Reverb10 – At the Right Time, in the Right Place

Posted on 12/1/2010 by cheesefairy

I was a bit lost today. A bit? I was lost today. I have had a bad couple of weeks of exhaustion, sickness, very short fuses. I haven’t felt like writing so it’s been OK that I haven’t been writing. Today, December 1st, felt new and sparkly like fresh snow under moonlight. It felt like a good time to write something. Oh yes. Here I go.

I sat down to write a blog post and three different posts came out and none of them was really what I wanted to read. Not in an edgy, fascinating way either. In a negative, unpleasant way. Like the third sentence in my first paragraph, dragged out to 1200 words. Ugly. Not worthy of the reflection of a sparkly, fresh snowfall.

Later, perusing some blog links from twitter, I came across a post by Schmutzie. Fabulous, always meaty delicious Schmutzie. She said she was participating in something called Reverb10, where you sign up to create – blog post, art, photo – something every day in December. And I quote:

Reverb 10 is an annual event and online initiative to reflect on your year and manifest what’s next. The end of the year is an opportunity to reflect on what’s happened, and to send out reverberations for the year ahead. With Reverb 10, we’ll do both.

And there are prompts. Oh thank you, sweet heavenly juice boxes, for prompts.

It was a very fortuitous encounter. I went promptly (haha!) to the Reverb10 website and signed up. You can too, if you want. Anyone can. What a wonderful world.

December 1 – One Word.
Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

2010 – Nourishment

I have been hunkered down, feeding myself and my family, this year. I reacquainted myself with exercise – albeit irregularly – and I joined a writers group in January to feed my fiction bear. I have become more aware of how my gaze and attention – or lack of – feeds my children. I have made great strides toward understanding what I need to be the kind of parent I want to be and how to keep the joints of my marriage supple and oiled. There have been great rises and great falls in personal energy and I am closer to understanding what emotional food I need to keep myself balanced. Finding and cooking and consuming that emotional food is a different story, but at least I know what to put on my emotional shopping list.

Enough with the food metaphor!

2011 – Unafraid

I want to commit to things. Stop being half-assed. Take credit and responsibility. Accept the whips or rewards. Be authentic, and ridiculous, and a failure. Let it sting. Wipe it clean. Smile.

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One Month Till Christmas!

Posted on 11/25/2010 by cheesefairy

I know. You don’t want to hear that. Ordinarily I wouldn’t say it. But it is snowing buckets out there today, which makes things feel very Wintery. There is also the inescapable fact that the date is November 25th.

And so, here is Trombone, performing a holiday classic, on the stage at nearby Queen’s Park. While marching, in the snow.

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Notes From Mother’s Journal: Let’s All Learn to Walk on Our Hands Edition

Posted on 11/24/2010 by cheesefairy

I have important information to share about how to space your children. Well, not *your* children. I don’t know what’s best for you. I only mean, child spacing in general. If you are one of those people who sits around and makes pros and con lists about how many years apart you would like your children to be. People do, you know. I am not making that up.

For example, I always wanted two children, about three years apart. Apparently “wanting” and “using appropriate preventative measures” are two different things. Now you know.

Anyway.

Important Note on Child Spacing: If you space your children too close together, you might not get to hand down the clothes. Especially shoes. If your kids are four or five years apart? You will definitely be able to use the same pair of snow boots twice. Not rain boots, necessarily, since they seem to spring a lot of leaks and at about 3 years of age, a child *might* just run so much he gets holes in his rain boots, (I know!) rendering them quite useless. But snow boots, especially on the west coast, where we get three inches of surprise! snow every year, to everyone’s shock!, will not get worn out. They are pass-downable.

Except that my children, my dastardly, food-eating, growing children, are two years and three shoe sizes apart. Trombone’s snow boots from last year are too big for Fresco this year and will be too small for him next year. This makes it even more everlovingly painful to find for purchase only snow boots that cost fifty motherfucking dollars a pair.

Fifty dollars for three months’ use? That is bad math. I do not enjoy that math.

We buy used when we can, of course. I lucked into a pair of size 9s for Fresco at Value Village for only $3.50.

Overheard at Value Village, a man and woman looking for boots for their son:
Man holds up pair of rubber boots: These look good
Woman: No. Those look like construction worker boots.
Man: But they’ll keep his feet dry. They don’t need to look good.
Woman: I don’t want our son to look like a construction worker.

But there were none in Trombone’s size so I hit the mall. Where I could only find boots that cost upwards of $30.

I specifically did not go to WalMart. I wanted to see if I could find what I wanted at Not WalMart. Answer: no!

On Monday, with no preschool due to professional development for teachers, I took the children to WalMart. WalMart had “Star Wars” snow boots for $40. They had “Sorel” brand snowboots for $60. But they also had “Black” snow boots for $18. Thank you. That is what I wanted. We are not wearing these boots to the Arctic. We are going to the schoolyard across the street to play Ball of Ice Soccer.

After we picked out the boots, we spent an hour in the toy department, where the children went mad with joy over all the things that go beep, whirr and lalala while I stood idly by, marveling at the newborn baby doll that was bigger than Fresco and only $7.

Dear Santa, in case you are reading, Trombone would really like the Iron Man Walking Remote Control Beeping Action Figure that says “I AM IRON MAN” and sadly, does not sing “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath but it doesn’t really matter because I sing it in my head almost 18 hours a day as it is.

Fresco would like whatever Trombone is having.

You are under no obligation to bring these items, as we will be regaling them with many educational puzzles made of free trade bamboo.

But – one lucky local boy is getting the SUPER MACH 30 RELOADING MAGAZINE NERF BLASTER ASSAULT RIFLE – I know because his mother hemmed and hawed over it with her friends. All of whom had seen the toy discussed on Regis And Kelly. Toy isles near Christmas: very frightening places.

The other thing I bought at WalMart was socks. For me. Yes, Mama treated herself to a 2-pack of socks for $4. I know, I know, I’ve gone wild. And if I was blogging more regularly, you’d know that I just bought three pairs of socks less than a month ago. It’s almost like I’ve lost my MIND.

I have these feet, they are actually classified as hooves, I guess, and they kill socks. Specifically, they tear through the heels of socks faster than I can tear through a loaf of fresh sourdough bread. I thought it was my rubber boots wrecking the heels of my socks but having not worn my rubber boots much this Fall, I am guessing it is actually my coral-grade heels that are doing it.

My only pair of socks without holes is the pair Saint Aardvark’s mom made me two years ago and they are some kind of miracle so I only wear them to bed for fear I will kill them too.

So Monday morning, while Trombone and Fresco checked out the Toy Story 3 Celebratory Learning Toilet
(I am only half making that up)
(It cheers when you flush)
(Cost: $39.99)
(for something you *might* put excrement in)

I fingered through different pairs of socks, ranging in price from $2 – $20 a pair and suddenly thought, fine, fuck it, I will buy $2 socks. Why pay more for socks if you are only going to wear them for ten minutes? (I know, I should do sock commercials, right?) I chose a
2-pack of very fuzzy socks and put them on when I got home. How delightful they were, how warm and how hole-free. “Like bunnies,” said Fresco, petting my feet.

Then, when I came down from putting the children down for their “naps,” I flicked off the light switch and got…an electric shock. What? I looked down at my feet on the carpet. I shuffled them and hit the switch again. MOTHERFUCKER. Polyester spandex blend on carpet in dry weather plus Magical Electric Personality means my socks give me shocks. Is nothing sacred?

Next step: learn to darn. Or: get my dad to reinforce my socks with stainless steel.

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There is This Tree, Again

Posted on 11/22/2010 by cheesefairy

I am trying to love the magnolia tree outside my living room window. After all, I have been staring at it for four and a half years now and it’s a tree, right? It’s a living thing. Why hate a living thing? The word “magnolia” is so beautiful. The movie, Magnolia, it was a great movie. But I really can’t see the point of it. The tree I mean.

For one or two weeks a year, it flowers. Big, droopy, decadent flowers. I hear there’s a scent but I haven’t noticed.

Then the flower petals die and drop and it’s just green and leafy until October when the leaves start to turn brown.

Oh but first, in September, it bears this really freaky red fruit. Then the fruit drops all over the place and makes a huge mess.

I was thinking maybe I am uncomfortable with this circle of life pressing up against my window. The reminder that we all will wither and die. That decay is unpleasant. That the bearing of fruit is messy. Do I hate it because it is reminding me that it will bloom again but when I die, I will be gone forever?

Let me go back to the fruit it bears. They are berries, the size of a giant blackberry but the colour of tomato soup. Their skins are bumpy and prickly. The innards are yellowish-brown and texturally very like the inside of a fig, which I also think are disgusting, albeit tasty. A lot of the houses in our townhouse complex have magnolia trees outside them, so walking around during September can get kind of messy. The berries squish easily. Last year I had to convince Fresco not to eat them, this year he was scared of them. “Don’t make me walk on the squishy berries!”

Aside from the regular berries, some of the trees produce super-sized fruit. One of the bigger trees produced a fruit last year that was the size of my hand. It was red and prickly and so, so disturbing, in a sort of “is it more phallic or more tumour-like? Who cares; neither of those things is what I want to see on a tree!” sort of way.

Anyway, after the berries drop, the leaves (all one million of them – the trees are very leafy) turn brown and then they sit there. Being brown. Good morning, there is brown. Oh Hi, this is The Colour of Death at your window. And then, sometime in November, there is a wind storm and then some rain and the tree bends and bows and I think “This is the year it breaks!” but it doesn’t break. It is very flexible. The wind blows some of the leaves down and then there is some snow and frost and that takes care of some more leaves and eventually, by December, I am only looking at bare branches and, through them, the forest of evergreens that divides us from the busy road beyond.

Even as the last of the brown leaves are dropping, the buds for next year’s flowers are already visible. Fuzzy nubs point up at the cold sky. I see one strange fruit, either last year’s or next year’s, blushing red now that there are no more leaves around it.

It doesn’t take any crap, this tree. That’s for sure. And it’s always busy.

Perhaps this is the year I grudgingly admire its qualities and by next year I will be ready to give it a hug that doesn’t involve kitchen scissors.

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Oh Naptime, We Hardly Knew Ye

Posted on 11/17/2010 by cheesefairy

Once upon a time, there was me.

I liked to read novels and stories and poems. I dreamed of writing my own book someday. I dreamed big (Canadian style): of winning a literary award and getting thousands of dollars to sit at a desk and write. Not because I wanted thousands of dollars or the things you can buy with thousands of dollars, but because I wanted to not have to work for $8/hr 40 hours a week to pay the rent and write during the cracks of time that were left over.

I worked a lot of different jobs and paid my rent and wrote during the cracks of time that were left over. Those cracks of time got smaller. The jobs got bigger and took up more space. Writing got pushed out.

In retrospect, I know I was wasting time. I wasted hours, days, weeks. It was ridiculous. It’s like thinking about how much water goes down the drain when you leave the tap on while you brush your teeth. You turn the tap off. Suddenly you get feral around people who leave the tap on. What was I thinking, leaving the tap on for 5 years!

I guess I thought someday my dreams would “come true.” I didn’t, for whatever reason, understand that dreams come true if you work *at them*, not at something else. Dreams come true because the people who dream them are concurrently learning and practicing and failing and getting up and doing it again, whatever the thing is they’re dreaming about. Dreams come true if you don’t waste your time lollygagging.

I had a kid and suddenly my dreamy dreams were a blurry background and in the foreground was a very sharp KID, saying, Oh hi. I am the important thing. Everything was about the KID and working around the KID. And it is easier to work around something that is tangible, I discovered. A physical roadblock is easier to hurdle than a mental one.

Then I had another kid. Because I like challenges. I have done the most writing of my life – except for the very prolific poetry years of 1992-94 – since having Fresco. It helps that I joined the writers group and I have to give them things to read. I write on weekends. I write at the expense of this blog, which is also writing but a different, more comfortable kind. And I write at naptime, because mornings are too early and evenings are the only time I get to talk to Saint Aardvark. (And also we go to bed and get up ridiculously early.)

Naptime is it. At least 45 minutes a day, at most 90 minutes. To write, clean the kitchen, get supper started, eat contraband chocolate, drink tea while it is hot, make phone calls. I do a lot at naptime. I do everything that is not child-related at naptime. I am in a naptime groove. I can actually see the end of a tunnel and how many naptimes it will take me to get there.

A while back, Trombone started giving up his afternoon nap. And that was – not fine exactly, but OK. Because Fresco was a baby. And he napped a lot. Or not; I don’t really remember. And if I got them to nap at the same time, the heavens opened and angels sang and I immediately did fifteen things I had been waiting two weeks to do.

Eventually, over months, Trombone learned how to have Quiet Time in his room. Part maturity, part ability to self-amuse, part bribery (you don’t get any treats after naptime unless you keep your door shut) and we are at a place where he happily goes and does his thing for an hour or so.

At the same time, Fresco, in his own room, has an afternoon nap. A much-needed afternoon nap. Without the afternoon nap, Fresco is a wreck by 4:30 pm.

THESE ARE THE RULES.

Lately he has started eschewing his naps. Every few days. The same way Trombone did except that Fresco doesn’t “do” Quiet Time. Partly because he is young, partly because he is, by birth, EXTREMELY NOISY and partly because he is still in a crib.

If I put toys in the crib, he throws them out. If I take him out of the crib, he will leave his room and then, the game is AFOOT. By which I mean he will get himself arrested for smoking pot in the school parking lot across the street.

If I put him in Trombone’s room, then it will no longer be Quiet Time, but Wrestling Star Wars Action Hero Buzz Lightyear Freakout Time. So what? What do people do?

Do you all just suck it up and work a 14 hour day with no breaks? Because that is not cool.

Are you all also currently wearing earplugs while your toddlers sing “You Got A Friend in Me” at 4 billion decibels? Because I can’t do this every day.

And is it too late to say, “I’m sorry I wasted 5 years of my life dreaming and wishing and hoping when I could have been working, can I please have those 5 years back in hour-long increments, I promise I will use them well?”

And if it’s not too late, who do I send the letter to?

Yeah, I kind of thought so.

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