Becoming Something

Averting death

Three days ago some men who work for the city of Kalamazoo were here on Katie's street cutting down trees to make room for some sewer line work.

The next morning I woke up to loud booming crashes. I was scared until I realised it was just trees loudly falling outside. The irregular crashing lasted for about twenty minutes. The BOOM!s made it impossible to fall back asleep.

Except that when I was more alert I realised that it seemed more plausible that the crashing was actually children jumping above my temporary basement suite. Of course the city men would not let large trees crash to the ground and even if they did, their thuds would be cushioned by other trees, by soft dirt, by ivy and brush. It must have been the tree uprooting scene in the suicide-inducing movie The Road, a movie we saw this week, traumatising my brain, along with the reality-glazing state of suddenly being awakened from a deep sleep.

However, none of the previous day occurred to me when a nuclear bomb jolted me awake at exactly 7:00 yesterday morning. The crash was louder than the movie trailers at the Cineplex and the reverberation seemed to last twenty seconds. My body was flooded with adrenaline and in a matter of a second or two I thought, Oh no! I shouldn't have come to the United States. It figures it would get bombed. What should I do? Should I check on Katie? But I was stuck to my bed in fear and disbelief.

It was only a couple of minutes before I woke up enough to realise that it was just a child jumping or breaking a television on the floor above me or setting off small fireworks or teaching an elephant to "sit". One of those things. But not a bomb. What country would target Michigan? Michigan is great. Everyone knows that you'd start bombing in South Dakota.

I could not go back to sleep. For about thirty minutes my heart was pumping as though I had been doing jumping jacks. 

So, now you know approximately what my IQ level is when I'm tired or just awakened. REMEMBER THIS. If you know me at all, I will likely need to call upon this story for remembrance at some point to solicit your forgiveness and mercy for something stupid I will say or do to have you know that no, no, it's not you; it really is me.

And to make things worse, for the past few weeks I have been unable to sleep past seven or eight in the morning, no matter what time I went to bed the night before. My husband's prayers have been answered. I will now be forced to go to bed early if I want to be functional and non-paranoid the next day. This might be a cool thing to become a morning person, seeing as our society, and my family life in particular, requires a morning person's sensibility, if only I was capable of napping. My husband can fall asleep on any surface in any position in about five minutes. I can't quiet my mind enough. I've had this problem since I was a wee one. My mind zips around no matter how tired I am and keeps me up for at least 15 minutes if I'm exhausted and as much as an hour and a half (or four hours if I'm anxious) if it's just an average day. It's all the worse when it's a nap because I feel pressure to fall asleep because I only have a certain amount of time. 

Pretty tired these days.

Daily Gratitudes

1. I suppose I am glad that Kalamazoo avoided a tornado, though that would have been a cool experience.
2. Listening to Corn Fed Girls front row at the library was really lovely.
3. I caught some fireflies and let them go! I haven't seen any since I was about eleven or so.
4. Katie's friend, to whom I'd never spoken, brought me the ingredients to make pesto so I could cross another item off my bucket list on the right. I thought that was so immensely sweet but it doesn't surprise me that Katie has very endearing friends. So, I'm going to make pesto today and eat it with the prettiest rainbow-striped pasta found at the astoundingly awesome store World Market. Man, these Americans are so ridiculously spoiled. And they likely have no idea.
5. I really needed a new wallet. Mine was really cute, with leather pleats and a leather flower on it and it was cream, orange and brown and from a decent brand costing about $25-30, though I got it at a yard sale for a dollar. But it was ripped and had pencil marks from Lulu and the flower fell apart. So I decided I would find a wallet while I was here. I didn't go looking but chanced upon this gorgeous, big, mustard-coloured, magnetic closure leather wallet in Aveda, made by Hobo. It was normally ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS (!!) and it was on sale for $50. Fifty is the most I could ever see spending on a wallet and because this one is so useful and beautiful I was more delighted than if I'd just found a hundred dollar bill on the street. But I shouldn't have gone to the website because now I know they make other pleated, possibly prettier wallets. That Rebecca clutch is stunning. Oh well.

Defining the struggle of the human soul

I fell upon the following quote yesterday in one of Katie's books, as we drove to Detroit to see Jack Johnson (and ALO and G. Love!!) in concert. I thought it was a pretty perfect definition of what it means to be human. I certainly feel like it defines how I live my life.

Always the struggle of the human soul is to break through the barriers of silence and distance into companionship. Friendship, lust, love, art, religion—we rush into them pleading, fighting, clamouring for the touch of spirit laid against our spirit.

-E.B. White

(Photo taken in Chicago airport with my iPhone.)
 
Daily Gratitudes

1. Finally met my friend Julie yesterday in real life, after six years of phone and online communication. She was my first wholesale buyer of my first business and the relationship stuck. Also saw Sara again after twelve years. Brief gathering but relaxing and enjoyable.
2. The Jack Johnson concert was so great and we were able to sneak up pretty close. Snagged some decent photos.
3. The weather in Michigan has cooled somewhat. Not in the 40's like in Chicago where my eyelids were sweating. Although it sure has done a number on my hair. Can't hold a curl for longer than an hour! Frizzy mess.
4. Met most of My Katie's large group of local friends and they were lovely. Three or so will probably become my friends too and it's always so great to share friends with friends. Having three of my girls together yesterday was comforting and happy. Some people don't like to share their friends with their other friends. I think that's messed up and sad.
5. My daughter Josie sent me and Sarah and her siblings and Megan a very hilarious email yesterday and told me I was a good mom, high praise from her. In the email she actually said, "For your consideration" and wrote her email address IN the email, in huge black letters, highlighted in yellow, so that we would know how to write back. She attached photos she described as "amazing": They were of a cat and one of her wearing sunglasses. Just a few reasons why it was funny. I have loved emailing and chatting with my kids. They are textually very funny.

What I think makes good poetry and "Poem About Morning" by William Meredith

(Am I allowed to reprint a poem on my blog? Anyone know?)

The following poem is taken from Garrison Keillor's Good Poems, my favourite collection of poems I've found yet.

First, let me tell you why I think too many people misjudge and dislike poetry and what I think poetry should be. Then I'll tell you what kind of poetry I like. Then I'll tell you what I like about the poem I'm about to share. 

People think poetry, the kind that is lauded, is all old-fashioned language, or full of obscure references, or is esoteric, and therefore hard or impossible or at least tedious to understand. Yes, Shakespeare used words that even people then didn't understand; he made up words! Yes, at a certain point in time it's like having to learn another language. But it's learn-able and if you do, you can enjoy yourself. But you don't have to in order to enjoy poetry. There are all kinds of poetry to be enjoyed.

Also, good poetry does not have to be self-indulgent crap that only the poet understands, with seemingly random line breaks with special offsetting, and bizarre punctuation, and fancy words that don't seem to have a relationship to all the other fancy words used.

My philosophy:  If poetry is not written to be understood by most thoughtful people, then it is nothing more than mental masturbation: a one-person sport. "Look at how deep I am. You cannot understand. You are not profound and brilliant like me. I am special."

Good writing lets the reader in. It's a relationship between the writer and the reader. It should be relateable (this is not a word, apparently, but I use it all the time— look at me be all Shakespeare-like) in some way or be so good, so illuminating, that the reader believes she does relate, even if she's reading about something she's never thought of before much less experienced. 

Good poetry might not be perfectly understandable at first read-through but you should be able to get the gist. There should be symbolism or hidden meanings, tie-ins between lines and imagery, that's not too obvious. It should be melodic or emotional. I like contemporary poetry because it's less modest, more raw. (I like some Shakespeare sonnets and other such "older" poetry, too. I just prefer contemporary.) I tend to not like rhyming poetry because it's usually going to be at least a little bit forced. Then I feel like the subject was tailored to the form rather than being what drives the poem in the first place.

Garrison Keillor is a warm and talented American story teller. The host of my favourite radio show, Prairie Home Companion, he is also the host of The Writer's Almanac, a wonderful radio segment that he's been doing every weekday for at least since I was in high school. Garrison has read a lot of poetry. So, I was anxious to see what poems he would select for a compilation of "good" poems.

These poems are approachable. Some are so straightforward that Jude asked, "That's a poem?" They are organised by topics: Scenes, Lovers, Death, Language, etc.

Good Poems. It's my new favourite book. It catches my breath, arouses longings for scenes about which I can write, inspires my own hand. It's like soul candy. 

The following poem is a tiny bit difficult to understand. It's not complicated but it's not plain. I like trying to figure out why "Late" is on a new line (I think I know) and why he italicised some text. I love the line "with your head dark and wishing" because I feel like know exactly what he meant by that. I am not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination. I like to wake up gradually. I don't want to talk to anyone. I immediately turn on my iPhone or laptop and wake up my mind and mood by checking my email, checking Twitter, checking Facebook. My head feels dark and heavy. It is wishing for sleep, wishing for the dreams I was enjoying, wishing for ease and fantasy.

Then the poet says, "Weren't you duped yesterday?" and I smiled. Yes! Yes, I've felt this. I let myself hope that a day holds promise and when it falls apart or tastes bland, I feel duped.

"Life is some kind of loathsome hag
Who is forever threatening to turn beautiful.
Now she gives you a quick toothpaste kiss
And puts a glass of cold cranberry juice,
Like a big fake garnet, in your hand."

I love this metaphor. I loved the comparison of the cranberry juice and a garnet.

Poem About Morning

William Meredith

Whether it's sunny or not, it's sure
To be enormously complex—
Trees or streets outdoors, indoors whoever you share,
And yourself, thirsty, hungry, washing,
An attitude towards sex.
No wonder half of you wants to stay
With your head dark and wishing
Rather than take it all on again:
Weren't you duped yesterday?
Things are not orderly here, no matter what they say.

But the clock goes off, if you have a dog
It wags, if you get up now you'll be less
Late. Life is some kind of loathsome hag
Who is forever threatening to turn beautiful.
Now she gives you a quick toothpaste kiss
And puts a glass of cold cranberry juice,
Like a big fake garnet, in your hand.
Cranberry juice! You're lucky, on the whole,
But there is a great deal about it you don't understand.

I don't know how Dora the Explorer does this

[Note: I wrote most of this on Thursday, then finished some of it and the Daily Gratitudes Friday night. That will explain the timing for anyone privy to my life's goings on.]

I had to drive to Edmonton yesterday for a two-hour appointment with my psychologist.  It's, well, a fair distance. 

Before I left, Jude asked me if I had my credit card.  "Yep," I said.  It's always in my wallet.  Which is not to say I have never forgotten my entire wallet before.  I did, once.  Got all the way to Calgary.  Ohhhh yeah.  In my defense, I was excited to get there and was preoccupied with a lot of things.

At my appointment the Dr. wanted me to talk about my mom.  I was surprised that I started to get emotional.  For many years I have been able to talk about her and all my most traumatic memories without feeling any emotion at all, except contempt.  I thought that meant I was fine. Damaged but mostly fine, not about to have some crying fit or anything.

She wanted me to be upset, too.  Apparently, getting into "vulnerable child" mode is crucial for changing how you feel.  Blech.  I don't like feeling all vulnerable.  It hasn't worked out for me so well in the past.  So, I raced through my life story and series of parental abandonments: mom, dad, boyfriend-dad, step-mom, grandfather.

Then, our appointment was done.  We were not able to really resolve anything.  I went to pay her.  Hey, guess what?  I didn't have my credit card after all.  She was unconcerned; I could pay her next week.

I was FAMISHED.  I had not had lunch and it was now 4:30.  I was living on just pancakes at breakfast, with blackcurrant compote on them— divine!  And I knew I needed gas, or "petrol" as Jude says, for some reason.  I phoned Joelle and, laughing quite a bit, said, "Hi.  So, I am going to come crash that baby shower and I am starving and need you to feed me and give me money for gas.  I drove all the way here with no credit card!"

She agreed to the terms.  But when I got into the car I saw that I didn't have enough money to make it out to see her.  It's about a 45 minute drive.  No gas!  No money!  No one in Edmonton for me to call to ask for help!  And it would be very gauche of me to go interrupt my psychologist's appointment with another client to ask her for money.  Can you imagine?  Ugh. 

So, I drove to the nearest gas station and asked the young girl working there if we could phone my husband and get his credit card number and pay that way.  I knew it was a long shot.  No, they needed to at least swipe the card the old fashioned way, if not run it through the debit machine.  She asked if $20 would be enough.  I said more than enough, $15 would be enough.  She said that $20 was fine and I could just go fill up at pump number five.  I asked how they were able to do that.  Do they have a free gas fund for weary travellers?  Surely this must happen all the time?  Who hasn't driven to a major city without any way to buy anything and not enough gas to get back, am I right, people, or am I right?

I'm kidding, of course. The girl paid for it herself, offered to.  Wasn't even going to tell me that she was paying for it herself.  And she did seem a bit reluctant, like she didn't think she'd ever get the money back.  Of course I made her give me her name and phone number and promised her I'd be back next Thursday.  (Of course, I can't find her phone number anywhere because I lost it but Jude was in Edmonton today and paid her back. Also— ha. ha. ha.— he had even offered to fill up the car for me before I left but I said that was silly, I could do it easily myself. Turned out not to be so easy.)

I turned my iPhone on and used the GPS feature to find Joelle's house and directions to it.  But as I followed along, something went wrong.  It didn't make sense.  I pulled into a residential neighbourhood to take a closer look.  The stupid thing didn't even know where I was!  Here I was happily following the blue dot (me), la di da, and really, I was quite a few streets over from where the stupid thing said I was.  I sat there for a while trying to orient myself, then carried on. 

I wasn't paying close attention to the lines on the road because I was paying attention to the signs, and the street signs were not what Google maps said they should be.  I did notice an X painted on the road in front of the crosswalk but by the time I really noticed, I was already partway over it and besides, by my calculations, the light should be turning green soon, since it had been red while I was driving up to it.

Instead I heard a thump-thump on my car.  I thought someone was hitting my car.  I wondered what was wrong, if there was an emergency, if something was wrong with my car, or if I was about to get carjacked.  I wondered if it was the sound of my trunk flapping away— did I accidentally pop the trunk open when I popped the gas tank door open and then somehow not notice...?  How the heck could that happen?  Then I spotted it.  I was under a big red and white striped railroad crossing arm!  Brilliant!  You know, the thing you're supposed to stay behind so you don't get clipped by a speeding train?  (Not that I was in any such jeopardy.  The train was way ahead of me.  ALSO, the train had already gone by when I was on the other side of the tracks.  Why would I have guessed that a mere ten minutes later, another train would come by?  That never happens. AND, there were no flashing lights or noises to let me know the train was coming and the arm would be coming down.)

No one was behind me so I backed up from under the weight of the arm and it fell down to eye level.  I laughed, anticipating telling this to you.  But the story was much funnier in my head because I was all loopy on post-psychology angst and bile fumes (hungry, remember?), whereas now I'm tired from all the sleep I didn't get last night. 

I pulled into another residential area in order to give my GPS another chance, when I spotted a man loading something into his vehicle.  I asked him if he could tell me where to go.  I explained the problems I was having and he said he wasn't surprised because I look really stupid.  No, I'm kidding.  He didn't say that.  But that would be funny.  He said that Google maps is often wrong.  I said, "Yes!  I once had to take someone from the Edmonton temple to the High Level Diner and it said that we had to turn on Fox Drive and it was a ramp," and the guy was nodding his head and smiling, "Yep, that's how you'd have to go."  And I said,

"Right, and she wanted me to turn there and I was tempted BUT, I had carefully written down instructions from Google maps and there were three more things that had to take place before we ever got to this Fox Drive point and the sign was really small and, actually, the only part of it that agreed with what Google said was the "fox" part. I had something else written, that was not 'drive'."

He told me that he talked to a guy once who had something to do with these maps and he said that at some point in the beginning they drew a line where everything would be accurate and above it would be hit and miss and, I think frankly, it was probably right at the 49th parallel.  He said the more I paid for my GPS the more accurate it would get.  I showed him what the map of our current location looked like.  I said, "Doesn't it look like if I just turn this way, that I will get to Gateway?"  "Yep."  Well, it was missing two whole turns!!  Then I told him about the railroad arm and we laughed and laughed and then he told me that there was nothing wrong with being Mormon, some guys who work for him are Mormon.  I found this very funny because I never expressed any concern about being Mormon.  I just said that I was at the temple.  I could have been there defacing it for all he knew.  Freudian slip?

So, he gave me very good directions.

I moseyed on up the Anthony Henday major roadway and all I had to do was go straight.  I phoned Joelle to tell her what had happened and to confirm directions to her house.  I was killing myself laughing telling her about what had all happened so far because I will laugh a lot at my own stories when I know I'm telling them to someone who will also laugh and Joelle and Sara will always laugh a lot. She passed me to her husband so he could give directions while she carried on getting ready for this baby shower.  As I'm talking to him I realise that I must have taken a wrong turn, which seems impossible, since I never turned anywhere.  I was told to go straight and I did.  I must have merged somehow without realising it, because I was talking on the phone and I was really hungry and tense and kind of loopy, therefore, not paying close enough attention.

So, I hung up the phone with Drew in order to make time for a very near collision into a bus.  I had to slam on my breaks and the driver honked at me.  He looked a bit ticked off.  Oops.  I was about... two metres away from hitting him.  It was a three-way stop and I didn't even notice the third way.  I was trying to describe where I was to Drew. 

Hey, note to self:  Stop driving and talking on the phone.  If you can, pull over for directions next time.

Ya, not the highlight of my week.

The highlight of my week was when I lightly bumped another car.  Scraped a bit of paint off his bumper, dented mine in.  Stupid plastic bumper.  I barely bumped him and it looked like he was going but some car came racing up behind us and he suddenly stopped and so did I, just barely not in time.  And yes, I was rushing.  To Daisy's birthday party.

So, I made it out of the residential neighborhood with Drew guiding me on the phone and when I got to her house I said I was sleeping over.  We were going to watch Shaun of the Dead because she hasn't seen it yet (can you believe that?) and I'd just crash there (ha ha) and go home in the morning. 

She was hosting a baby shower and I was the only person who didn't really know anyone and didn't bring a gift.  But to make up for it, I was the first person to attack the food table.

I felt very strange and the later into the night we got, I felt uncomfortable.  It took me the two hour drive home the next morning and half an hour in bed trying to sleep, to figure out why.  I'll get to that in a moment.

I didn't feel like I related to a single person.  There was no interesting conversation, really.  Except for the slightly crazy woman who said her baby's head was 37 centimetres at birth.  That was interesting but for the life of me I just could not muster up the dramatic reaction that her dramatic retelling and pausing seemed to demand.  There was no witty repartee.  There were some wide-eyed LDS people with whom I felt I could discuss to their content the virtue of roses and sun-filled days but, well, have you met me?

Joelle said something about some funny cards that she read in a store and they sounded like the ones at someecards.com.  So, using my iPhone, I went to the website and found some of the cards to show her.  Many are funny without being crude and some are simply obscene so don't go there if you're at all a normal person and especially not if you're delicate. See how I didn't even link to it?  I'm trying to be responsible.

Anyway, I forgot, because she was as quiet as a mouse and one of about 15 people, that there was a girl there about 11 or 12 and not just any girl but a Mormon girl.  So, I didn't mean to offend when I read aloud, (but not loudly, I think) at our end of the party, an apology card that said, "Sorry I was aroused at the description of your breast examination," which we all thought was hilaaaarious because we were already laughing and, me, because I was a bit loopy.  Looking back now, that mom might have been upset.  At one point someone else asked the girl to cover her ears and the mom, looking displeased, asked her daughter to help her bring the cake into the house. But the woman who had something adult to say just carried on. I tried gesturing to her, but she didn't get it. So, with the mom and girl still there, she repeated a story about someone's son telling his teacher that his mom said his dad was the sperm donor or something.  Pretty tame I thought.  And it's factually true.  But I think the mom and daughter left shortly after.  Another woman told her ahead of time that she shouldn't bring her here because the conversation might get dicey. 

Anyway, it just felt odd.  The people felt odd.

I couldn't get to sleep.  I missed my bed, my husband, and my children.  Oddly, since I had just been talking about wanting to escape for a while. 

Eventually, the light was starting to come into the living room where I had decided to move to sleep and I heard a repetitive noise that sounded like an alarm clock that gently rouses with a bird chirp, then gets louder and louder.  It couldn't be a real bird because I've never heard such an uncreative, ranting, self-indulgent bird chirp before.  I realised it wasn't growing louder, I was just growing more awake.  As I sat there, the bird was clearly saying, "DIE, DIE, die, die..." and then two seconds later, the same thing. It carried on, despite me closing the windows, so I gave up on sleep, tried out Joelle's eyelash curler, and left the bird behind, after writing her a note explaining why I disappeared so early and thanking her for all the food and directions, and leaving it on the kitchen counter.

I felt icky the whole way home.  It was awful.  I hadn't felt this way in a long time.  It didn't help that I couldn't find anything good to listen to on the radio.  I loathe radio jockeys who think that if they don't put some kind of exaggerated inflection in their voices every few seconds that I won't be able to follow what they're saying, that my attention will be lost.  I was looking for CBC where the hosts talk like normal people, but couldn't remember the station.  So, I settled on a hip hop station where I only hated half the songs.

Then, I was so lost in thought, trying to figure it all out, I missed my turn off to my city.  Just kept going straight, then had to turn around, got lost again, made it home. 

I swear that I don't normally have such a terrible time driving.  The last time I did, I was similarly distracted, stressed out, and sleep deprived.

And anyway, I'm sure I have other, more redeeming qualities.  I make fantastic appetizers and I dance wildly at weddings.  I am an easy laugh.  My eyes are bright leaf green when I cry, which is such a waste, don't you think?  I can quote most of The Cremation of Sam McGee and all of She Walks in Beauty Like the Night.

But I'm not good at deep stressful thought and driving simultaneously. I will never be a Bond girl.

So what I finally realised, when lying in bed is that I had reverted back to more of the person I was when I last talked to Joelle and before, which was years ago.  It's not her fault.  Just association and probably that I was feeling out of sorts from my psychologist appointment.  By association I mean like when you smell a scent and it reminds you of a place and a feeling.  I felt arrogant and superior to the people at her shin dig.  I hate that feeling.  It makes me feel dirty.  I don't like revisiting past places I've been with unhappy memories.  I don't like my present places being tainted with unhappy memories or unhappy people.  I don't like revisiting versions of myself I used to be, worst of all.  To not only look back on who I used to be but to actually re-feel it was emotionally traumatising. Very uncomfortable in a similar way as doing something really bad and feeling horribly guilty.  Ahem.  Not that I would know.

Later on in the day, I got a Facebook message from Joelle saying that she had gone downstairs and kept the kids quiet, to be all loving and let me sleep in.  When she eventually went into the room she'd put me in, the bed was made and I had disappeared (like a wannabe, never-be Bond girl).  She was confused because it wasn't until later that she found my letter... folded up by the kids and used as a paper airplane.  Perfect punchline to a strange and eventful day.

Dora may be better at this but she has a backpack that somehow manages to store inflatable dinghies and hand gliders, and her parents must have sprung for the really pricey talking and singing GPS system she affectionately calls "Map".

Daily Gratitudes

1. Saw Knight & Day with Jude.  Loved it.  Funny and sexy.  Great stunts.  The previews are always SO loud, though.  We always forget to bring earplugs and the Cadbury's mini eggs I used didn't work well for long before they got cracked from me trying to stuff them in and then a bit melty. You think I'm kidding, don't you?
2. We have great choices of babysitters. 
3. Cashier at the grocery store asked Jude where the kids were, the last time he went in, then said that our kids are the best behaved kids she's seen in the store. Awww.
4. Our friend works at the Cineplex and offered to get us in free to any movie we want! What? I think I should get a part time job working there.  I'm serious.  So, we're going to take the kids and Megan to Despicable Me next weekend for free.  That will help offset the $70 we paid to see Toy Story 3 which I did not love as much as everyone else.  I thought the baby doll was very creepy and sad, the monkey was shrill and scary for Lulu, and the recycling bit was too dark.  Even I was scared. 
5. Jude dressed down for me tonight and looked cute.

A descent into Hell and a fierce climb out: A journey of self-identification, sexual identification, and trying to be happy

I am excited for college in the Fall. I have yet to work out all the logistics but I'm confident that everything will fall into place. I'm in no panic because I know that this will happen because it's time. It has to.

My plan is to get a 4-year BA in English. Then a Masters. Then a PhD. (Squee!) And I plan to do some of that on scholarship. (I almost wrote "scholorship". Ha. How ironic would that have been?) Right now I am challenging a first year English course so I don't have to do the whole course. Pay $100, write one summary, one essay, earn three credits. Yay!

Can I tell you a life-long secret? I've always wanted to teach. That shouldn't come as a surprise. I love passing on information and sharing my feelings and passions about a topic or experience. I seek enlightenment and to pass it on. I love to discuss and debate. My patriarchal blessing says, "It is given to you to teach. In whatever opportunity you have to teach, do so."

When I was nineteen, I decided to have children. I loved children and still do and ached for my own. But, like possibly most decisions we make, my reasoning wasn't purely altruistic. I wonder how many choices we really make freely without any influence at all from pathology....

My childhood was horrible. I was completely emotionally abandoned by both parents: physically abandoned by one, and received a constant alternation of abuse and indifferent neglect from the other. I am bitter about this lately because I'm in the thick of dealing with the resonating after-effects. I really, really resent these after-effects and I feel I have every right to resent them until I'm exhausted by my own resentment and that my right to my own resentment way trumps anyone else's resentment of my resentment. (Read that over again if you must but it did make sense.) Things could have been worse, surely, but it couldn't have been much worse with me keeping my sanity this much intact. (Note that I allowed for a degree of sanity by saying "this much".)

I don't mean to whine but to make a point. 

I coped by:

1. reading. I read books that offered escape. I read The Baby-Sitters Club, Sweet Valley High, and lots of Nancy Drew.


2. fantasising about my future life and how I'd be able to leave unhappy situations because I'd be a grown-up and able to make those choices (having at the time no concept of how impossible that can really be if one cares about other people's feelings-- sigh).


3. mothering my future children.

When my mother would hurt me, I would imagine my future children doing whatever I did (or didn't do) that resulted in abuse and I would respond differently to them. I wouldn't have articulated it this way at age seven, of course, but I think I was comforted by knowing that one day there could be some great karmic redistribution. The more children I could have and raise well, the more I could change the ending of this story.

I think I wanted to fix myself through my children, heal myself by mothering them. My psychologist says that while this was astute and unusual it lacked the healing power that mothering myself would have had, instead of mothering future children in my imagination.

I did mother myself, to an extent and it has helped me avoid common problems that people with abused childhoods tend to have. While Reinventing Your Life by Jeffrey Young, PhD says that children almost always blame themselves for the abuse, I didn't. (Once again in the remarkable but intensely lonely 1%.) I always knew that I wasn't the problem. I always knew that getting drunk and high was not okay. I knew it was not okay for a child to be rebuffed by her mother. I knew that something was wrong with a mother who wouldn't let her child cuddle up to her. I knew that throwing things at a kid's head was wrong, that swearing at and belittling a child in public was not okay. I knew it was not true that I was a miserable "little bitch" and that no one would ever love me. I knew it was not okay to repeatedly give a child swollen lips by smacking her so hard in the face. Dude, I could go on for pages here.

I knew it wasn't me and I would tell myself that. I would tell myself that one day I could travel, and have a nice home, and a family that I would have to make from my own body.

So, I went ahead and had babies when I had so little figured out but thought I had everything figured out. I married because I couldn't imagine my life on my own. I needed someone to take care of me and Jude was the first genteel and generous man I'd ever met, aside from my grade five teacher, Murray Clark. I was exhausted from being on my own since age 15, but really, since childhood. I talked Jude into marrying me. He likes to lovingly say "stalked" although that's not true. I couldn't internet stalk him and I had no transportation so I merely phoned him a lot. Had he been on Facebook I totally would have Facebook stalked him. Lets just be honest about that.

I carved out a life for most of the wrong reasons. Or did I? Don't people do what they need to in order to get by? Don't people do the best they can, generally?

That was the best I could do.

It's been ten years and I'm a different person now in so many ways. Two of my bestest friends point out that I've changed remarkably over the years.

The really sad and excruciating thing is that I feel like I've outgrown some of the decisions I made, or at least the reasons I made them. I have to try to renegotiate these arrangements and figure out how the remarkably different person I am today can thrive with the decisions I made 14 to 11 years ago. (Except for the staying-at-home decision. I am SO over that. Buh-bye same-four-walls!)

The question that scares me: What if I can't thrive? I don't know how to settle for settling and I don't know why I'd want to. I'm only interested in thriving.

I spent my childhood chronically alone. No siblings, mom sleeping the day away, mom not wanting to talk to me, no one to relate to. We never went anywhere, did anything, other than basic errands. My exterior world was tiny and my interior world was tinier.

People usually either repeat childhood patterns or resist them and much of these two decisions are subconscious.

Is it any wonder that I can't stand being at home? That I feel trapped and depressed and lonely? That I love meeting new people, making new friends, even if it has to mean making myself vulnerable and open in order to do so? For years I mostly behaved as, and believed I was, an introvert but I think it's been a result of subconscious repetition. Loneliness is what I know. My true personality is more extroverted.

I flinch and panic at the idea of monotony, loneliness, and lack of progress. I can't think of a single way I wish to be like my mother (which sure makes it hard to be friends with her) and I can't think of a single way I wish to carry on patterns or emotions I experienced for the majority of fifteen years.

Imagine if you were kept in a cage as a child. (We hear of horror stories like this, so I'm not even being figurative.) Even if it was just for a year, surely that would be the worst year of your life. Then you grow up. How much do you think you'd want to visit zoos or pet stores? Either you'd be magnetically drawn to them in a sad, psychologically damaged way (often something the id does to force the ego and super-ego to resolve tension??) or you would never want to see another freaking cage for as long as you live. I spent fifteen years in a figurative cage. Why would I want a life even slightly resembling that cage?

To be drawn to the things that traumatised us can be good if we ever actually find resolution, but observation leads me to the educated guess that few people do find resolution without outside help from a professional. Likewise, to completely reject the things that traumatised us can be good too, but also debilitating in its absoluteness because it's hard to absolutely reject anything.

So, I guess because I know these things, I have no excuse for not trying to resolve my issues and find balance. Damn, accountability sucks.

While it's natural for me to want to reject everything that reminds me of the pain of my childhood, I can't. I can't just run away every time I feel trapped and stagnant. (*sob*) I can't afford to travel three times a year. I also can't ask myself if I'm gay and jump into the arms of women just because they're willing to take me for granted, distrust me, ignore me, create insecure and incorrect theories about me, aggressively attempt to control me, and otherwise treat me like trash in many of the same ways my mother did, just because I've never felt such chemistry with any man. Obviously, that kind of chemistry is not love. Intellectually, I knew that all along, but emotionally I couldn't shake my desire to love and heal and forgive, like I tried to do with my mother for so long, fruitlessly. Some people are gay because of biology-- I am not.

Unfortunately, understanding what Healthy should look like and being able to live Healthy are not even accomplished by the same thought processes or abilities. Ya, I'm great at figuring things out, but changing comforting behaviours? Ugh.

And is it possible to entirely overcome deep-seated reactions to one's environment? How much are we morally required to try? Sure, I think I can probably overcome every single unhealthy impulse I have, eventually, but at what expense?! Yes, I've overcome a lot already, have changed a number of things about myself for the better (after all, I'm not living on welfare, single, popping out babies to increase my Mother's Allowance cheques, racking up abortions, getting high, getting hammered every weekend, stealing, sleeping around, etc., like some of my family), but do you have any idea of how self-absorbed one has to be to accomplish all that?

It takes a ton of self-reflection, lots of reading, and lots of talking to people about your problems. This takes away from my family, whenever I do this. And if I have three major issues I'm working on, that could be most of two to five years of me being distant, depressed, emotional, exhausted. But, in the end I have results. The alternative is that I remain dysfunctional for twenty years or more with everyone having to suffer my dysfunctions. I know someone who doesn't want to address her issues, probably for some of the same reasons I see problems in doing it my way, and she's insufferable. At least when I'm depressed and self-absorbed it's because I'm trying to fix my problems to make myself better for everyone involved and so (most) people are willing to be patient and compassionate with me. If you avoid working on your issues, opting to stick everyone with having to deal with your dysfunctions, aren't you really choosing that method because it's easier for you, because it's too painful to look at your flaws and try to change them?

When you are in pain you want to get out of being in pain as soon as possible, right? I do, too. That is why I get obsessive. I want to fix problems as soon as possible. I don't want to ignore them. I don't want to subsist on distractions and superficial mini-joys. I fix problems. And my obsessiveness might seem unhealthy to some people but I have had a lot of dysfunctional ways of thinking and being to overcome and I have. If I wasn't so obsessive about it, I would be miserable longer and wouldn't have as many friends as I have now.

Unfortunately, this obsessiveness means that something is taken away from my children and husband and even myself.

For example, in trying to figure out if I was gay, I became almost completely self-absorbed. I read everything I could read. I asked myself probably at least a hundred questions about my past, my relationships, my God, my parents, my emotions. I completely exhausted my imagination.

Because this evaluation was so comprehensive, so open-minded, so tainted with emotional experiences, so pregnant with potential to dismantle my life and my family's life, and concentrated in such a small span of time, answering this question was utter hell. (Could you tell I was in hell? I tried to keep it from you but I know it seeped out in places as I tried to straddle both Earth and Hell, calling out to Heaven throughout it all, to help me distinguish between the two. Because sometimes Earth looked like Hell and sometimes Hell looked like Earth.)

Most people, in my exact situation but with their own reasoning and abilities, might have taken years to figure this out. But I can't endure pain for extended periods of time. I refuse to mete it out. I know anything that's not resolved will come back at a later date and *bleep* if I'm going to do this again. I know my limits.

What I can do is be tortured for short periods of time, without going completely insane.(Although, this time I came so close, people. I had my suicide letter written in my head and a list of tasks I'd have to do first to make things easier on Jude, like give him the password to our online bank account.) I think I can endure more pain than most people in the short run but I have little endurance. (An example of this was having three natural childbirth back labours, two at home, and then going to the hospital for an epidural for the last one. Most people do this the other way around, and work their way up to the idea of pain.)

I am fearless when I feel like there are answers to be discovered or choices to make. And while it may not seem like it from the outside looking on, I like to think that it's because I have such faith in God that I am willing to talk to the devil if it means I can figure things out faster. Is it possible that he will beguile me? Of course. But I gave my soul to God fourteen years ago. He knows my hurts and my fears and my desperate sincerity and He will weigh that against my decisions. It's the only way I know how to do things. I simply can't any other way.

In February, Jude asked me if I was gay. By the end of June I could answer with clear-headed certainty: No. (Which is not to say I don't still have some attraction toward women but it's very mild right now.) That's a really short amount of time for such a big question. (With much sobbing and soul-screaming in between.) And a lot of change almost instantly. It's amazing what self-realization and claiming of emotions can do.

No, what I have is a natural normal need that everyone has: to be loved, to love, to feel accepted, to feel treasured, to feel understood. Then I have an abnormal degree of need, a great deficit, because throughout my life, I've never truly felt this way, except for some blips here and there. And because my primary relationship was with my mother, I am wanting what I never got. It's really that simple. Embarrassing to be so weak and simple, but there it is.

Now I have to be a Big Girl and fix all my problems and take this tiny shard of faith that I have and build upon it by some miracle. But I don't want to.

What I want to do is move to Europe, come back to visit, maybe take a child back with me each time. I want to take love where it's not mine to take but where I know it wants to be given. I want to gorge on books until my brain vomits. I want to talk to people and hear their stories. I want to commune with God because I want to and not just because it's Sunday at 10 o'clock again. I want to want all that I have and where I don't, I want to be sincere.

But, none of this would be right. I guess. I regretfully presume. I suppose. 

What I can do is go to university. That's a change I can make right now. I can do the only two things I can imagine wanting to do for the rest of my life: learn and write. Then, maybe one day if I want, I can teach.

And so, I sit here, purging my soul onto this screen while taking a break from writing an English paper, excited. Near tears. Feeling like I'm finally getting back to some of the only Old Me that's left after eleven years. I want to feast upon philosophy, language, and literature. I want to escape from my Big Girl choices which are to make my Little Girl choices work as best I can for as long as I can.

I want to escape, and learn, and grow, and fix these problems as quickly as possible so that my children can benefit from all my hard work, by having a mother in their teen years who can truly offer them safety, understanding, acceptance and all the wise guidance that I never, ever got.

Mostly, I just want to be happy. In the words of Morrissey, "Please, please, please, let me get what I want this time." Don't we all just want to be happy?

And hey-- if you actually got this far, thanks for listening. It means a lot that you'd even read this in the first place. :-)

Love,

Natasha.

Daily Gratitudes

1. The rain last night was glorious and just what my spirit needed. The sun today is cheering and just what my spirit needs.
2. Being rejected in a more tangible way can sometimes help with closure.
3. Joelle. I'm glad you're back. New and improved. And I'm glad I am, too.
4. Harrison's sweet, flattering words.
5. I have a new neighbor who is becoming a friend. We have a sushi and movie date on Thursday. I'm excited. Haven't been on a girl-friend date in a while. April didn't count.

Adorable Ingrid Michaelson reminding me of my adorableness

Found this on YouTube. The really funny thing, to me, is that I know all the words to both of those raps, too. Still remember all the words from my childhood.

As for the oldie, The Way I Am, it's one of my favourite songs and she is one of my favourite female singers, if not THE favourite. I think she and I could be buddies. And we were, on Twitter, once!

I am blessed in my life because I have quite a few people who DO take me the way I am.

(Also, Burtie B., I miss you.)

(Also, Happy Independence Day, American lovelies! Wish I could celebrate there with you.)

Daily Gratitudes

1. My kids.
2. My husband's sympathy.
3. I'm leaving soon for Michigan. It seems that when each summer rolls around, I am parched thirsty for travel, for escape. I'm not sure that a yearly trip is often enough.
4. My one wart is leaving. This is a literal statement.

Shocking first-hand account of the shakedown at Toronto G20 summit-- please read

"The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." -Plato

I am sharing with you something written by a friend of a friend of my friend Christina Speers. It's hard to believe that something like this could happen in Canada. Sure, we hear about abuse here and there by police but not en masse.

You must read this, though it is longer than even a New York Times piece. I am posting it exactly as Tommy Taylor wrote it, no edits or corrections or filtering of strong language.

You might even want to skip to the very bottom to read shorter articles elsewhere, like The Toronto Star about the shocking inhumane treatment that innocent people received from the police.

* * *

I'm going to start by saying that at no point in this note will I be exaggerating, bending the truth or lying in any way. I can also say I've never felt this angry, violated or betrayed.

Black Bloc left alone to create carnage and photo ops.

Second, to those who are disgusted with the violence and vandalism - I agree. It was disgusting, but happened to property, by a small group. You can see the photos everywhere of the few individuals who did that. They were also allowed to by police, who parked the cars and left. Everywhere else there was organized riot police in the thousands. They left Yonge Street alone - why? Just read more than the headlines and photo ops - http://2010.mediacoop.ca/
I'm not going to wig out in a conspiracy theory way, just read for yourself. It happened to me and I still find it hard to believe, I don't want to believe it. My country broke my heart.

So here is what happened.

PART ONE: Grandmas, Idiots and High School Reunions

I was home during the day on Saturday June 26th until around 1:00pm when I went over to Allan Gardens Park (which is literally across the street from my apartment). Hey, if Mayor David Miller was encouraging people to get out do things in the city, why not? There were a few tents left over from the Tent City, which slept there the night before. Various groups were getting signs still ready to march over to the 'Free Speech Zone" at Queen's Park - far away from all things G20. I met a group of grandmothers who were marching on behalf of grandmothers in Third World countries who have adopted millions of children whose parents have died of AIDS. (To all those who are speaking out against the violence in the streets of Toronto and damning the protesters - where were your voices of outrage at this? Or do you only care when the irreplaceable Starbucks has its window smashed? When it's on your front doorstep you cry and give the rest of the world your apathy - why are you only upset now?)

I walk with the grannies and arrive in Queens Park. There are thousands of police in all kinds of riot gear, mounted police units (people chant of "Get those animals off those horses" made me laugh). There were students, seniors, media, everyone, thousands! And it was so peaceful and a tremendous sense of community. The riot squads were quite scary, but people were chanting "You're pretty, you're cute, take off the ugly riot suit!", which also made me laugh, and many of the officers in the riot gear laughed too, one of them quipped "I wish, this thing's hot". Cool, this was fun. Good messages, free speech, the grannies along side the burly boys of the Steel Workers Union. Someone gave me a marker and bristol board. I made a sign "Apathy Will Kill You." After a while of awesome speeches, interesting people and wasted money (1.2 Biliion...?) I give away my sign and head home to Jarvis & Gerrard. Like on the way there, cops are lined up everywhere, watching everything - no holes anywhere. Strange absence of cops at Yonge and Dundas Square...they were all over it earlier....

The stupidest song lyrics I have ever heard

The other day I was in the dollar store buying plastic pails made by little shoe-less children to take to the beach with Lulu, because our dog has eaten all of our plastic toys. On the store radio system played the song This Kiss by Faith Hill. It's a catchy song, I hate to admit. It's perky and reminiscent of summers driving with the windows down and a banana popsicle dripping onto your tank top back when you didn't wear G's. *sigh*

But the lyrics are the most brainless, embarrassing lyrics I have ever sung. Check it:

"If I could grant you one wish, I wish you could see the way you kiss."

Seriously? If Faith Hill said this to me, I would be devastated to realise that I've been making out with a bimbo. Not that I'd want to make out with Faith Hill. Just, like, if anyone sang this to me.

So, you only get one wish, just one, and that's what you waste it on? Do you not know me at all? Haven't you read my blog? I want to travel the world. I want to meet Oprah. I want to be body-hairless. I want some really sexy jeans that fit both my bum and my waist and don't require a belt and aren't too long. And besides all that selfish stuff, there's, oh, world peace...? And if you could cause world peace in MY name, well, that would kill two birds with one stone. Geez. I had no idea you were so stupid. The way I kiss? When have I ever given you a hint that I wish I could see what I look like when I kiss? What kind of a reaction are you expecting if you can grant me this one wish? Like, am I supposed to be turned on by myself? Because that's not going to happen. You do realise that I see myself naked all the time, like, everyday, or even more often if I want, and I don't ever get excited? I'm used to myself. I'm completely desensitised to myself. I have no objective perspective. If I could see the way I kiss, I'd probably be grossed out and wonder how anyone could want to kiss me. Then I might fall into a depression and listen to Simon & Garfunkl, Kate Rusby, and Morrissey all week. And then you probably won't be getting any, if you know what I mean. Especially since I'll start eating Big Macs and chips with Philadelphia whipped onion dip, if I can ever find it again, why does no store carry it anymore, and then I'll feel fat, which won't put me in the mood. And if you know me so little, what have I been doing with you all this time? Do I have such low standards? Am I desperate? Oh my gosh, I need to phone Katie to talk about this. Maybe make an appointment with my psychologist. This is just depressing.

And then, she goes on to say,

"Ooh, I love watching you, baby, when you're driving me, ooh, crazy."

First of all, syllables and rhyming are hard, aren't they? It's okay. I became so jaded five minutes ago. I don't expect much from you anymore. Second of all, how are you able to watch me kissing you? Do you have fly-like peripheral vision and a mirror at the side? Was this whole sensitive, romantic moment orchestrated so that you could fulfill your voyeuristic fetish? Am I just a fill-in-the-blank here? Thirdly, you know that you could have approached me about wanting to video tape us? I do have an iPhone, a camera, and a Flip, so no one has to know. We can record ourselves and then delete it. But you have to offer something more juicy than mere kissing. Not that I'm even into that, but if you are, I can be accommodating and I'm just saying that kissing is not very interesting. But my whole point about the video taping is really just academic: Why waste a wish on something you can easily accomplish with technology? Ya, you're just stupid. And so am I for letting this get this far.

What are the most stupid song lyrics YOU have ever heard?

Daily Gratitudes

1. Had a great (long) conversation with my oldest kids last night. Very bonding, very important. Helped them to understand me better and to like themselves more. I think the teen years is when I'll start rocking this parenting thing. I can handle babies, toddlers, preschoolers, and teenagers (or kids with teen maturity, which my kids are quickly approaching in some ways), but these school years are harrrd.
2. It's a sunny day.
3. Jude FINALLY took some sod pallets back to the sod farm, getting us a $80 return and, more importantly, got them off the corner of our front yard, making it so that I can easily pull the big garbage bin on wheels to the curb because of the nice cement pad I had made at the side of the house, leading to the driveway, for this exact purpose. No wood pallets junking up our front yard and ease of bin travel. It only took us... 1.5 years? In our defense, most of the year is winter, after all, and we have to take the seats out of our van to use it like a truck.
4. Bought a book on the recommendation of my $140/hour psychologist (we're going to be SO broke)(well, we already are, right, which is why we need a psychologist?)(dumb joke about the word "broke" used as slang and then used more accurately), titled Reinventing Your Life by Jeffrey Young. So far, it's very good and looks promising for helping me get past the mere understanding of all my problems and the childhood from which they stem, and actually change myself and my life. Cross your fingers for me. 
5. There are no floodings where I live and there will be good farm crops if our current weather patterns keeps up.

P.S. I think I figured out who Vancouver Area Person is. Just hit me out of the blue yesterday. If I'm right, I'm so sorry if I made you feel sheepish or embarrassed. I think I understand now and you should feel comfortable and safe in writing me an email sometime. Sorry!

"Very angels themselves cannot persuade... as can one human being broken"

My friend Lindsey posted this on Facebook and I had to share it with you. It's poetic and true. 

Thornton Wilder’s one-act play "The Angel That Troubled the Waters," based on John 5:1-4, dramatizes the power of the pool of Bethesda to heal whenever an angel stirred its waters. A physician comes periodically to the pool hoping to be the first in line and longing to be healed of his melancholy. The angel finally appears but blocks the physician just as he is ready to step into the water. The angel tells the physician to draw back, for this moment is not for him. The physician pleads for help in a broken voice, but the angel insists that healing is not intended for him.

The dialogue continues--and then comes the prophetic word from the angel:

"Without your wounds where would your power be? It is your melancholy that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men and women. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In Love’s service, only wounded soldiers can serve. Physician, draw back."

In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others.

-from The Wisdom of Tenderness

I am more persuaded by those who have struggled than by those who are limited by imagination and a mere ability to philosophise and offer up belief. I do sometimes sup at the belief of others but it is in the wounds of others where I find my strength to carry on.

I wonder if Christ did not show his wounds on his resurrected body for more than just proof that he was the Christ. He invited them to touch his wounds, too. Why? I mean, they would have recognised his face. They could plainly see the wounds. Why touch? For a God who talks so much about faith, he was sure generous with offering proof. So, that's one thing I love about that story-- his compassion and mercy. But also why would he invite them to touch his wounds and not, say, his face or body? His power is symbolised in his wounds as they were of the final event of his Atonement. It is because he suffered so much-- indeed, all that is humanly possible-- and for us, that he is the Saviour.

And it is because of the suffering endured by people I know that I can put faith in what they say. They speak from experience. Their faith is sanctified by their wounds. They are more Godlike in their suffering because they know; they don't merely believe. God is one who knows; man is one who believes. I believe that we came to earth to know things, not to merely pass a test of obedience, to stay on a path that keeps us from knowing. (But that's another post in itself.)

I suppose that when I think of that, I am glad for my wounds, even my current open wounds. I really do want to be a strength one day to my children and to other people. But in the midst of pain and confusion I want to be selfish. Can't we just read about the trials of our ancestors? Can't we just drag Mother Theresa and Helen Keller into things? Then I remember how important it is for me to talk to people close to me who know me who can share their experiences with me.

So, I pray I will bear them up well, my injuries, my deep-souled aches.

But, you know, regarding this whole speaking from experience thing and a topic du jour on my blog, it sure would be great if a General Authority speaking on same-sex attraction actually came out and said that he really does know of that which he speaks. Find me one church leader in his 70s who says that he successfully lived a celibate life alone and at least mostly happily. Show me a sign and then I'll believe. ;-)

Daily Gratitudes

1. The rain this evening.
2. My iPhone.
3. Being pretty happy today considering the boringness.
4. Only two more days until my kids are at home, which means I can sleep in and Lulu can be less bored.
5. Easy conversations that feel like old favourite sweaters being pulled on.

Wherein I supposedly hit on a missionary *eyeroll*

Life is unbelievably weird. Honestly, if I were to write the story of my life, with no embellishment, NO ONE WOULD BELIEVE ME. You'll have to trust me on this. As they say, truth is stranger than fiction. Or life is stranger than fiction. Or something like that. Glenn Beck is stranger than fiction. One of those sayings. This really has little with what I'm about to say next but I just wanted to get that off my chest and then not explain it. Dooce does it all the time, why can't I? Come on, you like it.

Through somewhat remarkable or at least odd or at least coincidental(?) circumstances, I reconnected with my ex-best friend. It's been three years or so since we last spoke. We're all grown up now and kinder, more honest, more relaxed people and were able to have a conversation that felt different than ones in the past. 

I mentioned a missionary we had in our ward who had been transferred from her ward three years ago for the purpose of saying that he had told me that she had a baby boy, which was weird, since she had a girl and girls and boys are so different that you'd think you'd be able to keep that one straight. There are only two options, usually, for how that birthing situation might go down and "girl" and "boy" don't even SOUND similar. And we trust these boys to teach the gospel? Sheesh. "Joseph Smith was a young 14-year-old girl, no!, I mean boy, who wanted to know...."

Anyway. What she had to say next shocked me.

This missionary in our ward got transferred out early, before the transfer date, and it was because of me. I knew this because the bishop at the time pulled me into a classroom and in a very weird, somewhat incoherent, mysterious way, asked me what had gone on between this missionary and I. I don't remember exactly how he asked or exactly what he said in our brief little meeting because it was so jarring and offensive. The gist was that the missionary didn't feel comfortable about being in the ward with me because he felt like something was going on between us. 

I explained to the bishop that I didn't really know what the missionary could be talking about other than I liked him more than other missionaries (some missionaries are really stupid/boring/full of themselves/immature, you know), we had a couple of things in common. I said that the only time we had ever talked, there were people around and we only talked about music. I said that I felt like he liked me. The first time he came to our home he thought that Jude and I were just so funny and awesome. Not bragging or anything, but that's what he said. "We'll have to come here more often," he said, or something like that. And he was impressed that I knew what Celiac disease was and that I had tried to accommodate his food needs, his condition preceding via rumour his first formal introduction to us, by making a dessert with low-gluten flour in it. And we bought him some gluten-free food from the grocery store. But that wasn't just me, that was Jude, too, and we often buy food for the missionaries. If he felt singled out and assumed it was because I dug his fancy pants, that's not my doing.

I told the bishop that maybe he felt like he liked me too much after I had asked him and his companion if either of them had heard of Prairie Home Companion, a radio show with Garrison Keillor that Jude and I LOOOOVE and we would sometimes play sketches from the show for missionaries after dinner. It turned out that the Elder (who's name I don't even remember, by the way. I want to say his name begins with a D but that probably means it begins with an ZYQK because that's just how my brain works. I'll ask Jude or people on Twitter for a word that means such-and-such and it begins with an M, I'm sure of it, and it turns out that it actually begins with a B. Ooops. Sorry about that. Girl brain.) and his family (look at that awkward sentence interruption. Ha.) (And this one.) used to listen to the radio show all the time and they looove Garrison Keillor, too. He was so shocked that we even knew about it and, I'll be honest, he seemed a bit starry-eyed. It is an American radio show that many Americans don't even know about, so we came off as mighty cool, you understand.

So, yes. I liked this missionary and he liked me. You know who else I like? Paul and Mary.  My bishop. Ron and Pam. Naomi and Gord. Mary Z. (Among many other people, blah blah blah.) They're just very easy to like and I try not to creep them out by smiling at them too much or letting on that I like them. Because apparently, I'm a creepazoid who feels up missionaries under my dining room table. Watch out. You might be next.

Okay, actually, what my friend said was that Elder ZYKQBP said that I put my hand on his leg under the table.

Now stop what you're doin' 'cause I'm about to ruin this absurd gossip.

That is SO not true. I think. I'm pretty sure. 

I think that I would remember doing such a thing and that in talking with the bishop, my mind would immediately flash to such a thing and that I'd feel guilty or at least embarrassed. But this was news to me as of last night.

For one thing, when missionaries come to dinner, they always sit beside each other at the table. Maybe I sat on the end of the table and he was perpendicular to me and my KNEE brushed against his but he should know the difference between a knee and a hand unless he has a sensory disorder.

Maybe we were sitting in my living room at some point while he played my guitar and I put my hand on his leg briefly while talking or laughing and I don't remember? I really doubt it. I can be touchy feely when laughing and excitable but it's usually in the Elaine from Seinfeld kind of way, with a surprising amount of violence. "Get out!" You wouldn't mistake it for a come on. Again, unless you have a sensory disorder. And some people do. I'm not trying to be insensitive here.

This isn't the worst of it. The worst of it is that this was major gossip that all the missionaries talked about for a while. Or maybe I just remember her saying that it was major gossip because it was gossip that felt major to me because it was about me. "Watch out for Sister Loewen. She likes the young 'uns." For all I know, it's a story that gets passed down to the missionaries in my ward. (Just now as I wrote that, I was paralysed with indecision about whether to strike my head against the wall or laugh hysterically. It's a common dilemma that I have: Have anxiety about people's perceptions and assumptions or giggle uncontrollably at what they must think, I knowing how wrong they are and appreciate a feeling of superiority that I don't jump to such conclusions about people because I really don't care about their private lives that much. I usually go with amusement but, I admit, last night I felt anxiety. A twinge of it. Is it possible that people gossip about me? I've never really thought so. That's why it was so jarring, rather than validating, to hear that gossip had been taking place and about me. Some people like to be gossiped about, like Paris Hilton and Megan Fox. Presumably.)

I did not behave toward this missionary any differently than with any person I get on with, like, say, Candace from the antique store. I get excited when talking with people with whom I have something in common and I usually have an easier time talking with men than with women. I can be very chatty and excitable and childlike. And I can be pretty charming, let's just be honest about that. But I'm not flirting. I'm just being me. And sometimes I am serious and shy and boring so I can see how my chatty, excitable, charming self could then be interpreted as out-of-the-ordinary behaviour that is flirtatious. Not so. If I am flirtatious, it is equal opportunity flirtation. Don't take it personally. I'm probably just feeling rather enamoured with myself.

I admit that I'm annoyed. It's one thing for there to be gossip about me hitting on someone else besides my husband, but a missionary? PLEASE. I can do so much better than that. And because missionaries are so revered in our religion and because they're newly adult men who take major vows of chaste behaviour, hitting on a missionary is pretty scandalous. It's like hitting on a young priest.

No, I don't like the idea of being gossiped about and yes, I know that in sharing so much information about myself I'm making it easy for people to try to fill in blanks and make wild assumptions rather than, say, thinking things that are more likely such as I'm a good person who's trying her best. But I think the good from being so open outweighs the bad. It's possible that I'll one day change my mind. I like to learn the hard way. Writing fodder and all.

Argh.

Just had to get that off my chest. My heaving, missionary-loving chest.

Daily Gratitudes

1. A new Amazon order arrived yesterday. More books to start and not finish!
2. My kids are funny.
3. My friends are special and way too nice to me. I seriously don't know how they put up with me or why. Maybe they're "special".
4. Cherilyn FedExed me some LiceMD which is not available around here and it should be arriving today. Yay?
5. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Great 2:42 minute talk about seeing things differently

I love this quick little talk. It's so brief, so simple, and yet kind of mind-blowing in implications. Or at least I thought so. You? What does it make you think of?

Daily Gratitudes

1. The weather has cooled down nicely today. It was SO. HOT. yesterday. Which is great if you're on a lake or something.
2. My children are healthy.
3. There are people who care about me.
4. We have two well-running vehicles.
5. Jude and I are able to talk.

Izzy eats a live mole and other adventures

Only if you really like dogs will you probably like this. Otherwise you might feel embarrassed for me that I put time into making this and then put it on my blog. I'm kind of embarrassed myself. But I know Cherilyn will like it.

Sorry that it's too wide. Ooops. I made it "large" size in iMovie, not remembering what the smallest viewing option was on YouTube. I thought it was 500 pixels, even for a large video. Did they change it?

You can click on it and watch it on YouTube. Because I draw the line at REMAKING this video.

Ye at Oxford University:

I wish ye would just say hi, already.

Warmly,

Natasha.

There's an app for that

When I bought my iPhone in April I was profoundly sleep-drunk from being up most of the night on the phone. I wanted to buy it to have the GPS feature so I could drive someone around and was going to take a slightly convoluted scenic route to Banff (which I ended up not taking anyway).

I'd like to think that under different circumstances I would have been with it enough to know to wait for the latest version. And given all the unfair circumstances of late, I think I really deserve the latest version.

I very nearly almost cried reading about and looking at the new iPhone. It's so breathtaking. With the new stronger glass, I would not feel the need to ugly-up my phone with some dog hair-collecting silicone, overpriced Otterbox. And I would love the zooming video feature for school concerts, the LED light maybe making all the difference. I would definitely use the video chatting feature. How cool would that be while driving? Just put the phone in the dock that sits on the dash and it's like you have a passenger with you, albeit one who never gets your full attention because you're busy concentrating on passing all those slow-moving vehicles. Fun! (Okay, correction: It's called FaceTime because they can't actually call it video chatting because then you'd think it could work with other computers and it only works with iPhones. And it doesn't work with 3G so it won't work on the road. That sucks. Oh well. Still very useful.)

I think people are lying when they say they don't want an iPhone, just to be subversive. Or they don't really know what it does. It can do STREAMING video, people. So, if your spouse is at work or far away and your child does something really cool like walk for the first time or perform in a school play, you can stream the video to your spouse in real-time. If your spouse had an iPhone, that is.

I have already said to Jude that I wished he had an iPhone. I know anything else is too complicated for his Luddite nature (he likes to say "technopeasant"). He has a work-appointed Blackberry that we both hate. He only knows how to use it as a phone. I only know how to use it as a phone and barely. I wish he knew how to take photos in a store and send them to me so I could veto his purchases. I think he would really come to love his iPhone.

Naturally, that iPhone would be, erm, my iPhone. It would be a huge upgrade from his tiny-and-multi-function buttoned Blackberry, right?

This morning I started some subtle hinting as part of Project iPhone 4 Acquirement.

"Don't you wish you had my iPhone?"

"Um...."

"Don't you wish you had the ability to just bookmark every location of a store you like or a restaurant so you can instantly find your way there the next time and don't you wish you could easily jot down what you loved eating at the Indian restaurant so you could remember to order it again next time and don't you wish you could easily take photos of things in stores and email them to me so I could veto them and don't you wish you could easily take cool photos and don't you wish you could have access to our family calendar wherever you go?"

Jude: "I wish, for work purposes, I had a Bond-like feature to shoot tranquilizer darts at people."

Montana, 10-years-old: "There's an app for that."

Daily Gratitudes

1. Katie's well-timed belated Christmas/birthday box. I just realised that could sound sarcastic but I really meant that it was well timed. Came just when I needed it.
2. Katie's hilarious poem and email that gave me strength.
3. Getting rid of weird neighbors and gaining lovely neighbors with whom we can be friends.
4. My kids getting older.
5. The rain. I hate hot, hot weather. This cool climate is nice.

The Rights of the Privileged Few?

In my last post I explained how I've come to identify myself as a Liahona, as described in this essay by Richard Poll. In response, one woman commented:

"Having faith that Jesus Christ will someday "work it all out" is much more useful than wrestling always with Church details we don't understand.  ....the most positive idea I have come across lately is that to have faith is a choice."

I replied that this is an easy position without any major trial of faith that feels intensely personal like being black during the priesthood ban or gay during the political war on gay marriage.

It was a brief comment but I felt a little defensive which got me thinking about how some people are just less questioning by nature. I thought about why that may be.

I remembered a conversation with my oldest daughter when she was newly seven years old. We started off talking about money which led to questions from her about how people make mistakes which eventually led to questions about sex and menstrual periods. (I really earned my title that night.) Sex talk led to more existential questions:

Have people from Earth ever gone to other universes?

Are there other earths?

How did it all begin? Who made God?

Did God put dinosaurs on the earth?  Why?

How did God make spirits if it takes a man and a woman?

We will be gods and have our own spirit children, and then they will be gods and have spirit children, and it keeps happening? Why?

(I wrote down the entire conversation immediately after.)

I specifically recall, though it was one-and-a-half years ago, that she was dissatisfied with my answers. She was only seven and already she felt that it didn't make enough sense, when usually kids will believe any answer.

She has always been difficult to please. She has been argumentative since age three. My husband and I recall one 4-year-old temper tantrum when she disagreed with our evaluation that it was raining. I don't remember if she was invested in good weather for any reason or if she was just picking an arbitrary topic about which to argue. I do remember that she was mad, especially when we pointed out all the raindrops on our windshield. "Well, someone is throwing water on our van!" (My prosecutor husband and I both looked at each other and said simultaneously, predicting her future career, "Defense lawyer.")

She's almost stubborn as a hobby and this is most noticeable when she's asked to obey when the reasoning is unclear. So, out of respect for her, and out of genuine empathy, I try to always give her the whys for my parental bossiness. However, she needs to learn limits. She needs to learn that she just plain won't always understand the whys. As well, it's possible that someone threw water on our van, but trusting that people older and wiser than her can see that it's really raining, even when she can't tell from her vantage point, is a safer and wiser life strategy. There's a fine line between being entitled to logic behind the commands that infringe upon her free will, and between imagining that her parents could be wrong, and simple hubris. It's easy for me to spot that line with her; it's much harder to find it in my own mind, I do admit.

I think it's pretty clear that this personality of my daughter's is innate and likely inherited. Why? Why are some people born like her and others born like my son for whom faith and obedience comes easy? I suspect that Iron Rod ideology would say that we're all born with flaws so that we will be challenged to overcome them and become perfect. And I think it's likely that Liahona ideology would say that we're born with differences between us so that we can challenge each other, learn to love each other, and add to the world by playing different roles, led by our personalities. Or something like that.

How useful is it to say to someone like my daughter or myself that we should cease to be upset at all the questions and we should just surrender to the happy notion that it will all work out when we're dead or many years from now? Where does that standard come from? From all the people who find it easy? Aren't they like the people in Joseph Smith's time who also found it easy to just pick a church and believe, not questioning the veracity of any of them? Isn't it a good thing that there are people like my daughter and Joseph Smith who find the unanswerables nagging and vexing enough that they seek revelation? If you're only newly seven or if you're only fourteen, and you're already taking on God with big questions and you dare to expect answers, maybe it's because He made you that way so that you would have the gall to one day change the world.

I wonder if some people feel like I am not worthy to be the one asking questions and expecting revelation because I'm not Hugh Nibley or Joseph Smith or Neal A. Maxwell. When priesthood leaders seek answers and receive them, we celebrate them and are indebted to them, but the rest of us are just supposed to stick to our own little spheres and leave the existential questions to those who have a right to them? We're supposed to be happy to be fed whenever we're lucky enough to be fed?

Is my right to revelation limited to topics like how I should raise my children and how I can give service? Do most Latter-day Saints  see the little people like me asking big questions and expecting answers as demonstrating nothing more than hubris with a side order of faithlessness?

I do, at some point, expect answers. I do think that the Lord wants me to ask them and that He wants to answer. Maybe He's even delighted that I care enough to ask.

Daily Gratitudes

1. Hey, it hasn't snowed for at least four days!
2. Cubs, Brownies, and Sparks are all done for the season.
3. Modern conveniences.
4. Meeting new people.
5. Choosing college classes.