A Comb and A Brush and A Bowl Full of Mush…

My girl has a bowl full of mush, or porridge, most mornings. It’s a good, stick to your ribs kind of breakfast. She gets only milk and some raisins to dress it up. There will be a day when I add a bit of brown sugar in an attempt to keep her eating it, but eventually her gag reflex will be triggered and she will hate the stuff just as I did. Every summer as a small child this was breakfast while camping with my mother’s cousin and her free spirited, adventurous children. And as with all mothers in my family, if I didn’t like what was being served, I could wait until the next meal. I will be the same, it’s a fun tradition!

                She will come back to porridge though, just as I did. I think about those trips each morning that I make it for myself. As the warm lump of oatmeal surrounded by a pool of milk with melting brown sugar steams in the early morning sun, I can almost hear the sound of the seagulls screeching over the Northumberland Strait. I still feel like something incredibly fun is going to happen whenever I hear a tent zippered. These weekend trips organized by these two women meant the world to me now and then. We ate outside and slept squished together trying not to touch the sides of the canvas tent. Exasperated sighs escaping my mother’s lips as morning dew dripped on her head because my sister and I were squabbling about one thing or another. The days were spent on the beach.

                Once the kids were old enough to strike out on their own, the cousins were left to soak in the rays in peaceful silence. We explored the sand bars, small pools fed by the ocean, and the rocky cliffs. We swam with the jelly fish, and perhaps gutted one or two that had washed up on the sand. Holes in between the boulders were perfect washrooms. Sea foam was mermaid guts, the fate of the mystical creatures unknown, but their poor sad remains left to evaporate as the tide slipped out. My cousins and sister always had imaginations bigger than themselves. They could be anyone, about to go anywhere. It was as if their imaginations had been set free from the hills of Albert and Westmorland counties and they were permitted to roam where the wild things are.

                I, on the other hand, spent much of this time keeping to myself, fearing that my shadow would tell on me. That somehow my mother would know I had been places that were out of bounds, because let’s face it, mothers know these sorts of things. When mothers are in labour they also secretly grow another set of eyes in the backs of their heads. I was not as brave as my companions, and felt that my imagination was too small for their creativity. I chose to sit on the rocks and stare at the horizon. I hoped that the wild things would come find me, instead of me seeking them out.

I looked at the horizon, most days blocked by those large sloping hills, waiting for it to show me what was beyond its borders; pleading that it was something grand. I still get excited when I begin to make out the coast line from the highway. It’s as though all worries, concerns, and inhibitions melt away and the salty breeze breaths new air into your lungs.

I could daydream for hours about what I was going to find when I could finally reach out into the horizon’s unknown. In many ways I think I am still waiting. Maybe someday I will find the courage to seek out the wild things. I do however, know what was over the hills, it’s beautiful, but those giant green monsters and salt waters never truly release you. I sit in the evenings now rocking my girl to the sound of waves and daydream about the time that I am permitted to return to the warm hug of those hills and the exhilarating relief of staring down the Northumberland Strait. Those sensations sticking to my ribs, keeping my soul nourished for a few more months.

This Day and Yesterday

Dear Daughter,

Today is the day you become aware of my secret identity. This day is years, if not decades, away. And while you will have known the facts for most of your life, you will still be taken by surprise when this day arrives. It’s an especially difficult day for a daughter. The one when she realizes that her mother is just another woman, much like herself.

The first day you see your mother without her “mom cape” is like catching her naked. It’s awkward, uncomfortable and makes her incredibly vulnerable. By the time this day arrives for you my sweet girl, my hair will be faded and your grandfather’s heavy brow will sit upon my black eyes. I will be different from the person who is writing you this letter; time will give me no choice in the matter. Should you ever wonder who this person was, I wanted to leave you something of her. Perhaps it will help you to better understand the person you know when this day arrives.

I am happy.

I was once told as a teenager that it is impossible to be happy every minute of every day, and while this is indeed true, I am still trying to prove it wrong. I struggle to accept that I am deserving of the happiness I have. I fear that it may escape me and I will not know how to find it again. Strange yes, but I am working on simply embracing it.

Your father is why I know so much happiness.

His presence in my life still surprises me. He will teach you, dear daughter, to seek out the beauty of simplicity. If you learn his lesson, your heart and mind will remain open. For much of your life he will tell you that it is I who takes care of him. What you will witness is the many ways he takes care of me. How his small gestures have helped me become a stronger, more confident woman.

Cutting my hair was the single most brilliant style choice I ever made for myself.

At thirty one I struggle with my self-image on a daily basis. My lack of faith in myself has been my greatest weakness. It has kept me from chasing my dreams and giving myself credit when it has been earned. I often stare at the mirror looking for the person I know in my daydreams. I have two major goals to accomplish in raising you. The first is to teach you to walk with your head held high. It is much easier to chase your dreams if you can see where they are going. The second is that you know a beautiful body is a healthy one and that perfection is only possible through imperfection.

I am an emotional wreck about going back to work.

It’s hard, I have loved my job for the last year and believed that I was good at it, but you are a social little creature. You like to see and talk to other people. I am not worried about you but I am worried that I am making a mistake nonetheless. And I will make mistakes as I go along. I will not know they were mistakes until you tell me about them.

I want you to have a sister.

I am biased in this manner because I adore mine. I gave her a hard time when we were little, but your auntie, my little sister,  is now someone I look up to and admire. She is the person you ask a question to when you don’t want to ask me, especially if it’s about me.  She knows all, mostly because she lived it with me, and she will not sugar coat me. I miss her daily.

Being away from home is hard.

I miss the people, the way of those people, the trees and the quiet of them. It makes me sad to know that my home’s landscape will not shape you they way it did me. New Brunswick is the nation’s wall flower and wall flowers are beautiful. I hope you will love it too and also understand that love kept me from it.

I think you are the most gorgeous creature that ever was.

I will always think this and be proud of it. It is my right. You have surprised me in so many ways already. The biggest being that I got to have a daughter (we were convinced you were a boy). You are a bright and confident little girl. You love to tell stories and make others laugh. I am excited about the years to come and the adventures we will have. I am loving getting to know you as Mum. I look forward to the day I meet you as Vanessa.

Subtle Guidance

I grew a human. I can’t keep a house plant alive, I left my cat with my parents to care for, but I now have a human being to look after. Seven months later, my mind is still trying to catch up with what I’ve done. I have become sport and entertainment for veteran parents who shake their heads in unison. Never in my life have I been so interested in poop or appreciated a hot cup of tea. I have walked miles in my dining room, singing the same songs over and over; only to see as I pass the mirror a giant pair of blue eyes still blinking at me. In that mirror I see glimpses of my aunts and cousins, who have already beaten down the path of motherhood to help guide me,  but most  especially my mother’s eyes look back at me. It is a strange sense of comfort when I am so unsure of everything else. The women in my life were the voice of my childhood, they were always present, always giving their opinions and always ready to wipe away tears. I have taken lessons of endless value from them.

But quietly sitting in the background through these years , unaware of their interest in my rearing, were the men in my life. It’s hard to get a word in when several hens are click clacking away about this and that. So they quietly went about their business and only now as an adult and mother am I aware of the profound influence they had on me.

My father is a man I respect to no end. He has shown me what it is to persevere and the freedom that comes with it. He has taken hard lessons learned and quietly begged us to also learn from them. He has told us over and over again that we are valuable and to make sure we choose a partner who will see that value. It’s not worth our time (or tears) if we’ve made the wrong choice, but to accept it and move on; there is bigger and better waiting.

My father’s brothers are men who have instilled a sense of silliness, that to laugh at the end of the day is a grand gift indeed. I am still impressed by one uncle’s ability to pull a string through his neck. And I am still trying to answer another uncle’s question as to how I can see through such dark eyes (this one really stumped me as a kid). They are master story tellers that have the same rise and fall in their voices, who look at you from under their brows knowing the punch line and anticipating your reaction. While some might use other adjectives to describe them, I think they are marvelously charming.

My mother’s brothers have kept me grounded.  I am a Maritimer who up and moved to Upper Canada. Regionalism dictates that should one move away they must think themselves better than the simplicity of life offered on the east coast. My mother’s eldest brother was quick to remind me that I was not. The man always intimidated the hell out me, but I like to think he was proud of my mother because her children adore her so much. Her youngest brother has been a source of support in many life decisions I have made. A camping trip he organized is one of my most treasured memories. His actions through the years have taught me that the definition of a man is extensive and not bound by one person’s perception.

My grandfather was a giant of a man when I was five. As children we would do running jumps into his arms and were rewarded with a bear hug.  I still remember the feeling of disappointement when I was too big to do this. One year for Christmas he knitted a pair of gloves for each of his grandchildren, tucked inside one glove was his favourite story of us. Mine was of the day I was born. As the first of his grandchildren, my arrival was not quite how he envisioned becoming a grand parent. However, he told me that as soon as he saw my dark hair and brown eyes, my arrival didn’t matter, I was here. That gift remains as one of the greatest I ever received.

As a young adult I met three men who altered the course of my studies and ultimately my life. These three professors saw something in me that I had forgotten about. They gave me the power to believe in myself; that I was a smart and clever girl who could take on and conquer whatever aspect of the world I chose. One ushered me under his wing, kept me there and now encourages me to fly at every opportunity given to him. He lives his life in a way that pulls joy from his work and hobbies. He’s willing to try new things, and really isn’t that what we are meant to do with life? Another taught me that I had to find the fire in my belly and chase it. His faith in my ability gave me the confidence to move out of the box I had built for myself. He taught me the value of a dark and stormy night passage, advice that I hear every time I start one of these little essays.  And the third would poke and prod at my thoughts and opinions in an attempt to ignite the embers he saw. He heard the good, bad and ugly of my twenties and still he continues to be a dear friend whom I admire and look up to as one would an older brother. The three of them gave a timid country girl enough faith in herself to get through the next decade.

These men have taught me how to walk with my head up and shoulders squared. That it is acceptable to be proud of the woman I have become; afterall it was their investment of love and time that helped me to become this person.  I want to make them proud. My daughter is fortunate to have several hands guiding her. Her father is a good and strong man. Her grandfathers are an endless source of lessons and wisdom. Her uncles will praise and protect her. There will be more to show her what life can offer including the friends we have chosen and the ones she will chose. The men of her life will keep her in line; their hearts will break when she leans on their shoulders for a cry, they will teach her how to be a good and strong woman.

Winter’s Night

I learned to love winter in my parent’s home. Shadows of the trees swaying on the sparkling dance floor of the front lawn or the mournful song of a nor  ‘easter blowing by the corners of the house were sources of comfort in an uncomfortable season. And of all of the seasons to experience on this side of the country, it would only seem natural to hate it. The winters are harsh and cabin fever lurks in the long hours of night.

It was the time my father was home more often because ninety centimeters of snow covered the gravel pit in which he toiled  twelve hours a day throughout the rest of the year. Winter was the time I remembered the versatility of ground beef; hamburger gravy, hamburger stew, macaroni with stewed tomatoes. It was a time of resourcefulness, the abundance of late summer gardens long forgotten. It was often an anxious time.

But I love winter.

It was in these dark, cold and uncertain months that I developed true respect for my parents. In a little house tucked among the trees of Turtle Creek my father would wake in the middle of the night to stoke the fire, the wood burning smell embedded in the walls. We made snow candy from a simple brown sugar syrup that never boiled fast enough for my liking. It was a competition between my sister and I for the biggest piece dribbled onto the snow packed into a cookie tray. Meals of few ingredients taught me lessons of simplicity and Dad’s incessant singing of the “Po’ Folk Song” a not so subtle reminder that there was more to life. For in those anxious months, the table was most definitely “set with love.”

Please don’t get me wrong, I was not a terribly insightful child or teen. As with most sentiments, especially respect, it is developed with the grace of time for reflection. As an adult I have more ability to appreciate their situation as worries that once belonged exclusively to them have become my adult inheritance.

In their quiet actions I now realize I learned many lessons that I fear I may not be able to pass on to my own children. They never told me to forgive; they showed me in their own relationship the healing ability of such a gift.  The result of which is a mind empty of rotting grudges, with space enough for new thoughts, dreams and possibilities to be cultivated.

They taught me of love in all it’s many forms without realizing they’d done it. They showed me how to keep my heart open and that it was their job to protect it. To watch over me and make sure that I could recover from any mistakes I may have made.  My sister and I have experienced hard winters where a combination of finances, broken hearts and school has taken their toll on our spirits. Our father has told us simply to hunker down with them and that he’d keep the fire going.

Courtesy of Yorke Photography

Rustic Dan

I have already expressed my love of  kitchen/dining room tables. So this spring when my husband and I purchased our first home, I started hunting for the perfect table; one that could potentially fit as much of his large family or mine when they come to visit (please note family I said when).  It was in my search for this crucial piece of furniture that I discovered Dan Fairbairn – Rustic Dan.

Dan Fairbairn

On a warm July morning, I dragged my husband out of bed for a 45 minute drive into Brant County Ontario. It was the first time I had contacted a complete stranger and asked plain and simple “can I come meet you? I think what you do is really cool.”  Charmian was someone I had met some time ago, and knew how wonderful she would be about my crazy idea of wanting to meet people who did such fabulous things. I knew about Gary and his Plain Folk Furniture, because well he’s my dad and he wasn’t allowed to say no to me writing about him. So while trolling Kijiji for a large kitchen table in the hopes of finding a reclaimed wood harvest table, I found Dan’s ad for custom made cedar log furniture.  I was excited but doubtful. Doubtful because “custom made” usually includes hefty price tag and “reclaimed” in today’s design world means “ridiculously expensive for something that was rotting in a farmer’s field.”

I had emailed Dan with what I was looking for, a nine foot dining room table that could seat ten people. He got back to me right away and had no hesitation about creating such a piece and one that I could afford.  Despite my nerves, it was no surprise to me when I arrived at Dan’s home that I received a welcome that was as warm as the morning. He was sitting on his back porch and had his portfolio open and ready for me to flip through. There were well over a hundred and fifty pieces, ranging from night stands to kitchen hutches. I had learned from his website that he had taken a leap of faith in himself and had quit his job to build his furniture full time. From his portfolio I thought he had been doing it for at least a couple of years, but it turns out he’d only been doing it full time since January of this year.

I am always impressed by people who take the kind of chance that Dan has, to follow a dream and push doubt aside. What impressed me even further is how supportive his wife Renee is. She beamed as I went through the photos and admitted to having a hard time letting most of the pieces go. She told me of the bed Dan had created for their home and she could not wait for it to be finished before taking it in the house to see how it looked. She loved it so much that it still sits in their room unfinished.

Raw materials being prepared for a new life.

To construct his pieces Dan uses reclaimed telephone poles and ginseng poles used to hold tarps over the fields as the plant grows. When Dan receives his materials they are weathered and grey. He showed me around his shop, a short commute to the backyard each day, and demonstrated how he brings the wood back to life. He strips them down to the raw golden coloured wood with a draw knife as the log is held in place by a vice. It’s a labour intensive procedure as he strips the wood, sands it and then protects it. Dan custom builds his pieces based on the requests of his customers. He sets out a small design on paper but mainly works free hand as he builds. I asked him who taught him how to work with wood in this manner and I was stunned when he told me he taught himself.

Unfortunately Dan had delivered all his recently constructed pieces the day before I arrived so I was unable to see any of his work until my table was ready. However, I was fortunate because in his shop were a couple of pieces his thirteen year old daughter had been working on. While Dan has taught himself, he is sharing his gift and talent with her.  He has also been taking instructions from his three year old on possible improvements to the aesthetics of his furniture. Dan came into the house one day to find him, hammer in hand, banging on the coffee table in the living room (one of the first pieces Dan had made). While this would send most parents crawling up the walls, Dan took the coffee table out to the shop and continued to distress the wood by beating it with a length of chain link.

A stool being created by Dan's daughter Rachel. When you check out his website be sure to have a look at the comments on the homepage, Rachel leaves a great one for him.

The coffee table that had design help.

Furniture should contain traces of lives lived, stories in the tattered couch and the gouge in the table. Dan made a piece for me that will let me fret less about it’s surface and more about what is served on it and the conversations to be had around it. It was the first piece of furniture, and as far as I am concerned original art, to land in our home. We were fortunate this Thanksgiving to able to have my husband’s family sit around it among our unpacked boxes and bare walls.  A couple of weekends ago  a feast of hot dogs and fries was passed around this table as we hosted a sleepover for eight of our nephews and nieces. Thank you Dan for creating a gorgeous piece of work for us to build memories around.

Our gorgeous table

All decked out for eight awesome guests!

Tick…

Time is my greatest champion and ultimate nemesis. It is a constant that dictates the pace of my life. On occasion I try to ignore time, bury my head in the sand like an ostrich or a small child who covers their face and believes the world can no longer see them. Time always finds me though, it ticks away waiting for me to understand that I must change as it will not. I often reprimand myself for being so flippant with time, undervaluing my relationship with it.

I am impatient for time, while time is comprised of nothing more than patience. Broken hearts loath the ticking of the clock; they know the only cure for loves’ cruel sting is time and it can not pass quickly enough. I know this feeling, but I also know what time brings. For me it brought  more knowledge of who I was, and what I needed in a partner. When I found him, I knew.

I knew that he was my match and my equal; that he would not place me on a pedestal and I would not do the same to him. I knew that in him I would have not only love, but a hand to hold during dark days and a companion with whom to celebrate the rainbow filled ones.  I knew that I would fight with him, but it would not mean the end. I knew it would mean more understanding between us both for each others needs. I was comforted because I was given the time to know.

When I married him, my sister asked, “how did you know?” I said, “I just did.” My husband asked, “did she punch you in the mouth?” He was right, she should have. It’s a completely unsatisfactory answer. I wondered how I did know. I came up with a completely unromantic but fitting answer. I am a woman to owns a pair of voluptuous hips and a smaller waist. The search for the perfect pair of jeans, has been a struggle my whole life.  I have found the perfect pair though, they are comfortable, hug my thighs and do not gap near my buttocks. They cover and flatter me. Finding Paul, was finding that perfect fit, it worked in every manner and I couldn’t wait to get home to him.

The day we made our promises, I told him I had one wish for our life together, it was simple and the words belonged to author Anne Roiphe. When asked what made her feel beautiful in an interview, she answered, “It was mid-December 2005. I don’t know why he said it. I don’t know if it was just coincidence or intuition that prompted him, but about a week before my seemingly healthy 82 year old husband suddenly died, he emerged from the kitchen ready to go to his office, his face clean shaven, his eyes shining, smiling shyly, holding the copy of the Anthony Trollope book he was re-reading and said to me, ‘You have made me very happy. You know that you have made me a very happy man.’ There I stood in my work outfit, blue jeans and a t-shirt. There I stood with my white hair and my wrinkles and the face I was born with, although now much creased by time, and I felt beautiful.”

I wish for this kind of happiness, contentment and time together. Time knew better than I did when I was ready for what the future had in store. It was not my place to know. Although I’ve often contemplated about paying someone to give me clues. My husband has no desire for a small peek at the future. He says if someone had shown him ten years ago the day we found out I was pregnant, he’d have wondered where his life went wrong. At the time we lived in a one bedroom apartment, I was only three months into a permanent job, we had a ten year old two door car, and ten cents in the bank. A small peek at the future, in his somewhat wise opinion, does not give enough. The larger context was that our money was in a savings account for a house down payment, a new car, my job was more than secure, and we had agreed we would try for a baby.

Now, with impatience and worry of the unknown,  we wait for time.  Just as we waited for time to bring us each other, we wait for time to bring us this person.

The First of New Beginnings

Road to New Beginnings

He had on nothing but a towel. His hair was a shade of blond unknown to adults, and the waves in his hair demanded a hand be run through them. His eyes were a piercing blue and focused on something I could not see. His skin was still visibly warm from exercise, soon to be remedied by the soap he was carrying in his right hand. He lived in the room next to mine for the next year, and over a decade later, I cannot recall his name.

I was eighteen as I walked passed him in the second floor hallway of Joy Kidd residence; a newly minted adult, striking out on my own for the first time.  My covetous look at this vision lingered a bit too long as my sister ran into my back spilling the contents of the hip-huger laundry basket she carried.  For the next hour she and my mother helped me pull all of my most valued possessions from the trunk and back seat of the family Oldsmobile. They piled my things to one side of the seemingly small dorm room.

I was anxious for them to leave. I was ready to shed my high school self and did not want witnesses to mock this attempted change.  When they were gone, I sat on the unmade bed and cried. I consoled myself by sorting through all the new possessions that would help me create this person.  A terrycloth robe, shower flip-flops, a set of luggage, and the new clothes contained within; a new being ready to slip into them all. I had cut and dyed my hair, a drastic change from the meek and mousy girl that left Turtle Creek.

Just as my confidence was building, a six and a half foot tall Bermudian popped his head through my open door. What surprised me the most was his red hair and milky freckled skin.  He sported a t-shirt and long shorts, accompanied by a bright smile that immediately put me at ease. His name was Anthony and he lived across the hall. It was also his first year and he was making his way around the house getting to know everyone. In seconds, another head adorned in a ball cap poked through the gap between Anthony’s shoulder and the door. Dallas was from Sussex, half way between my old home and new.

These two faces were to be familiar ones in my room for the next eight months. It is not until this moment that I understand they were there to get a look at the new girl on the floor, to assess and judge her.  And it has been years I have regretted the drifting of these friendships in the semesters that followed. While I was able to shed the hair and old clothes, the shyness that plagued me at fifteen remained my silent torturer. Fear of the wrong thing to be said, or to not be approved of was the reason behind the silent girl who read her Psych textbook with unnecessary diligence.  I would not find the person I sought to become for many years, and by then, I needed to be someone else.