Tag Archives: Children

The Last Holidays of the Year

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It always happens, but I always forget.  The night of Halloween starts the cold, and it continues until there is snow on the first night of the new year.  The ice is black and is so dark that it is invisible until the flurries of snow coat it, making skid marks visible.  The only way to travel is to go slowly and carefully, even the buses and the cyclists.  The hard part is  the flying ice pellets because the lake water rose and froze so quickly to become bullets of ice water.

I am counting down the days, and suspiciously guessing that a deep snowfall will happen before Christmas morning, making work fill our holiday.  In some ways I anticipate this, eager to see the men in the shovel machines–the small ones as well as the giant ones.  It is almost as if the snow melts and galls down the sewers just from the weight of the tires.  I feel more hopeful seeing that the city has not died on  Christmas Day.

The Christmas Time means that I see familiar people in a different way.  Sometimes my behavior changes, but I don’t always know what I am doing.  Sometimes if I just promise to make my money useful, helpful, I start seeing opportunity.  Then comes the work of budgeting appropriately as well as saving enough for the things I like.  I try not to act as if I am in Las Vegas, as there is no benefit in that.  Do I want to win hearts, or do I want to win money?  Feeling at home where I am before the new year is sometimes dependent on the feat of promise.

I also like Christmas, just for the food that becomes available when usually food is not so rich.  I like the busy-ness that excuses my absence from the usual things and places, and the sudden filling of my schedule with functions of food and music.  I like that everyone becomes important, not just the people of power and the famous.  I like that my heart knows what all this Christmas is.  That there is time to find an ever-green-tree, time to decorate it, and time to just spend time in places that as close but different.  I like that there is joy, and peace, and merry-ment.  I like that there is happiness and sleeplessness on the new year eve.  I greeting Christmas as well as greeting that first of the year, as early as I can, which makes staying up until midnight on those two nights a treasure.  The excitement of the first minute is a pleasure an joy.

Only a week separates the two most important events of each year.  It is easy to be generous, grateful, and happy, in this continuous way.  The time of a week is just the perfect amount of time, and is a reminder of what the entire time has been about and what the coming of another year will become.  The entire world is aware of these holidays, regardless of creed, religion, ethnicity, or status.  Whether child or grandparent, age is no barrier, no limit, to participating and understanding the one-ness of the world as it looks at itself, and appraises the situation of marking this year-end and year-beginning, as it comes.  December and January are the months the entire world unites, knowing the meaning of these two months, in agreement of this meaning, without malice, disrespect, or dishonor.  And so, in this agreement, the world celebrates existence, and the evidence of this existence.  There is no doubt or hate of it all.

The awareness grows.  And knowing grows too.  Snow, and cold are Christmas staples, which prove that warm hearts will come out.  So, it has been a month, and another month more is here.  Halloween, Christmas and the New Year will have their run, and then, the usual rest of the twelve months will have their turn.  Being old enough to anticipate these events is definitely something I have grown into, and is something that I invest myself in.  I encounter it in other people too….  The need to celebrate what this world we live in has become.

Fromm witches and goblins to Santa Claus and the New Year kiss, it is a glorious time, a precious time, and I have hope for it, because it is where I first had hope and fun.  The last part of the year is always what we will remember, it we remember anything out of an entire twelve months.  Here is to what is, what will become, and what we will change.  A glass of champagne, will be how we hold on to it all, toasting the past, the present and the future.  I toast you, and whatever language it is you use to greet the holidays.  Good health, good fortune, and great wealth!

The Coming of Time

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I am feeling like I am running out of time, that time is passing, running very quickly, away.  I have been facing this situation for more than half my life now.  I have been watching time leave me, quickly, without apology or recourse since I successfully graduated high school.  As all my friends and even a boyfriend of mine, and I, went our different ways, to grow  into adults, so that we could build our careers, we accepted the nature of the situation.  It was a serious reason that made it seem justly logical despite the sadness of a world forcibly ending.

I am thinking of all the things I neglected, as if I made decisions only for something that would make me shiny and acceptable.  That if I could put all the grades I made and the high marks I received  to some sort of justified means and end.  This, I believed, could make me happy with myself.  That if I was acceptable to society, being an owner of a real estate and a vehicle, and even having relationships with people who would be inside the house I would live in and own, then, I would be happy.  So, now, what is the situation?  What is the verdict?  Still, all the things I have neglected are things that are still being neglected now.  However, I do miss those things, like I miss those high school friends, and that high school boyfriend, because I left them behind.  I wonder, sometimes, in that big “IF” question way: “What if we had been able to keep in touch, would I now be married to a doctor, instead of an engineer?”  Would I be happier that way?  Or, would the very psychiatric-bent of my husband drive me crazy?  His ability to needle and manipulate my emotions, becoming the bane of my existence?  Or, would this be one of the smarter things that I would value in my husband?

The actual situation is that I have married an engineer, who, I do not understand.  At any time we have our argument, we each take out our secret weapons.  He, his very mind-boggling understanding of the world as the size of a dice cube, and me, my very touchy-feely, sense that disproves his mathematically-cubist world.  At these times, I do not miss the neglect.  I am engaged and nothing else really is wrong.  Nothing else matters.

So, why is it that when I look at the clock, I miss more than just time slipping by?  Why is it that my mind wanders, and I start to wish about having other things, things that for some reason, I imagine are better?  Better than what I have, which I have earned justifiably and with justifiably hard work?

I feel that if I don’t have the time to participate in things I once cared about, then, I will be a part of the world that neglects and leaves those things that matter.  That there will a be worse world in the future than in the present.  And, I fear, then, that the world will become worse, because I participate in those things that are worse.  This is world that will grow, whenever people support those things that help it become real.  These things, like almost all things, take time, take investment, and take space….  The willingness to go there, with ingenuity and belief, and love.

So, I am running out of time, and I am calculating the time as it flits away.  I fear for my children’s world.  I fear that we will neglect things too much, beyond repair, beyond recompense.  That it will take double the time and effort to just restore goodness when the bad and evil has taken it over, filling all knowledge and sense.

The logical thing to do, is to find time to start.  And knowing this, it is like I am my own creator of stress.  How many books will I have time to read on top of the life I have now?  How much will I gain from reading books, from watching movies, and from taking care of things I neglect, even though I will not worry about all of it any more?  I am running out of time.  There will always be things I will never experience.  I wonder and I worry if this will make me less than an acceptable human being.  That I will be a loser and an unpopular person for all of my life.  But, from reality, every single person has a life that is limited, beyond their control.  Some people, grow up quickly, and choose the limits, the neglect, but most people, live with the limits imposed on them.  And, even I, so gallantly writing this essay, feel that I am missing things that would make me better. I wish often, for things that money cannot even buy.  I look at the clock again, and again, it is fast, and I am left behind, with what happens outside of time–nothing.

So, I will try to remember my own advice.  When I think that nothing matters, I will remember that I have worked, earned, and lived, my life.  Everything that I have is because of me, and is honorable.  As my Grandmother says, “When you have all the time in the world, you cannot be worth it, until you are running out of it, and it leaves you for dead.”  Thank you, Grandma.

Is the Beginning of the End Too Late?

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Is the beginning of the end too late?  I know I have already asked this question, at least once this year, but it is rearing its enormous head, yet again, begging my attention.  I feel that everything that is happening, with my job, with my family, and with my interests and pastimes, are all coming to some sort of end.  The thing?  Well, a simple, “What is going to happen next week?”

It is easy for me to be a coward, until, that is, I realize that if I choose to not do something, that I will literally end up with nothing.

The next step?  I need to be clear that I want my job, that I want to be with my family, and that I value my lesser talents in my hobbies.  Yes, an enormous and ugly head is rearing itself up, right now.

So, in this end, I ask, “Let’s do something!”

With some disposable money, a short trip outside of this one horse town is possible.  Then again, visiting friends or throwing a big party and inviting some out of town guests is always fun too… and probably something worthwhile if I can promise some fun and a magical tour of the city’s bars in the trendy and bar part of town.

About time….  My children are going to be hanging around the house for the whole summer!  Should I promise them another Camp  Summer?  Or, should I home school for two months and have themselves teach themselves a new skill?  And to practice on it?  I had perspicacious parents who did this to me every summer.  I would get home from summer school, which was filling half the day, and i would have to read books, practice piano, or do a chore like bake muffins or cookies.  Having responsibilities like these made me aware that I was more privileged than other children.  It made me aware that I had a lot more to do, than just come home and watch television.  I actually loved a lot of the things that happened to me in childhood, and I valued the things I could do, and having control over these talents, tasks, and knowing things when I heard other people talk, helped to keep me interested in school, life, and other people.  I accredit my parents for being the smart and cool parents for doing so.

So, this end that I see approaching, very quickly, is it for real?  Is it too early for everything to end?  or is it in fact too late?  Am I now too old to start a second career?  Am I too bored with my job to be able to do another similar job?  Do I have time to go back to school and find that magical, hoped for, favorite second job?  all these things are true, which makes me ask myself, “Am I filled with enough energy to handle two lives happening to just one person?”  Can I be a student and still be a parent to a family and a wife to a husband?  While I go to school, will I have time and money to cope with all of it?  I really cannot take out a second mortgage for myself, while I also envision taking out a mortgage for my children’s education.

With responsibilities pressuring me in a way that I could’ve never understood before, I feel as if I am giving up on myself in order that I am responsible for my children.  As well as for my husband.  Being a wife and mother changes priorities.  Men will always win, as men are.  And I am willing to put my education somewhere at the back, where perhaps, when all monetary responsibility for my children and also my physical responsibility for providing a home to them, is past.  It is not as if I have lost hope in myself.  It is at this fork in the road that I yet again, take the right hand fork.  I can’t see how far it leads, or, where it will begin again, but I am confident in being here.

If I can convince my children to fend for themselves a few days in the week, with promises to pay for visits to the theme park or the water park, and maybe a ten day trip family camping or going to rented cottage, this summer, I think I can still live with myself.  I will have the time to indulge, in secret, my interest in art.  As I fumble with the pencil in my hand, and play with the color of paint.  This looks as if it will become a satisfying two months, before the next time  I will have to yet, again, make the THE decision.  I will have to decide whether to be more of a mom, more of a wife, or more of me.  So, for now, it is done.

It Is Easy to Love Someone Who Is Beautiful

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It is easy to love someone who is beautiful.  When we are in love, everything is perfect, even when we yell at each other angrily, threatening the bindings around us.  At that time, no one is perfect, and definitely love is not perfect at all.  Because  I usually dismiss anything that is not perfect, I storm out and leave you.  The next day, with regret and embarrassment and tenderness, I plead for forgiveness, and demand a condition: stop starting arguments over things that are past changing.  Things sometimes are broken and things sometimes can’t be dealt with through demands an irresponsible, uncaring handling.

Sometimes even when the sun is out, the storminess of a relationship is enough to make the day feel cloudy and overcast, and damp, and hopeless, and like even asking a question is not going to take anything anywhere….  Let alone being the answer to the question of the problem.  The mind whirls around and around, the quiet sound of moving emotions, a quiet soundtrack to the beating heart.  And, so, in confrontation of the situation, we find a way to think of doing what is always so impossible after an argument.  We will re-explain ourselves.  We will listen to what you are saying, and accept it as real, and worth my careful consideration and effort in careful handling.

And, so, I am in love with a beautiful man.  And, we argue, not because it makes us work on our relationship, but, because, our relationship sometimes is not perfect.  We are always threatening the end to each other, but, something makes us come back.  Is it the politeness we have with each other?  Does this mean we are always stuck in second gear?  Never continuing to go to THAT place?  What will make us comfortable?  What will make us stop making threats to each other?  And, make our arguments about our poor taste in fashion, or our mistake in meeting an appointment because we are absent minded… not an issue of being a cruel and evil couple.  Are we truly in the deepest love with each other?  Are we poor at the games couples play?  Why, do we have all these troubles and problems?

I am afraid we will start using our bank accounts as ammunition in our on-going battle.  I am afraid that we will, or at least one of us, will end up a street person, dragging the world’s belongings around with us, picking up shopping carts and other towing contraptions with us.  We sleep in filth, covering the shopping cart with garbage bags so that n one will take it, or, any of the things inside.  I am afraid that all we will have of each other, will be some framed photograph that is the last one we can hold on to…  It being the last vestige of evidence of having been married to each other.

We have not taken our argument of each other to the front of our children.  They do not hear our dissatisfaction with each other.  As much as they are concerned, we are a happily married couple with a happy family that will be together for all of eternity.  It boggles my mind, that anyone, any two people, can be in love forever….  Happily ever after.  How much of it is work?  And how much of it is love?  It is difficult.  So, when we have that time, that place that our children do not go to (at least, not with us), we redirect our view.  We are starting to find some other view.   Some other reason.  Some other way to love.  “Staying together for the  Children” is not something that will hold us together for very long.  Right now, it almost feels like we are lying all the time, especially, to our children.  So, whenever we get that chance, to go to that place, we do.  We send our children to Grandma’s and Grandpa’s, and we have that time.

This is not a quick and fast way to make our marriage work, but it is something that we appreciate in each other.  We are working with our relationship with the things that work in it.  We are going towards loving each other like we did, before two others, namely, our son and daughter, became our family.  On our eyes, we want to be that “Number 1” to each other that we once were.

The Spring is coming.  Fear of floating around the universe alone is not appealing.  I truly hope that we can work out the problems stopping our relationship from being all that it can be.  Either that, or we fiend out the limit that our relationship is… through work and caring, and mutual effort and understanding of each other.  I am someone who truly wants to be on this journey of life that is here now.  I hope that it is  something that I will not be in regret with.  I don’t want to fail at living my life.

The Climb Up Whistler Mountain

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We are climbing up Whistler Mountain.  It is a slow ascent as we walk up.  Ar first, it is all stones, and there is a railing and some gravel that serves as a path.  We walk  slowly to acclimatize our heads, hearts, and lungs to the increasing high altitude–we do not want to faint.

Small rodents inhabit the mountain and are unafraid of the people who are along the path up.  They come running and rushing across, and squirrel-like they pause at “safety” beside slightly bigger boulders, benches made from stone, and small vegetative bushes.  They are fast and we are unable to capture these moments on our cameras.

The kids are loving our journey.  They’ve been in the car today for two hours, and they were behaving, abstaining from fights and not really in need of a session of yelling familiar songs out.  But, they are also glad to be out of the confinement.  My eight-year-old is keeping up with the others.  He is strong and has spurts of energy to rush suddenly up twenty metres ahead.   There, he either waits for us to catch up or he runs back down to scream at us about what is up ahead.  He has not yet developed an interest in cameras and photography, only borrowing his dad’s camera to randomly take shots…  I am not sure if it is interest on his part, or if he is just killing boredom when he plays with the camera.

From the car in the parking lot, Whistler does not look to be such a sandy color.  It is darker, and the lighter coloring can almost look like snow.  We are enjoying our climb and since the ascent is quite quick, we begin to feel light-headed and out of breath if we try to rush.  I have to call my eight-year-old back a few times just to keep up and to make sure he isn’t rushing straight into a visit to the hospital.  Nonetheless, he arrives at the top a good ten minutes before we get there.  He is safely at the top, relieving me of my anxiety when I see him there.

It is absolutely stunning.  Being surrounded by mountains and also to have the ability to look down and see the depth of the valley from the height, makes being alive at the top thrilling.  I still savour that emotion of being the smallest biggest thing.  It could’ve been the altitude, but no one took pictures of the event or of the sturdy “flag-planting” and that last “out-of-breath” breath.  We stood there gazing.  My children were also more quiet, choosing to walk around the whole plateau.  If I can, one, day, I will paint a picture of it.

It was not that long ago, and being in the city today, I feel as if I am living in the smallest place on earth.  It is comfortable here.  The openness in a green space is not really that gigantic in comparison to the plateau on Whistler.  Surprisingly, probably because it was summer, there were no gales of wind and sleet…  It was calm and sunny.

I am waiting for the buds on the trees to come out.  I am waiting for the grass to turn green, and I am waiting for the crickets to start to chirp.  This is the everyday minutia.  It is here, and not on the path up the mountain, not on the plateau that allows for sight into infinity, and not in waking my children every morning or tucking them into bed every night.  In those quiet moments of living, I feel singly, and am an amoeba, surrounded.

If you can…  find some vacation time to go and climb Whistler Mountain.  They might have created some gear to help you up the mountain now, but I am sure the experience is just as worth having.

Have We Changed?

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Do bands play in warehouses and open fields any more? Have they moved on to the stadiums and amphitheatres, away from makeshift stages?  Is it fun any more to go to a concert?

Do we meet our friends at the neighbourhood park, or the greenspace just around the corner?

Do we read books, watch movies, and drink coffee with a cigarette or beer in hand?  Do we remember to eat breakfast?  Have we changed?  Instead of running around for no reason at all–with our friends running after us–chasing us because it is fun–we push ourselves into fitness clubs to be on a treadmill for an hour.

We drool for a great armchair–not to be able to jump high on it–but to sink deep into it and forget we are awake and even alive as we get lost in TV’s imaginary world.  If the winners win, we win.

Are we more lost, now, or when we start making different decisions than we used to?  Where are we going?  Or, have we stopped ourselves from going anywhere?  Do we wait in order to be closer cousins with death or are we too afraid to move, as if we were to move, we travel close to the grave?

We think our children know so much more than we did at their age, and we run just to stay ahead of them.  It is so much easier to break the rules in this world–we have hope, and, we fear the ease of a gun or of a few dollars.

We made decisions, often with limits, and all children need today, is a password.  When in the past, we would steal $20 from mom’s purse, children can drops hundreds with an account, on any site in this day.

There are things I look at, like inflation, and it makes me feel that I have accomplished more than my parents have.  I look at the degree I have from college, and it makes me feel the world recognizes me as one of those geniuses that needs to paid slightly more than everyone else.  I look at the jobs my grandparents and, even, my parents have had, and I think that growing knowledge base and the growing brains of human beings are leading to more good things.  No, I do not believe that we will become extinct….  We have too many brains for that!

What is alarming, is that what I saw happen to me, is continuing to happen with my children.  They are smarter at a younger age.  They have more decision-making power….  They see when there is obviously a question or even a contention over an issue that they rightly can make a decision for themselves!  The most common one that happens, is where they start bargaining for “something extra”:  an extra hour up before bed?,  one more hour on the computer?, if they clean up their room today, can we make a trip to McDonald’s this weekend?  Where does a five-year-old start to learn how to bargain like criminal negotiators?  … But it is happening!!

I am looking forward to my children growing up.  They are beautiful and wonderful.  They are a great gift, and I am glad that I can’t return them.  Life is never turning stale, and life is sometimes hard and difficult, but I am not willing to give up, because of change, or because I am not brave enough to live it.  I promise, to live it!