted city, tents and voices have been raised in the same spirit.

I am not a poster child for radical action. With a newborn at home, my life has not afforded me an opportunity to set up, or even visit, the St. James Park camp. So, why am I an Occupy insider?

Because I believe in jamming culture. Asking the hard questions: like, why does a corporation have the rights of a human individual?

Because I believe in throwing a wrench in things…

…The Occupy movement is important, not because it’s reshaping the institutions that it must, but because they have seized the global conversation. They’ve put the 99% on the table. They’ve got us guessing at their next move. Could the 1% really step up to the plate and start shelling out to meet the needs of the world? Could this shift — straight out of Acts — really take place on a global scale?”

______

Read the full post HERE.

“When I asked to tell her story, she said there’s not much there.

She said the same.

And so did she. And she.

But I said, “You’re wrong. There’s so much. So much you’re missing. The thriving career, working with the big-name designer. The kids kept safe, the lives you’re shaping. The Friday night make-stuff-party you host in your loft apartment.

“Don’t you see?”

________

Friend, will you join me over at SheLoves magazine for Seeking Eve Monday, today?

She’s playing with blocks. small pink ones. pressing them onto big blue duplo.

fit. fit. fit.

and then she presses a little too hard and pop! they all crumble under the weight of her small hand.

but she doesn’t miss a beat. gathers them all up and begins again — building something new.

oh, the things i can learn from my children.

to let go of what i’ve built. let them fall. peacefully pick up the pieces and begin again.

___________________

Joining with Emily today…

“Sometimes you’re made to feel as if your love’s a crime — But nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight — Got to kick at the darkness ’til it bleeds daylight.”

- Bruce Cockburn, Lovers in a Dangerous Time

we abandoned our plan to go to the small group. made our own, smaller group instead. us two with two-month-old in tow. “i want to go somewhere new,” he said. so we drove through pitch black downpour to roncesvalles. tore across the street, shielding baby eyes, and sat in a coffee shop.

“is that an old journal?” he asked. “no,” i replied. “i’ve just been writing in it forever.” and then, quiet. sitting there looking at my men. the miniature sitting on his father’s lap bouncing. and the weight of keeping it together –

the screaming toddler,

the running noses,

the eight rooms collecting dust, chunks of crayon, splatters of oatmeal,

the urgency buried in my ribs,

the want to write,

the need to create,

the dreams of learning, speaking, saying something that matters,

the frustration of not earning to help him (and me) get to grad school,

and the kids book idea,

and the novel pages coming line by line,

and working to self-publish a first title — and all the hiccups and frustrations along the way,

and the rejections coming,

and the desire to get out of the house and wear my nine wests to bay and king,

and the desire to hear a gentle voice telling me where to begin.

sitting in the back room, macs and espresso scattering tables, the tears come. for my son’s ear that may not hear.

for the beauty of his eyes, two bluebells smiling back at me. for the closeness of the holy one collapsing my heart, breaking my thoughts down into edible pieces.

and the rain outside pours, pours. while i hold the steaming mug, grasp my pen and let the story play itself out.

and while i want to make plans, i am reminded to take each day as it comes. with two young ones and family a thousand miles away it’s all this broken girl can do.

i was only moments old. and i let out a cry that broke the room, cut through the flutter of sheets, marked my mother’s wails, her sigh, sudden. it was finished. i was born.

it was then i first knew the hush of his arms.

and this sunday when my father reached out and gathered me in. me memorizing the crook of his elbow all over again, him knowing his girl close. and us standing in church an hour later and the picture, the scent, the knowing of my place with him. with father, great. with father, here. and the wash of warmth smearing the wisp of mascara i’d managed to paint on in the car, flowing black, flowing clear.

showing me my smallness. safeness. known-ness.

you are my sunshine…

the song he always sang, every other weekend when i’d travel back to the house of my birth and find my home in his arms. and the chorus words grew louder, a strength buried in my rib cage shouting itself out.

let us praise and join the chorus | of the saints enthroned on high | here they trusted Him before us | now their praises fill the sky

and in his arms, always in his arms, i know my place.

Before bras and boys and periods
Oh the summers we would have,
Running everywhere with our shirts torn off,
Making all the neighbors mad
I was gangly like a corn stalk
With a monster list of plans,
And that was my life before seventeen
And I spun my wheels in the sand

But then the boys could suddenly wound you
Till you bled without trying
And the girls could suddenly wound you
Cause were experts at lying
And you found out how to act hard and
the secret spots to cry in and
my hips grew in
In the year of the seven deadly sins

These clever things that we learn when we get older
When every wicked thing we do can make us bolder
How to steer a conversation, how to swallow our libations
Till even warmer smiles can make us colder
So I drove south like a ghost into Georgia
Singing “Lonely One” with Mr. Gibbons, feeling
Always disappointed, though the word has been anointed,
My little faith feels always cut to ribbons

Cause the boys will suddenly wound you
Till you bleed without trying
And the girls will suddenly wound you
Cause they’re experts at lying
And you found out how to act hard and
the secret spots to cry in and
my lips begin
another year of the seven deadly sins

But today is going to be different
You can stop the leak when you know where the hole is
Cause a thousand yesterdays have kicked the crap right out of me
But today I’m going to throw a few of my own punches
I’m gonna drink from the living water
I’m gonna eat from the broken bread
And the day I finally get into heaven
Ends the war between my heart and my head

Cause the boys will suddenly sing
Till you see without trying
And the girls will suddenly bring
A little mercy for the dying
And you’ll find out how to give love
the secret spots to shine in and
my lips will grin and say goodbye
to the seven deadly sins
say goodbye to the seven deadly sins
the seven deadly sins

- Miranda Stone, Seven Deadly Sins. LISTEN HERE. Beauty. Beauty. beauty.