A PICTURE OF OUR TOMORROWS

Today is my day off. My day off in my last week of work.

Corwyn and I had a little sleep in, read some stories in the bed, got dressed, had a tasty breakfast of cheerios and yogurt (the milk was sour!) and since then we've been puttering around, laundry, dishes, playing with blocks, reading stories, snack time, all with good music in the background. We took half an hour and sewed a baby sling for Corwyn's doll and then he sat with his baby in his sling and played guitar. Corwyn just brought me his shoes to put on because I told him we're going to walk up to the grocery store. He also brought me my shoes - one high heeled black one, and one flat white one. He has his own idea of fashion! It's a nice and easy day. We have a playdate this afternoon at our house and dinner is in the slow cooker.

We are having a good day and I am glad this this is what life is going to look like nearly every day after this week.

CONSPIRE

I've noticed that Christmas decorations are out in full force, even though we haven't hit December yet. Last year, I posted this and this year...we're doing it again.

THE LEAP

I used to enjoy being busy. I loved my slotting appointments into my planner, using nice pens and sometimes stickers. I liked rushing from one place to the next, multi-tasking, with many things on the go. It felt productive. It felt good.

And then we had a baby. Life became slower. We planted a garden. We took more naps. Then....I returned to work in January, and the rush has returned. We never seem to catch up, never seem to finish the list, always seem to have someplace to be or something to do.

For the past few weeks, I have been struggling. I have been trying to put words on feelings that I have not been able to name. I am typically quite an articulate person, so this is a strange feeling for me. I have been carrying an ache, and haven't found the name for it. As Chris and I talked and talked and talked about it - we always came back to one thing...my job.

For the past seven months, I've been working in the community where I live. Walking to and from work every day, working in a field I love, with my son in a daycare I can see from the lunch room. When I first started, it seemed so, so, so perfect. It seemed that "wish list" for what I wanted from a job had been met. I had prayed for a door to be opened and God answered. But as the months went by it became more and more stressful, and less and less satisfactory. For the past several months, I have gone home and cried, not understanding how the perfect job could be so difficult.

And so we made a plan. I would finish out my contract - until March 2010, and I would not renew. I would take a self-employment program, and launch a business doing birth & post-partum doula work and childbirth education. Recently, it became clear that this was not a feasible plan for a number of reasons. And so we coasted. Lived in the chaos and struggled.

This is what a typical day looks like for me: I get up, hopefully without waking Corwyn, who has made his way into our bed sometime during the night. I get ready, and then I drag Corwyn out of bed, rush him through breakfast, bundle him up and out the door. I put my make-up on at work while I check my emails at my desk, drink a coffee, check my voicemails. I rush through the day, my to do list, tasks, groups and events. At lunch time, I walk home and think about my baby, in the day care, away from me. I think about choices. I think about working, and why I hang onto this job, in spite of all the stress and struggle. After work, I pick my son up. We usually have a little bit of time to play at the park before Chris gets home and we make dinner, go grocery shopping, do errands, have someone over, go out to something etc. Then we wrestle Corwyn to bed, and start the whole thing again. It is busy. It is not the life we want for our son.

I just finished reading an amazing anthology of stories of motherhood by Canadian mothers. Called "Between Interruptions" it has the stories of 30 mothers and tells of the transformation involved in becoming a mother and the impact it has on identity, ambition and relationships. As I was reading the story "Thin White Line" by Carol Shaben, I began to cry, because Shaben succinctly expressed what I have been feeling:

"Sacred" is the word that immediately precedes "sacrifice" in the dictionary. It is defined as something that is unassailable, inviolable, highly valued and important Women like me were brought up to believe that our personal aspirations and identities were sacred. So we hang on for dear life, loath to let go of our hard earned uniqueness of self. Instead, we layer on a new life - the life of mother. And what motherhood demands of us is not just our love and desire but a deep cut into the essence of who we once were. A cleaving apart of the life we were once driven to create for ourselves and our new reality. How could any of us be ready?"

This is what I have been doing. I have been layering on my life as a mother. Upon reflection, I find truths in my heart: I am ambitious. I am afraid of losing my sense of self. I am programed by my culture to view career aspirations as nobler than "mother". I am conflicted. I am holding on to the essence of who I once was.

I've said this here before, but on January 24, 2008, there was a birth - not just of a boy child named Corwyn, but also of me, as a parent. I forget this sometimes - that I am not who I once was, and that this is a good thing. And so with this in mind...

In the darkness and conflict
I find faith, and I leap.

I quit my job.

It is a leap of faith. A head first plunge into sacrifice. And it is the one of the hardest - and rightest choices I have ever made. It is a decision born out of the fact that I cannot layer motherhood on top of who I once was. I need to be a mother first. I need to embrace this place, this time, this privilege. I need to invest in my son. So, as of November 27th, you will find me at home, or in the park, the library or a coffee shop. You're invited for tea. We'll be taking it slow.

I'm still an ambitious career woman at heart though. Old habits die hard, and so -- I ordered business cards.

AN ARTICULATION OF SILENCE

I've tried writing this a dozen different ways. I keep hitting delete. Lets start with a fact:

I miss blogging.

But I've been away for so long...I feel like I owe some sort of explanation as to why this space has been silent for so long. Other facts: I don't really know where to go with my little blog. I feel like all the big things that are happening in my life are not blog-able. I am a little afraid to put my thoughts out here again. I'm not sure why...it used to be that I didn't care what people thought of what I had to say. But I am in a different, and more fragile place. Words are powerful things, and with them, I have hurt and have been hurt, and these days, I am feeling the need to be a bit cautious.

On Wednesday mornings, I attend a short language class at work. For twenty minutes, a woman named Jill teaches us little tiny bits of a language that is, for all intents and purposes, a dead language. Why is this language dead? The short answer is that due to colonization and residential schools, the language has been decimated due to a steady decline of fluent speakers. While there is effort to ensure its survival, it is an uphill battle, and I feel privileged to be able to participate. It is a language full of sounds very foreign to me, sounds that do not exist in English. One of them, a consonant in their alphabet is written like this:

ʔ

It is called a glottal stop, and as a letter in a word, is actually pronounced as an articulation of silence. I am absolutely fascinated by this. In Caucasian North American culture, silence is often seen as awkward, and in our modern culture in general, silence is quite rare. We always have music or conversation or advertising or the noise of traffic, the hum of appliances, a plane overhead. True silence is practically unheard of (sorry about the pun, it was unintentional!). And yet, here, in this language that has been nearly silenced, silence is actually an integral part of the the alphabet.

I've reflected on this letter (ʔ), this articulation of silence, often in the last few weeks. I'm a talker, a loud laugh-er, a silence killer. And yet, silence is, as the saying goes, golden. As I've been working on mastering this sound (I'm far from close) I've been recognizing that recently, there are many places of silence in my life. Some of these places of silence are good - moments of reflection and mediation, silent gazes into blue eyes that I love. Some of these places of silence are not good - words left unspoken, conversations avoided.

And then there is my silence here, on this blog. This blog that I have been keeping for nearly seven years. This blog that holds many memories and burdens and triumphs and sorrows and joys.

I have many conflicted thoughts about the purpose and future of my blogging. My tendency is to write honestly and openly. That is how I am in life and conversation, and I have always viewed this blog as a conversation with the world. However, I am in the difficult place of carrying many experiences that I wish to share and write about -- but cannot for a variety of reasons.

But...I miss the conversation of blogging. So. This is my attempt to re-start this blog. I hope there is still a reader or two out there. I'm back in the blogosphere.

A PICTURE > 1000 WORDS

PICTURES

It's been a while...so here's some pictures taken in the last week.


Marital Bliss
Hey! Why did you leave me inside?
He's walking!
Peekaboo!
Morning smiles
The Boy and his Papa
Reflective faces
Thoughtful faces
Sleeping angel
Sleeping in the rain
Funny faces
Kisses
So sad, don't leave me!

And the big news....Corwyn is walking!

25 THINGS

I've been tagged about 5 times for this 25 Things meme, and so I've caved and completed it. It's a sad excuse for a blog update, but it's all your getting for now. I'm not tagging anyone because I don't want to perpetuate the torture, but if you actually like these things, and haven't already been tagged by 27 people on facebook, have at 'er to your hearts content.

1. If I ever quit my job, the thing I will miss the most is the cafe down the hallway that makes my breakfast every day. When I walk in, everyone knows my name and says hello and when I place my order I just say "the usual" and they know what it is. This makes me happy
   
2. I like pop music
3. I wish I could dance better
4. My son is the coolest, awesomest, most fun person ever. I can't get enough of him. And he gets awesomer every day
5. When my husband I were dating, I didn't let him kiss me (even though he tried often) until after he proposed
6. If I'm cranky, 9 times out of 10, it's because I'm hungry
7. I love re-reading good books, and have read some of my favourites dozens of times (not exaggerating).
8. I want to star in a days-gone-by historic period film - preferably one set in the 1800s - because I want to wear fantastically awesome huge dresses and hats for extended periods of time
   
9. I'm outrageously incensed at Thyme Maternity for selling their client lists to Nestle so that pregnant women can be sent formula samples and glossy magazines touting the magical scientific wonders of their shit formula
10. I think placentas are really awesome
11. Although I loved my son dearly, for the first three months I thought I had made the biggest mistake of my life
12. I believe abortion is wrong, but I am staunchly pro-choice
13. I forget to eat (see point 6 for repercussions)
14. I just culled my bloglines list - I'm down to 57 from 103. I think I save myself 20 minutes a day by not reading blogs I don't care about but that showed up in my reader anyways.
15. I am giving up Facebook for Lent. Depending on how that goes, I'm open to trashing it completely - or at least deleting most of my "friends" - I'm tired of being subjected to a news feed full of information that I don't care about
    
16. I love sewing and knitting
17. I'm learning how to knit Cowichan sweaters
18. I think American politics are much more interesting that Canadian politics
19. I really want to go to Russia and Poland
20. I have no problem breastfeeding in public because if someone says something to me about it, I know that I can charge them with harrasment as per my rights under the BC Charter of Rights & Freedoms
21. It's embarssing to admit, but I actually like the $1 hot dogs from Ikea
22. There are three non-functioning fire hydrants on our front lawn, we rescued them from the side of the road where they had been abandoned
23. I have begun collecting art images of mothers and babies with the intention of having them on the walls of my office/meeting space when my doula business is up and running
24. I want to be able to take really fantastic photos
25. Memes annoy me, and this is the first one I've ever done.
    

BYE BYE BOOB TUBE

I wrote this a while ago and then forgot to post it. I have breast-feeding mush brain.

Transcript of a recent telephone conversation I had:

"Hi. I'd like to cancel my cable TV subscription. "

"Alright ma'am. May I ask why?"

"Because all we do is watch TV, and we have become lazy and we hate it. We want to do cool stuff."

"Watching TV is pretty cool."

"It's not cool at all. We want to do way cooler stuff. We want to go outside. We want to make art, and friends. We don't want our baby watching CSI. We don't want to have cable anymore. It ruins our lives"

"Oh. Alright then. I understand. Did you want to cancel your internet as well?"

"OH MY GOD NO." *

Chris and I have been doing some examination of our life and have found that over the last few months we've turn into boob-tube watching boobies and we hate it. We would talk about watching less TV, but it just didn't happen. The TV controlled us, and we were unable to not turn it on if we knew there was a show on that we liked.

After much discussion, we decided that we had two options.

1. Get a PVR so that we could record the shows we liked and watch them when it was convenient for us and without commercials. With a PVR we could control our TV watching rather than molding our life around what night the next episode of CSI was on.
   
2. Cancel cable and stop watching TV entirely.

We almost bought the PVR. Then we realized that TV adds absolutely nothing good to our lives and it really made no sense to spend MORE money and get MORE channels to watch LESS television.

So, I called Shaw and they sent the man over to turn it off. We had a few nights of withdrawl where we wandered around bereft and talked about the shows we were "missing" and didn't know what to do with ourselves. But now that the shock of it has passed and we are so glad we unplugged the tube.

We listen to music and talk. Our house is cleaner. I've been reading books or sewing in the evenings. Chris spends more time playing with Corwyn. It's been lovely.

The TV Turnoff has been step one in an effort to make our lives more relational, more community focused, more creative and more loving.

*my guilty secret is that I can watch full episodes of Grey's Anatomy and The Office online on the CTV and Global websites, so that is the salve to the burn of the TV turn-off. But I watch them on my laptop, during the day, and I can't flip channels when they're over and watch something else, so it's all good.

WHITE CHRISTMAS

One clear, cold night we bundled up and adventured up the street 7 blocks to the Christmas Tree lot...We found a nice little Douglas Fir, complete with miniature cones on some of its branches, and it followed us home. As this was the first year we've had a tree, we didn't have any decorations, so I spent a few cozy hours making them - salt dough hearts, painted red, icicles made of buttons strung on wire, little gold stars cut from a piece of gold leather I've had for ages. The only items I didn't make were the tiny red glass berries wired to the branches. I picked three dozen of those up at Chintz & Co a few years back at their always fabulous Boxing Day sale. They set me back a whole $3. It's a frugal, but lovely tree. It makes me happy to look at it. Corwyn points at it and says "Wowww!" (Christmas Tree pictures by Libby - Thank you Libs)

We've had a massive dump of snow and some really cold weather (-14) all week, so the snow hasn't melted as it usually does here in temperate Vancity. Although the main roads are mostly clear, Chris needed to purchase chains in order to get out of our community, which is snowed in under about 50 cm of snow.

Corwyn hadn't seen snow before, and the first day he stood by the window for half an hour pointing and saying "Wowwww!" Half an hour is an extremely long time for him to stay in one spot. He loves being outside at the best of times, but the snow makes it even more exciting. Although getting bundled up is not his most favourite activity and he quickly learned how to remove his mitt with his teeth while I was putting on the second one.

It's so much fun to watch Corwyn have fun. He's so adventuresome and curious and interested in everything new. My baby grew into a toddler in the blink of an eye. I love this age he's at so much though - the joy, the giggles, the cute little things he does. Every day is better than the one before.

Well, we're all cozy for Christmas, and we hope you are too. Enjoy time with family and friends and make sure to spend lots of time cuddling - we sure will be!

WHERE'S THE SWEAT AND THE PLACENTA?

When I think about Christmas, I think about Mary. I actually think about her more than Jesus – which sounds rather heretical – but I have had my most profound and personal Christmas revelations while reflecting on Mary. The Mary I picture is not the one on your holiday card wearing a splendid blue head-covering with bright eyes and white robe glowing amongst pristine straw and a cheerful, silent, odor-free cow. The Mary I picture is young, humble and strong, having endured stares, whispers, judgment and embarrassment through her pregnancy. She is dirty from the dusty roads of Israel and she is tired from a long trip away from her family. The Mary I picture is, as the Bible succinctly states, “heavy with child”. Her joints ache and she is cranky because all pregnant women tend to get a bit cantankerous at the end of a pregnancy. I’ve never seen this Mary on a Christmas card. There’s no romance in this reality.

In the Catholic church I go to some Sundays, we say “Hail Mary full of Grace…” but I doubt if there was much grace to be found, bouncing on a donkey down a dusty, rocky road with your fiancé on your way to a town you may not have been to for a census that you probably don’t want to take part in. There is very little grace in the ninth month of pregnancy, with your ribs crushed, pelvis aching, limbs swollen and we all know that the ninth-month pregnant waddle is the antithesis of graceful.

Mary, on her way to Bethlehem is without her mother, sister, or best friend. She is traveling away from the village midwife and healing woman she’s known her whole life. She would know that this baby is coming any day, she would know she was going to give birth away from those she trusted and those who cared for her. In a culture where birth was a rite of passage to be walked through surrounded by those sister-friends closest to you, it must have been terrifying to travel further and further from this circle, knowing that you would labour and birth away from those you loved.

We see these pictures of Mary on cards, all glowing and pristine. We see her kneeling, fully dressed and prim and proper with a beautiful baby Jesus. I can’t reconcile these gilded images with what I know about birth. I’m a doula – I have been with women when they birth and I study birth and I have never, ever seen a woman look like this after giving birth.

Birthing is hard work. It is sweaty and loud and intense and physical. Birthing women sway and groan and chant and sing. Birthing women clutch their support people and puke and cry and laugh and shake. Birthing women sweat and sweat and sweat. Birthing is hard work.

I see Mary with her baby – a baby that is a little bloody, covered in vernix and has a cone head from being squeezed down – dare I say – her vagina - and he is screaming and hungry. And Mary, suddenly becoming a mother, has instincts that kick in and she gets naked and she puts him to her breast and she cries out “Oh! My baby! My baby! Look at my baby! Oh hello baby!” Her eyes glow and she is triumphant. She wears a halo of victory.

Someone paint me that picture.
That’s a Christmas card I could send out with conviction.

But even that picture isn’t enough. That picture isn’t the whole picture, that picture is still missing something.

Every Sunday School Christmas Pageant shows us Joseph, desperately trying to find a room in the inn. Certainly, this must have been a stressful situation for him. But once Mary got into active labour and Joseph heard his fiancé get into her labour groove, once he heard her start to vocalize with her labour pains and sway her hips, and close her eyes and go rock and moan - quite simply, Joseph would have shit his pants carpenter pants and went and found a woman. Guys didn’t do birth back then. There were no couple’s prenatal classes, no Bradley Method of Husband-Coached Childbirth. Birth was women’s work. Men waited outside.

If Joseph was desperate to find a room in an inn – imagine his panicked desperation to find a midwife to care for his labouring woman. I am just as sure that Mary did not peacefully lie in the straw without breaking a sweat during labour as I am that Joseph did not calmly deliver a baby by himself.


So, where are the midwives in the holiday card pictures?

As I mentioned, I visit a Catholic church and every Sunday, we say:

Hail Mary,
Full of Grace,
The Lord is with thee.

The word “midwife” simply means “With Woman”. Although it has medical connotations today, its meaning is not strictly medical. With Woman. It means I am here with you as you journey through the most challenging and triumphant event of your life. I won’t leave you alone. I will support you and encourage you and care for you and protect you. I am with you.

Hail Mary,
Full of Grace,
The Lord is with thee.

There were women who were with Mary. God’s presence, working through the hands of women. Grace in the labour space, God’s presence in the labour room. Midwives with Mary in her moment of triumph.

Hail Mary,
Full of Grace,
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit
of thy womb, Jesus.

Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus - but the actual birth gets overlooked. We say “blessed is the fruit of thy womb” but we don’t think about the womb.

When I celebrate the Christmas season, I think about the birth, I think about the womb. I think about the physicality and the power of birth. I think about the power of the midwives, bringing God’s grace into the stable. I think of the triumph of the woman Mary, bringing her baby into the world. There is victory in every birth – but what incredible victory Mary would have felt; knowing that she just birthed the Son of God. As I contemplate the humility of Jesus, God’s son, coming to us in the form of a baby, I am awed and amazed by the miraculous power of birth. A woman birthed Jesus. Messily, physically, intensely birthed.

It is this realness of the birth that enriches my connection with the realness of Jesus. It is the knowledge that the God that I love did what we all do – he was born. I love that in order for Him to come to us – He had to do so by way of a womb, by way of a woman. He did not come in a cloud, or on a boat, or just flash sterilely into existence on the planet. He was real. As I am real, as you are real. As you and I were born, he was born.

Sometimes, I feel that my faith becomes disconnected from reality. It seems complicated and ethereal. But when I picture Mary, triumphant after birth, with her son in a manger, I also see, as the old song says “a cradle in the shadow of a cross”. With this picture, my faith crystallizes – hard and solidly unshakable. I remember that His birth was real and raw and moving because life is real and raw and moving. With an understanding of the realness of His birth I am aware of the realness of His death, the realness of His sacrifice and the realness of His love for me. His sacrifice and His love have transformed my life. They have given me purpose and peace – and that is what Christmas is truly about – the love and sacrifice of a man who was born to us.

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
~ Isaiah 9:6

ADVENT

Today, being the first day of Advent, inspires me to share a short film clip with you. I hope you take the 2.5 minutes to watch it and I hope it makes you stop and think for a moment, as I did.



Later this week, I'll be sharing a rather long post with you. It's a collection of my thoughts about Mary and what we are actually celebrating when we say we're celebrating the birth of Jesus. So stay tuned!