Misunderstandings, If You Will

Discrimination is shocking.  Like a slap to the face.  And I’ve only experienced it second hand.  Or maybe discrimination is too harsh a word.  Maybe ‘misunderstanding’ is the label I’m searching for in this context, but I don’t think so.

When it comes to my daughter Elyse, I have an overflowing jar of ‘meaning-wells’ on my shelf but somehow the more I receive, the less ‘well-meanings’ I seem to have.  With the sheer volume of superfluous good intentions, the point is lost, losing its effect, because good intentions and ‘meaning-wells’ mean nothing when you’re drowning in them and when what you actually need is someone to listen, take you seriously.  We are at risk of drowning in the well-meanings of others and losing Elyse at sea without careful vigilance.

How hard it is for parents who don’t have a child with Down syndrome to see, for anyone really outside of individuals with Down syndrome themselves and their family members to understand how people with Down syndrome are discriminated against on the basis of their diagnosis.  Let me share a story to illustrate what I mean.

Around the time Elyse turned three, was learning to walk, and we took the girls to Disney Land, Elyse learned the letters of the alphabet. Her speech was delayed, but she made sounds and enthusiastically yammered on, mostly nonsensically.  Yet, she could say her letters.

The year she turned three she attended an exceptional Montessori preschool that fostered life skills as well as academic pursuits.  The school focused specifically on letters and letter sounds.  Simultaneously, at home, from the time Elyse was in the womb, we have read to her.  In the NICU at the hospital, recovering from surgery as a newborn, she was read to.  The nurses too, would lean in for story time.  Sound has a way of curling around our insides like touch, and we aimed to heal our daughter’s wounds with our words.  Books, comprised of letters and their sounds, were Elyse’s salve.

At three, we allowed Elyse to use the sesame street app that teaches letters on an Ipad, which she was intensely interested in.

One day, when grandma and grandad were over, it was grandma who pointed out to me that she thought Elyse was labelling her letters.  I had an art easel out with letters printed on it, probably something I was doing to help Ariel, our eldest, who had yet to master the alphabet, for lack of interest.  “B, D, T” Elyse said clearly, pointing to each letter correctly, one at a time, though she could barely speak.  I was in shock!  Elyse, eighteen months younger, learned to label the letters of the alphabet before Ariel did.  Keep in mind, Ariel, her older sister, is bright and inquisitive and receives excellent grades in school.

Fast forward now to Junior Kindergarten.  Elyse is still three years old because her birthday is later in the year and she isn’t toilet-trained.  I know how she looks to the outside observer with her pull-ups and small stature.  Infantile comes to mind.  But there is so much going on, so much, that is not readily apparent because of her language delays.  Then add in the fact that we send her to French school.  Now she has to learn all of the letters again, in French.  Admittedly, this takes her a while, but by the end of JK, she’s mostly there and into SK, surely, she has solidified this knowledge she first latched onto so young.

Roll into grade one.  Learning her letters shows up on her Individual Education Plan (IEP) as an expectation.  I am adamant this be removed.  Should Elyse choose not to demonstrate this knowledge, it’s because she is bored of it, not because she doesn’t know it.  Her school is phenomenal.  They listen to my concerns and we work together to get the expectations for Elyse’s learning where they need to be.  Expectations are raised higher up, where they need to go.  Once changed, the expectations remain realistic.

Enter grade two, the grade she is currently in.  Letters are no longer on the school agenda, THANK GOD, but sounds are up there, as they should be.  As you might have predicted (or maybe not?), Elyse is obsessed with books.  She looks at books all day long in her spare time and we offer her an abundance in French and English.  She has an intense interest in examining each page, but she isn’t quite able to decipher those words yet.  She will likely learn to read holistically by decoding whole words by their shape, rather than how most kids are taught, which is using a phonetic approach, i.e. by sounding words out.  Of course, there is great value in Elyse learning her sounds and the plan is that she will come to reading by blending the two strategies (holistic and phonetic).  She can read certain repetitive short texts already, small sight words, it’s a matter of building on what she knows and where she is at.  The same as for any child.

If we were really to take genetics into account when it comes to Elyse learning her letters, then we should probably look to her parents.  I am a writer and I am a teacher who taught grade one students a second language and then taught those same students to read in that language.  Now I help adult writers with their words.  I read no less than one hundred books a year, and you can damn well bet that my kids are going to experience literacy to the fullest.  In addition to a litany of scientific papers, my husband has one book to his name, in the form of a PhD thesis.  Our kids have two devoted parents, actively involved in their children’s lives.  And don’t get me started on their incredible grandparents.

Would you doubt our children would learn their letters?

But there are unfair barriers to Elyse’s success.  Every new year is like a new beginning of convincing others of what Elyse can do.  We recently started a special reading program, and the therapist outlined goals.

On the third week of Elyse’s sessions, I arrive to find an alphabet chart out.

“What are you doing with that?” I ask cautiously.

“We’re working on her letters!”  Oh no, you’re not.

I quickly, calmly, explain Elyse is way past that.

The therapist then hands me a paper with four attainable learning goals for Elyse laid out.  These are the goals Elyse will be working on for the duration of the program.  The second goal reads, ‘To recognize ten letters.’

“No, absolutely not, not this one,” I point out immediately.

“You’re a woman who knows what she wants!” the therapist replies.

No, I’m a woman who knows what her daughter needs.

This therapist means well, I know they do, and Elyse loves them and I believe that they care and that they are good at their job.  I am so grateful for the work they do because our family benefits from the support.  But THANK goodness they were consulting me, and open to my suggestions/demands.  Elyse will not be subjected to ‘learning’ her letters again.

The feeling I’m left with from the experience (and this is not the first nor will it be the last time) is that learning outcomes, in many contexts, are too often being made based on assumptions, prejudices, discrimination – misunderstandings, if you will.  She has Down syndrome; she is Down syndrome, therefore she will only be able to do X, Y, and Z.  No, no, NO!!!  These folks mean well, but NO!  I share this story not to shame; the problem is a societal issue.

It’s time to raise the bar.  To assume competence, capability and intelligence.  Elyse’s preschool teacher, a woman I know who really saw her, used to say to me all the time, “She’s a smart cookie!”  And you know, she’s my kid, but I don’t care, I’ll say it anyway, she IS a smart cookie, and she deserves to be treated as such.  She deserves the same respect other students do, the same chances at inquiry, the same push to succeed and grow, all of the best efforts to get her to learn.  She does not deserve to relearn the alphabet.  Every. Single. Year.

In Elyse’s place, wouldn’t you be bored?  And how forgiving of misunderstandings would you be if it was your child?

 

 

Stay Humble

I’ve been at the pool three days a week lately, triathlon training, and I developed this sort of confidence that maybe I was getting to be a pretty good swimmer.  Despite my affinity for water, up until recently, I considered myself a not-so-good swimmer.  I hit the pool regularly for a whole year leading up to the two sprint triathlons I completed last summer, and I still felt as though I was half drowning on race day (partly because I was).  Regardless, I got through the 700-meter swim portion of the race – twice.  But you can’t ‘get through’ a two-kilometer swim, the half ironman distance I’m now training for; or rather, you can, but it’s not advisable.  I want to feel like a mermaid in the water, otherwise I’m not going to be able to ‘get through’ the ninety-kilometer bike ride and half marathon to finish the ironman.

With a coach, I now have so much of a better idea of how to prepare in the water – of course I do!  I used to jump in a lane and swim for distance, completely ignoring technique, interval training, and speed work.  It’s swimming!  I’ve been doing it since I was a kid!  What’s there to know?  As it turns out, a lot.  The mermaid bit, those aren’t my words.  Let me explain.

So I’m hitting the pool about three days a week, as per my coach’s plan, and feeling pretty good about myself.  If you ever want to feel good about yourself, this is how you go about doing it: look the part.  Get properly outfitted, in other words.  I bought myself two snazzy new suits that actually fit me correctly and goggles that were made for my face.  I also snagged a cap that has extra room for hair pulled back in a bun – genius design!  About the suits, bathing suits should fit you like a second skin.  I had no idea.  I was wearing a bathing suit that was about four sizes too big for me before, I kid you not.  The bathing suits I squeeze myself into now feel like they were made for my kids’ dolls, but the kind woman at the swimwear speciality store assures me they are the correct fit.  I can tell you without a doubt that tighter is better when it comes to swimwear, especially after a friend recently shared her swim story with me.  On her first day back to the lane swim in years, she got eyeballed for choosing the ‘medium speed’ lane (there are complicated pool politics) and rudely asked, “are you sure you’re fast enough to swim in this lane?”  As if that wasn’t bad enough, poor woman, determined to prove the bugger wrong (in yesteryears she was a competitive swimmer) she took off down the medium lane, determined to make a good pace.  On the way back, in the middle of her exertions, both of her breasts popped out.  I’m sorry, there is no redemption in this story – my friend hasn’t gone back – but we will honour the incident as a cautionary tale, the moral being to wear a suit that fits snug in the chest.

One of my weekly swim training sessions is part of a Masters swim class.  The beauty of these classes is there is a coach on hand, and we are presented with a set amount of drills.  There’s a camaraderie with the other swimmers and best of all, you usually have a lane to yourself or with only one other person.  At the onset of the Masters swim class I was feeling good about myself because a) I looked the part, with my skin-tight suit and shiny new goggles, and b) I was finding Masters relatively easy, while some of my peers seemed to find it hard.  To give you a sense, the harder workouts my triathlon coach provided including almost an extra kilometer of swim work in the same amount of time as the one-hour Masters class.  On top of that, at Masters we are allowed to wear fins.  If you aren’t familiar with the awesome power of fins let me tell you this: they give you turbo power in the water.  It’s like going from a rowboat to a yacht.  I flew through the first few weeks of Masters swim and didn’t I feel so high and mighty.  Then it happened.

On the third week of Masters swim class we got a new coach.  At the end of class, he suggested the workout he was assigned to give us seemed too easy for some of us and that he would be stepping it up a notch the following week.  I clearly thought he was talking to me.  I approached him when the other swimmers went to get changed and told him I was training for an Ironman and he said he’d help me get there.  Surprisingly, he made no comment about what an outstanding swimmer I was.

Fast forward to the next week.  The new coach gives me a few pointers about my stroke.  I’m not getting it.  I’m not lifting my elbows high enough out of the water, but my arm is going too high.  This is really tricky to try and fix when you’re trying to keep up with a pack of swimmers and the pace of the workout, but I did my best.  I couldn’t help but notice for the first time that whenever we did a drill holding a flutter board and using only our legs, I was generally the first one across by quite a few seconds (yay running legs!), but when we threw arms into the equation, many swimmers were finishing close to the same time as me and some before me.  Some who weren’t wearing fins like I was.

Here it comes.  “Hang back a minute,” the new coach said, as he sent the others on their way.  “I want you to watch her technique over there, do you see how her arms and hands barely skim the surface of the water?  You are lifting your arms up way too high.”  I stood there and I watched, and I learned from someone who was doing the work better than I was.

“I am going to record you so you can see what you’re doing,” new coach told me.

Oh. My. God.  So that’s what I look like?

I was grateful for the new coach’s honesty.  He was so kind about it too, not making me feel bad in the slightest in front of the others.  Clearly, he doesn’t want me to drown in the two-kilometer portion of the race, either.

I walked up to the woman afterwards who was oblivious at having been my good example of how to swim, and I told her in a friendly tone, “he told me to watch you.”  I was pleasantly surprised when she explained that I will know that what I am doing in the water is right because I’ll feel like a mermaid.  I want to feel that way.  I’m working toward that ease and delight.  I told her my frustrations with my arms, and she explained that when she gets tired, she tells herself, “think eleven and one, arms at eleven and one” that is where she aims in front of her.  I found that to be a helpful piece of advice.  I regularly find it helpful to defer and inquire of those who possess more skill than I do.  In other words, it’s beneficial, as a learner, to stay humble.  Keep yourself in check.

After giving a talk about Down syndrome in a school with my friend Emily, where hundreds of kids screamed, clapped and cheered for us, I hit up the pool.  Nearing the completion of the hour-long lane swim, I was one of the only ones still out there, if not the only one.  An older gentleman who has been kind to me in the past sat there watching me, and as I took my ten second break between sets, he called out, “I don’t know how you do it!” which made me laugh.  I felt like ducking my head under the water.  “She’s a wonder woman!” he called out to no one in particular, as I blasted off away from him, propelling myself through the water to the other side of the pool.  On my way back, he called out one last sentiment, “You deserve a gold medal!” And with that, he left, leaving me to figure out the mechanics of my stroke.

Rage & Rising Up

I am debating with myself whether I am really going to go from a post about my dog dying to seething rage.  I’m going to do it.  Angry Adelle says fuck it.

Angry Adelle is a real person, a part of me, though only a select few have met her.  My husband, my children, my parents, my brother, and likely my in-laws have caught the cusp of her.  In her element, at full appearance, she is a beast to behold.

I felt a storm brewing this morning, that old combination of not enough time, too much to do and take care of, too little support.  This may be the war cry of women everywhere.  Angry Adelle’s appearance this morning was in relation to wanting to work and be free of childcare responsibilities in direct contrast with my current reality.  Whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s back up a minute and dissect what I just said.

I want to work.  I want the time and luxury that my husband has in his career to immerse myself in my art, in my passions, in my writing so I can build a career.  I should be clear that I have some of this already; I likely have more of this than a lot of people, but Angry Adelle doesn’t give a fig about other people – emotionally extreme versions of ourselves are selfish like that.  My husband is totally supportive in regard to my building a career as a writer, but truthfully our society isn’t.  People who love me, friends and family, struggle with the idea that I need time to write.  When it comes to what we value as a society, money talks.  If I were a gainfully employed, full-time hours, read: paid creative writer, there would be no question that I should, for example, receive moral support in finding childcare when school is not an option.  That I should not have to squeeze my work day into a six hour frame on the days when I do have support.  But, to become a paid and published author, and more important still, a better writer, imagine that I need to practice.  Daily.  Imagine this required time, which it most certainly does.  Ten thousand hours plus to become an expert, to be exact – where is society’s support then?  The idea of supporting oneself through one’s art alone is ludicrous to the point of being a farce in Canada.  The top one percent of writers will potentially do this, but even their roadway is not paved in gold.  Many award-winning Canadian authors hold down regular paying jobs to support their art, and here’s the catch-22 for the emerging writer: to qualify for any grants or bursaries in Canada, you need to have at least one book published.  My first book took me over three years to write, and I’m still seeking publication with response times from publishers that can be obscenely long, a process that is pushing four years, soon to be five.  That’s a long time to go without a paycheck.

The struggle to become an established writer is real and alike for men and women writers, but there is the added stigma that women should be managing their families and their homes, an added responsibility that takes time away from their writing.  This is what’s grating at me lately.  The obligations of my sex.  Men at large seem to be released from this particular association of women and house.

Now I’m not trying to play the victim.  You’ve made your bed, now lie in it.  I built this life I’m living and I am an active participant in the choices that have gotten me where I am, master of the house and all.  I mean, ladies, could we really leave it up to the men?  Come on.  Yes! Yes we can.  And we should!  I do when I can.  You should!  If you ever want any time to yourself to get some work done.  I love my kids, but there has to be a balance.  Now let’s get into this building a new career and having kids thing.

I am starting anew, and building a career in writing after having three girls.  Let’s dissect having three girls.  First of all, I chose my life with my girls.  I loved being home with them – mostly.  The ability to stay home was a gift for which I can thank my husband’s career.  Not to sell myself short, before there was his career, there was my career that carried us into our first home.  For me to stay on at home with each of our babies, there would not have been another way without my husband’s salary.  He thanks me in return, for the time I have invested in our family.  Eight years have come and gone.  I nursed each of those babies to completion.  I fed them, walked them, watered them.  They grew tall, strong and narrow toward the light.  I have guided them to the best of my abilities and sacrificed myself many times to do so.  And I’m done.  I don’t want to be the one to do all the sacrificing anymore.  And this is where Angry Adelle and the rage comes in.  I think this is a collective rage of women of old, of days gone by.  Felt by women since there was a man to look down on her and keep her in the home.  Felt by the Austens and the Brontes and the Woolfs.  None of these women writers had children though I’d take my freedoms over theirs any day.  Two hundred years ago women needed permission and an escort to leave the hearth.  And there was no time to write and what decent woman would?  Women could write letters, say in their idle time, if they were attending to an ailing father’s bedside, but Writing was a man’s domain.  Sadly the only writing about women from that time is by men.

The rage that bubbled forth inside of me was not directed at my children, for they are innocent; or for my absent husband who’s earning a living for our family.  The rage that boiled forth was a resentment of circumstance; circumstances that make it hard for me to write.  Maybe this post is about not getting in my way, not getting in the way of any female who knows what she wants and is ready to earn it.  Maybe it’s about acknowledging the brunt of the work women have taken on for centuries, millennia even, that goes unpaid and therefore unvalued and unappreciated, or maybe it’s about a writer struggling to find her way and make a living in exchange for creativity.  Do we still care about passion and creativity?  Do we value artists who make art in its various forms as a society?  Do we value the unpaid work of (mostly) women?  I think we can do better.  Maybe this post is about all those things combined, the underlying seething rage, the entrapment of domestic life and the monotony of the daily grind.  Maybe this is a way for me to push back, as a woman and a mother, and say, “hey!  I’m still here.”  Maybe I’m just taking a hard look at myself and not liking everything I see.

But here’s what I do know.  Angry Adelle comes and goes.  She was here before lunch, I fed her well and was joined by good company, a fellow female creative, and regular Adelle, also known as me, Adelle, is back now and in good cheer.  Kinship and companionship have a way of doing that, lightening and elevating the mood.  Fellow creatives unite!  That soothes the soul, too.  So does doing a good deed.

On my way to lunch, working through my snit, a man stood waiting for me as I parked my car.  What did this asshole want? He better not try and mess with me.  Grrr…Angry Adelle.

Turns out he needed a boost for his wife’s car, which he was quick to point out was a bit of a junker and he could hardly squeeze himself into it.  I saw the car right across the street and immediately agreed to help him, texted my friend to say I’d be a few minutes late, and left with a different perspective than the one I came out with.

“You sure have a nice car,” he said, “really good motor too.”  My shiny red van happens to be brand new.  I am not a starving artist.  My husband supports me.  When he called his car a junker, I told him we had a junker, too.  The car my husband drives used to be mine when I bought it fifteen years ago for work.  That car could go and at any moment it might.  My husband makes sacrifices for our family too; I think most modern, forward-thinking men do.  These men are invested in raising their families and raising up their wives.  I’m incredibly fortunate to be married to such a wonderful man.  Also, I know when our car breaks down, we have the financial security to replace it.

With his car hooked up to mine, the gentleman’s car started right away (notice how he’s a gentleman now?  That’s the power of a change in perspective)

“That’s it? I asked.  His needs were simple.

“That’s it, thank you so much!”  and he repaid me with a kind smile.

This man did not look down on me one bit.  Ironic how good helping can feel when it’s not forced or ritual or expected.  When it’s just a person helping a person in need.

My rage subsided; it usually does.  But there’s a history there.  Back to work.

 

Ode to Oreo: Loss, Grief and Down Syndrome

Preface: I wrote this piece for a new blogger friend across the country, Katie Jameson, who will be sharing it as a guest post on her site.  Katie is a photographer who writes beautifully about grief in the context of having lost a child, and I highly recommend you check out her site and work here.

I woke up one day, and for some reason decided that was the day I’d get a dog.  I didn’t grow up with any canine companions, after all, I was allergic, but I’d always wanted a dog.  I was twenty-ish years old with a nineteen-year-old boyfriend and maybe a bit compulsive.  We were second year university students with no business getting a dog together, a commitment that lasts over a dozen years.  We lasted two more months – the boyfriend and I, that is – while my relationship with Oreo lasted a lifetime.

Oreo, a fourteen-pound black and white Shih tzu, was my first baby and taste at real responsibility, though I owe my parents – Oreo’s grandparents – for plenty of babysitting.  Oreo and I saw each other through life’s ups and downs.  If she ran away, I would go find her; if I wanted to run away, she was a good reason to keep me home.  She was more than a furry friend.  Dogs have this way of looking into your soul and seeing who you really are.  Oreo saw me.

She was there when I found out my baby was going to be born with Down syndrome.  We had been through one pregnancy before, as I had one beautiful baby girl already.  I was twenty-eight years old and Down syndrome was an unexpected deviation from my first experience with pregnancy.  My baby’s prenatal diagnosis brought a heavy grief down on my shoulders, the weight of which was all I did not know.  Usually, if I cried, Oreo would ditch the spot next to me if we were sitting on the couch together in favour of a quiet corner of a bed.  Alternatively, she would curl in beside her best friend, Sumo, on a dog bed tucked to the side of our living room.  Sumo was a large black lab that came with my husband, they were a package deal.  Luckily, I had grown out of my allergies.  Did I mention my husband and I met walking our dogs?  While Oreo mostly avoided me when I was sad, there were a few times she stayed by my side, and the time period during which I found out my baby had Down syndrome was one of those times.  I remember Oreo standing her ground and looking deep into my eyes, slightly cocking her head.  Why are you crying?  She let me pet her, self-soothe.  Oreo saw who I was before our daughter Elyse came into my life, and she saw the person I grew into afterwards.  Oreo oversaw my education of what it means to be human and to embrace the human spirit in all its uniqueness.  She watched me grow as a person and become the mother of three lively girls, an advocate and a writer.  On her walks, Oreo held her head high, proud of our little family.

Universally loved and adored by children, Oreo was understanding of the abuses she received from our girls as babies and toddlers.  She never bit them when they grabbed and pulled on her tail or stepped on her or fell on top of her though she sometimes warned them with a sharp turn of her head, like a glaring mother, and would nip at them when they were old enough to know better.  Oreo loved to steal the kids’ food – that, I will never deny.  As my girls grew, they were eager to make Oreo perform tricks for treats.  I shared a similar enthusiasm to work with dogs as a child, and my affinity for animals has never waned.  Elyse, especially, who can show indifference toward many activities, giving way to her two boisterous sisters who are known to take over, never let a dog training session go by without being the trainer.  Even though Elyse was afraid that Oreo would put her paws up onto her chest (and Oreo would, to grab the treat, given the chance) six-year old Elyse never backed down from being included in Oreo’s care. Elyse clutched Oreo’s treat to her chest like she was feeding a lion then threw it wildly to the ground for Oreo to give chase.  This routine never failed to bring a smile to Elyse’s face and mine.  Oreo brought many children great happiness.  She brought me great happiness.

For years, Oreo was a regular staple on our walks to school.  She was somewhat of a celebrity with the neighbourhood kids.  My girls sometimes fought over who would get to hold her leash.  That was a responsibility Elyse seldom relinquished.  She loved walking Oreo and getting to hold that leash was a small taste of power and freedom so seldomly afforded to her.  The only catch about Elyse walking Oreo was that I’d have to keep an extra eye on them both.  While trained on her leash, Oreo would occasionally pull, but more so, when Elyse grew tired of the task, she would simply drop the leash with a casual all done.

For a while, my husband and I got into the bad habit of using our feet as barriers to shoo Oreo away from the kids’ food as our hands were often multi-tasking.  We stopped doing that when Elyse also adopted the habit but actually tried to kick Oreo.  Despite this aggression, and Oreo being a bit hyper and overbearing, and Elyse being a tiny bit frightened of her, Oreo and Elyse were buddies.  You could say they were tight.

 

How do you explain the death of a beloved pet to a child?  Worst still, how do you explain that you are going to be putting an animal to sleep?  Forever.  Time and tenses have never been Elyse’s strength, who I find at seven years old today is very much in the moment.  Elyse shines her light in other ways.

 

I woke up one day, and knew it was time to put Oreo to sleep.

At fourteen years old, Oreo’s health had been rapidly declining.  We left on a six-week family vacation around the world, where she stayed with my parents (thank you, yet again), and when we got back, though Oreo had been well cared for and received much love, there wasn’t much left of her, the dog she had once been.  While she bounced back upon being home in the week or two following our return, she couldn’t find her rhythm or ward off the effects of old age, including incontinency.  She was frequently confused and shivering.  The worst was the sound she made at bedtime as she paced, looking lost, from room to room.  She whimpered and moaned and there was no consoling her.  Oreo’s cries were heart-wrenching.  Of course, we took her to the vet, but there isn’t much they can do for an aging animal, except bring them pain relief through drugs.  We did that, but still, Oreo was in pain.

I woke up and took Oreo for a decent walk on the last full day of her life.  And after that walk, I knew.  When I stopped moving, Oreo paced around me in circles.  All she had done day after day was pace herself until complete and utter exhaustion.  She would collapse into an uneasy sleep for a few hours then begin her pacing again.  She was in pain and I knew it was time to let her go.  She’d had a full life.

I tried my best to prepare the children for what we would do the next day.  I tried to tell Elyse that her buddy would be gone, while also trying to console myself, but Elyse just sat on her bed with her book gripped tightly in both hands, eyes fixed to the page.

I didn’t want to put any pressure on the girls to feel or act a certain way toward death.  I wanted them to come to terms with their own emotions of the experience.  My husband and I decided the girls would come to the veterinary office and have the chance to say goodbye, but then I would stay in the room alone with Oreo while she received the injection to put her to sleep.

The morning of our final goodbye, tears glistened down my cheeks.  My toddler pointed out that mommy was sad, while my eight-year-old noted “that’s because Oreo is going to die today,” but Elyse for her part showed no awareness of what was to come.  She stayed upstairs in her room, reading her books.  That is until we arrived inside the veterinary office.

With the fragile and fraying Oreo in my arms, our family was ushered to a comfortable back room.  While the girls were somewhat hyper in the car ride over, they sensed the magnitude and solemnity of the moment at hand now.

My husband gently reiterated to the girls, now in context, “it’s time to say goodbye to Oreo girls.”  They each took a turn caressing Oreo and stroking her softly, but it was Elyse’s reaction that will forever stand out in my mind because I thought she didn’t understand.

“We’re saying goodbye to Oreo,” Elyse repeated in a whisper.  Then she pat Oreo ever so gently and leaned in for one last hug and kiss.  “Goodbye, Oreo.”  She had compassion and love in her voice.  Elyse had been listening the whole time.  She understood and she directed the full force of her love unto her dog.

In the immediate aftermath of the experience, my youngest had a hard time processing our family’s loss, choosing to view Oreo’s absence as temporary, perhaps – “Oreo is at the vet’s”, while my oldest contemplated the reality, “We put Oreo to sleep and that means she’s dead.”  Elyse seemed to grieve the loss of our pet the most readily.

Two weeks after we put Oreo to sleep, Elyse said, “Oreo is sad.  We had to put Oreo to sleep and say byebye.”  That Oreo was sad clearly made Elyse sad and she remembered that pain.  Grief is never a straight line, is it?  Even when it comes to our pets.  I gave her a hug, and we reminisced about the good ol’ days with Oreo.

One day, I will wake up again, and it will be time for our family to bring home a new dog.  This dog will exasperate us, undoubtedly, as well as bring us great joy and happiness, as Oreo so often did.  I won’t be surprised, if when we do decide to get a dog, Elyse is the one to bring Oreo up.  I know with certainty that Oreo is a dog none of us will soon forget.

R.I.P. Oreo

 

Summer 2005 – Sunday, December 29th, 2019

Love Liberates

I like to tuck tiny words into the pockets of my soul.  You never know when you’re going to need them. 

To writers and non-writers alike, there’s a practice I’ve been doing off and on since the time I could write that has served me well.  When you’re reading, if there’s a line or a poem in a book that speaks to you, jot it down in a journal (include the source).  If I’m lying in bed and too tired to hunt down my journal or a pen, I set a reminder on my phone with the page number and brief description for the next day.  Your journal can be a spiral notebook or whatever you wish.  I’ve come to favour five-sectioned spiral notebooks for their ability to section off writing projects.  They cost a fraction of what fancy notebooks do, have substantially more room, and provide a better writing surface.  Use the words, phrases, song lyrics, lines or poems that you collect as inspiration in life, in your work, and most definitely, in the case of the writer, in what you create.

In reading local author Jeff Sutherland’s memoir Still Life, I came across two beautiful words by Dr. Maya Angelou.  Love Liberates.  Love liberates.  Dr. Sutherland’s memoir relays his story of receiving a diagnosis of ALS (a disease that attacks the motor neurons of voluntary muscles) while in his forties as a flourishing family physician, followed by the subsequent loss of his eldest son in a freak water accident.  When Dr. Sutherland lost his son, he also lost his son’s girlfriend who had become like family.  The young couple had been kayaking in behind the family’s home on a serene, sunny day.  Just months before the accident, his son’s girlfriend had the words ‘love liberates’ tattooed on her arm and so did her mother.  Love liberates.  What did it mean?

Certain lines trigger my writer senses and I knew this was one of them I had to explore further.  A quick google search revealed a video of Dr. Maya Angelou talking about how love liberates, using story as only she can.  You can watch the amazing video here.

Love Liberates

“I am grateful to have been loved and to be loved now and to be able to love because that liberates.  Love liberates.  It doesn’t just hold – that’s ego.  Love liberates.  It doesn’t bind.  Love says, ‘I love you.  I love you if you’re in China.  I love you if you’re across town.  I love you if you’re in Harlem.  I love you.  I would like to be near you.  I’d like to have your arms around me.  I’d like to hear your voice in my ear.  But that’s not possible now, so I love you.  Go.’”

~Dr. Maya Angelou

Dr. Angelou’s poem applies to loved ones who have moved on, as in the case of Dr. Sutherland’s son and his son’s girlfriend, and it applies to those whose love we might take for granted in our daily lives.  Our husbands.  Our wives.  Our parents.  Our children.  Upon hearing her words, I immediately thought of my husband.  I instantly knew what ‘love liberates’ meant.  I remembered how in 2014, when we had two little kids and I told him I wanted to travel to India for ten days on my own for the World Down Syndrome Congress, he said go.  And how when that same Congress came to Scotland four years later, and we now had three babies, and I proposed another ten days away, he said again, to go.

In both cases, he knew he couldn’t be with me, but he sent me anyway.  He would have liked to have his arms around me.  We like to be near each other.  We spent forty-five days travelling the world as a family. We are close. He told me, I love you, go.

Before we had kids, almost fifteen years ago, I wanted to go on a trip abroad with friends.  He supported my leaving, though he would have rather I stuck around so he could hear my voice in his ear.  We had been dating four months.  We talked nonstop during our dog walks those months.  “Go,” he said.  But my exam schedule conflicted with my friends’ travel date, and so, dejected, I resigned myself to staying.  When I told him the news, my husband smiled and pulled me close, “Good, now I get to go with you.”  And he did.  I didn’t know I could do something like that, just plan a trip and up and leave.  We travelled to Cuba, the first of many adventures to come.

I want to write a book, I want to speak in schools, I want to travel the world, I want to go back to school to do my Master’s, I want to train for an Ironman.  “I love you.  Go.” he says every time.  Love does not hold.  Love does not bind.  Love liberates.

And my life is infinitely richer with him – and the words to express what he means to me – in it.  Pull your loved ones close, and when they ask of you to love them, let them go.

New Year’s Intentions: Filling The Box

The date is January 1st, 2020. What could be more promising than that? The start of a new year. A fresh day and calendar, like the first page of a crisp journal says the writer trembling in anticipation. A blank page in front of us. An open space to mould and shape into whatever we will it to be.

I’ve been giving quite a bit of thought to the upcoming year. My youngest will start Kindergarten in September and then I will be officially kid-free. This was our master plan, Dan and I, that he would work to earn an income for our family, and I would leave my career behind and stay home to raise our children until they reached Kindergarten age and went off to school. Check and check. Wave a magic wand and the time has disappeared. Penelope’s infancy and toddlerhood, gone, in a heartbeat. At the blink of an eye. I think I’m prepared for this, but I am not. I’m bracing myself eight months out. Eight years. Eight years of being home with my three children. Three lifetimes. Along the way of being a mother, I became a writer, or rather, I came into myself as a writer. I shed other skins behind. Now, an important task lies ahead of me, that of building a career and filling the box.

Here’s my problem. First of all, my box is already full. I have a healthy portion of life already spread out on my plate, thank you very much. You didn’t think I’d stay home and twiddle my thumbs with my kids, did you? I did my time settling into motherhood. In the beginning, I made a plan to try and get out once a day for a walk and to have a shower and be fed and feed my children. In the beginning, those were lofty goals. Never more than one outing per day. I was exhausted. By the time Penelope, number three, came around the game had changed; I had changed. We jogged and hiked everywhere together; I found time to write a book, my memoir, during her naps, with the support of my husband and, let’s be real here, some paid daycare. I’m into triathlons now, I write mostly for pleasure and keep our family’s schedule and life in balance. I plan our trips and schedule appointments. Sign the kids up for extracurricular activities and get them there. I make sure meals and lunches are organized and made, that we have groceries all with the help of my amazing husband, to be sure. None of these tasks are going to earn me Woman of the Year, but my point being, they take up my time, and if my time is spent doing other things, like say, paid employment, then something’s got to give.

I’m staring into the theoretical empty box for the year ahead and the problem is that I want my life to fit neatly into that box, like picking the right sized container for leftovers. But life doesn’t work that way. I’m building as I go; the box is of an inestimable size. I want the box to be big, but too big for its contents and I’m going to feel inadequate. Too small a box, and my life will fall apart, unsupported. As Shonda Rhimes says in her memoir, Year of Yes, I’m laying track for the story of my life, every day I’m putting down the rails, but time is speeding ahead, and I’m scrambling to cobble together a career and get myself together. I have a vision for the future, a place I want to go, but the specifics are hazy.

If I take on too much, how will that affect my family life, my personal time to exercise that I so covet? But if I don’t take on enough, the risk is much greater, the bitter taste of regret. What could I have done, if only…I never want to utter those words. I’m finally ready to dive headlong into a career in writing, but what that looks like is…laying track. Lots of it. Picking up pieces here and there and paving the way. There is no pre-set ‘Adelle’s writing career, this way’ sign pointing up ahead. Just a whole lot of track to lay and the hard work of building a path worth traveling.

There is the fear of failure. Not only am I hesitant to pick the size of the box when it comes to my career, but I’m afraid to fill it. What if all I need is a tiny box? Can I handle a mediocre life?

Mediocracy is like boredom. The bored are often boring. Mediocracy by definition is the middling, commonplace. Ordinary. Logic dictates that most of us fall into the middle. We average out. As long as that middle place involves book deals, I’m good. Though I find it highly unlikely I will ever be content to sit in one place for long. I’ve grown accustom to a certain insatiability, to biggering the box. I think we should all aspire to bigger our boxes, no matter the parameters. Mediocracy is for the mediocre.

In an unconventional sense, this is the year I push to launch my career as a writer. I started laying track about eight years ago, in earnest; arguably, before that. I’m putting it all out there this year, more blog posts, more pitches and published pieces, reaching to sign and secure that elusive book deal, and beginning my Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. This year, I will write the introductory chapters of my second book – are you ready for it? – I’ve already started. This year, I’m going to pick up the pace of my track-laying, fill that box, take myself to somewhere new, never forgetting to enjoy the scenery along the way and be grateful for the hard work it took to get me there.

Body Talk: The Truth Hurts

I’m seeking courage for the New Year to write my truth. Maybe that is my resolution? Write my truth. This isn’t a ‘one day you have it, one day you don’t’ goal; truth-telling is an incremental improvement type deal. Each time I set out to write, it’s an attempt to grow bolder, be braver with my pen against the page. To go against that voice in my head warning me to shut up. Who is that voice? Where does it come from?

Truth telling is painful for a writer, when the truth you’re telling is your own – but it’s the only way. Readers aren’t interested in reading that which rings false, even if it’s made up, especially if it’s made up. And if what you’re writing is a page from the script of real life, then you had better get it right, get to the emotional truth of the scene, our human-ness, our inter-connectedness and the complexity of our relationships; you had better write that truth to the bone (note for writers: read Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down The Bones) But, pop culture Lizzo says it best, the truth hurts. She ain’t lying. Even the truth, sometimes, can be too much.

I’m reading Roxane Gay’s memoir, Hunger, a history of her body and eating. Women have such complicated neurosis related to their bodies, society expects as much. I grew up being taught to love and respect my body for what it can do, mostly through sports and respectable coaches, but also through a fostered self-awareness of the amazing things my body can do and being surrounded by men who did me no harm. My father is the gentlest man, my mother fierce, thankfully. They provided for me, gave me space, let me make my own decisions, accrue failures, and enabled me to grow healthily into my own body. My brother and I were valued equally.

I learned my body can do things. I can flip high in the air, score a goal. I can run a marathon, hike up a mountain, surf in the ocean. Athleticism is in my genes. I can carry to term and birth babies, then feed them with milk from my own incredible body, so on and so forth. My body is amazing, and I’m not going to let anyone tell me otherwise. As an adult talking to other women, I realize how rare my confidence is, how often women put themselves down, especially their bodies. We fault our bodies for what they are not, and for what they are. Too fat, too thin, too tall, too small, too light, too dark. You are beautiful, each and every one of you, and if you have lost that love and appreciation for your body, I hope you will find it back, love the body you have and treat it well. I don’t always treat my body well. I just stuck a second white Lindor chocolate in my mouth, but I have a soul too, and chocolate nourishes my soul. I also understand there are many reasons why women don’t like their bodies, and why bodies are abused. It’s complicated.

Are there things I don’t like about my body? Yes. But I don’t hear my husband or my brother or brother-in-law, none of the men in my life are sitting down and picking apart their physical flaws as defined by the media, so why should I? Why do this to ourselves, ladies? Let’s stop. You’re seriously beautiful and sexy and funny and smart. Flaunt what you’ve got, or don’t, you be you, shy girl – you do you – and let’s teach our sons and daughters to do the same, and place value on the whole person.

The truth is brave. Roxane Gay is courageous. She wouldn’t want me writing that, she flat out says she’s not an inspiration, or writing to share some miracle story of going from fat to thin, her now standing in one pant leg of her old pants on the front cover of her book. That’s not what happens. But her writing is courageous because she shares her truth. Hers is a story of victimhood and surviving her truth. Her truth is that at twelve years old, a boy she thought was her friend leads her into the woods to an abandoned shack where a group of his friends are waiting. They take turns raping her. I know, this is too much. This truth is too big for any one of us to hold. She put on weight to hide the truth under layers of fat. She put on weight because she believed it would make herself disgusting toward men, to keep herself safe and keep men away. She put on weight because she was ashamed that she had let that happen to herself. That is a truth right there, that we live in a world where women are ashamed for the wrongs of boys and men.

Women are ashamed of their bodies for a litany of reasons. It is complicated.

I’m reeling from Roxane Gay’s memoir, eyeing my own little girls across the room. What would I do if someone hurt them? What wouldn’t I do. We live in a world where a woman’s greatest fear is that of being harmed, of losing her life, while a man’s is that of being ridiculed. As mothers, fathers, men, women, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, how can we make this right? I’ve heard a few good places to start. Complimenting women and girls on more than just their appearance. Keeping your hands to yourself. Watching movies with strong female characters and reading books, such as the Rebel Girls Stories of Extraordinary Women series, that highlight accomplished women of various backgrounds. Paying women equal salaries and supporting both men and women in raising families. We can demand that mainstream media shows a more just representation, a broader slice of humanity, if you will, of women and support businesses that do so. We can support, instead of judging, pitying or AGREEING, with women who put themselves down by listening. What I want most as a woman is what most men take for granted: just to be listened to. Women often feel unheard. We live in a world where seen, but not heard, is still the norm for many women. These women deserve to be heard.

Women need to be told it’s okay to take up space in the world. It’s okay to take up space in the world. It’s also okay to love your body, do something you love, and be a presence. You are a gift to this world.

The truth is throughout my life my body has been a gateway to my greatest pleasure as well as my most devastating pain and I must respect it as such. My body brings me immense joy and the truth is there are men and women who would want to murder me for saying that. For talking about my body like it belonged to me at all, for using this voice my parents paid and I worked hard to educate, for living this life freely and taking up space in the world. The truth is too much, and it’s not enough to sit idly by. Thank god for the Beyonce, Malala, Roxane Gay and Gretas of this world. The truth hurts, but there are so many women, and the men and women who support them, who inspire hope.

Sign Me Up, Coach

I’ve been dabbling with triathlon, training and racing, on and off for a few years now, but today, everything changed.

It’s 4 a.m. and the sky is dark, dark, dark. Penelope awoke in the night and she is cuddled in close to me now; she’s wedged herself firmly between Dan and I and she’s breathing on the back of my neck. Every once and a while she coughs, ferociously, like a dragon is trying to come out. Needless to say, I’m awake.

Being awake isn’t the end of the world; I lie there with my eyes closed as my mind warms up with thoughts of the day ahead. Today’s a big day. I’m starting my new triathlon training schedule, and this time, I have a coach.

I rise at 5 a.m., quietly pack my bags. The game of musical beds that began during our travels continues. I leave Penelope and Oreo, our dog, sprawled out on my bed. Dan has moved to Penelope’s room. I drive through the still morning, not a soul around, make my way to the gym.

My coach uses the program Training Peaks to load my schedule for the week. She is tailoring this schedule for me, so that not one iota of my energy is wasted. I have faith in my coach; she’s an elite athlete, and a mom to three, just like me. The workout for the day is a forty-five-minute cycle divided into intervals of various effort levels, followed by a twenty-minute cardio, core and stretch regime.

It’s 5:30 a.m., no sign of any sun outside, not even one that has ever existed. Inside the gym, I walk into the spin room. Turn on the light. I’m wearing my special cycle shoes, the ones that I my feet clip into methodically, one, two. My legs are pumping, one-two-three, one-two-three, easy, easy. I find my rhythm. I’m listening to an audiobook, The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell by Robert Dugoni, one hell of a book, and keeping an eye on the clock. At a certain point, about thirty-five minutes in, I feel a bead of sweat materialize in the middle of my forearm and slide its way down to my elbow. A simultaneous drop forms along my neck and snakes its way down my chest, dividing my torso in half. Still, when I finish my ride, I know I haven’t exerted myself enough. What does 75% effort on the bike look like versus 80% effort? I’m learning.

I click off my cycle shoes, one, two, and slip back into my reliable runners. Running, I can do. But I’m not running today, I’m hopping. I’m hopping one hundred times, times three, in all directions, and the strange part is, in this gym of people working out, all these weirdos in here at 6 a.m., I don’t feel weird or self-conscious jumping around at all, because I know what I’m doing. I have a coach, and she told me so.

I’m the exact person who should have a coach. I’ve been told I’m very coach-able; I respond well to instruction and especially, ahem, praise. In the context of sports, I like being told what to do. The main thing that stopped me from getting a coach sooner was my own hang ups, the spiteful doubts parading through my brain, sticking out their tongues. You don’t deserve a coach. You aren’t good enough. You haven’t shown you’re committed enough. You don’t make enough money. You aren’t giving enough of yourself to others. You don’t have enough time. Enough, enough, ENOUGH. I’ve had enough of excuses, and so I let myself be myself.

My true self is an athlete. Somewhere deep inside me is a competitive gymnast and she remembers what it’s like to push herself; to improve fitness and learn new skills. She needs a challenge. She is strong and fierce. She beats boys in arm wrestles. She is the person I am, because she formed who I have become. I can’t ignore away my physical ambitions and desire to compete. I don’t want to win, in any race, I just want to make myself proud, the inner gymnast in me proud. I want to stretch the bounds of my limits a little bit more. Earn the sweat dripping from my elbows. I want to fully live as the person I truly am. An athlete.

I had a funny thought, it made me snicker. Athlete mom. I’m an athlete mom! Why does that sound so funny? It isn’t funny! There are tons of moms out there working it, working out and working at this thing called life, and I just want to give a shout out and say, hey. I’m an athlete mom, too. We’re doing it. It isn’t easy to put yourself first for that one hour of the day, but my god, if you don’t, who will? Not your husband. He means well, but it’s probably a struggle for him to get his own shit together. Not your kids; the neediest, attention suckers in the world also known as my sweet darlings whom I love very, very, very much. Not those people, and those are your people. You. You are the only one who can put yourself first.

When I arrive home at 7 a.m., my crew has come to life. My husband did get his own shit together and made time for a run on our treadmill before work while the kids played merrily by his side.* I grabbed myself breakfast on the way home.

I bite into a toasty warm egg sandwich and sip my English Breakfast tea misto. I sit and enjoy myself, taking a moment to jot down a few notes from the essay I read the night before. I shower. By 7:40 a.m., I am making lunches and cleaning up and getting the kids ready for school and I feel nothing but gratefulness and so joyful. Exercise makes you feel good, so good, and so does looking after yourself. The time away for me and the treat breakfast were equally essential to my great morning.

I think this morning was the first morning since we’ve been home from our trip that I didn’t have to lose my shit to get the kids out the door. When it was time to go, Elyse was still sitting at the table eating, saying “no”, poopoo to school. My bucket full, I didn’t bat an eye at her belligerence; I packed the lunches I prepared into their respective bags then helped load Penelope and Ariel and the backpacks into the car. When I came back inside, Elyse had her coat and boats on, ready to go. I kissed the top of her head. We jammed to our favourite tunes in the car and had pleasant chit-chat like this is how every morning goes. I got everyone where they needed to be on time. ON TIME.
Maybe the moral here is that we all need support. We need to take time for ourselves, and we need the support of others to do it. Maybe you need a team of people like I do. A husband, a coach, a teenage babysitter. That’s okay. Maybe exercise isn’t your jam, but if you like to paint, or knit or fly a kite – I don’t know – whatever your jam may be; who can help make that part of you a reality? By putting the supports in place in my life, by asking a coach to help me, I feel better able to help others and care for my children. I feel like a better mom and a happier person. Those two things need not be mutually exclusive. Nobody else could make that decision for me. I had to figure it out and make it happen.

Admittedly, we’re on day one here, folks. But every day counts when you’re training. I have a long road ahead, about six months until my actual race, my first 70.3 Ironman, and I chose this route. This route that suits me. I chose this route and today was the day I realized how happy I am not to be going it alone.

*To be fair, my husband usually has his shit together and coaches and supports me in many aspects of life. Love you babe!

Home: Every End is a New Beginning

We’re back!

Welcome home! Welcome back! Everyone says, not unkindly, though it feels particularly unkind to arrive and immediately get slammed by a snowstorm. It feels like some sort of cruel, sick joke.

There are certain realities of home. Reuniting with people we love and a community that cares about us. That’s nice. No, I mean it. That is nice. I’ve come to appreciate our outer circle even more. I’ve come to appreciate sending my kids to school. Space. Canada has so much wide-open space – one of the first things I noticed our first weekend back when I went out to run errands. O’ Canada! And on that note, running errands in Canada is easy; buying groceries, acquiring food in general is so easy here. After being away, this feels like a small miracle. Everything at home is simple, everything far away is hard. But hard was such an adventure, wasn’t it?

Nearing the end of our trip, I realized what made our travels so great was that I was enjoying myself. I had so much damn fun. It’s hard to come back down off that travel high. I really didn’t want to. I’ve become addicted and I’m in withdrawal. I’m still resistant to the pull of regular life. Everyday life feels a little bit like being dragged downstream by a current. There’s a roaring in my ears. I can fight it and struggle, but I’m going to get pulled down anyway. I keep getting sucked under, banged and scraped against rocks I forgot were there, bounced along the bottom, gasping for air.

“You must be happy to be home!” they say.

“Not really!” I want to snap back, but that’s snarky and sounds really really ungrateful, and I am grateful, I am, infinitely grateful for the incredible six-week round-the-world experience we had. In the span of our lives, six weeks isn’t much, but it’s that we made something of those six weeks, something really special. We made those six weeks unforgettable.

There are other hardships of coming home, besides the weather and withdrawal and having to acclimatize and act like a functioning adult. There’s my pup, Oreo. I think she’s dying. We’re all heading in that direction, but she seems to be knocking at the gates. She was going blind and deaf before we left, nobody contends that, and while before she seemed mildly confused, now she looks lost. You can see it in her eyes.

“How old is Oreo, mommy?” Ariel asks.

“She’s 14.”

“Then how can she have Indonesia?” my concerned eight-year-old wants to know.

I had explained to the girls that Oreo is periodically forgetting things, like where to go to the bathroom, and where she is in the house, and that’s called ‘amnesia’. I asked them to be particularly kind to her, help her maintain her dignity, a task they’ve taken to with heart. Oreo seems to be suffering from dementia. Her lucidity comes and goes, though she’s noticeably perked up after a few days back home.

Oreo’s condition upon our return could mean only one truth: my pup is deteriorating. It’s a sad thing watching your first baby grow old and senile, but it’s as much a fact of life as having to return from vacation. There is a natural order to things.

…

Before we left for our trip, Dan and I sat down together and mapped out the summer months with our tentative plans. I know, I know, this sounds nuts, but we did. Anyway, I tucked that calendar of plans away somewhere to be safely retrieved upon our return. I had faith that calendar would be waiting for me. Except, when we got back, and we cleared our stored belongings out of the basement (we had wonderful renters), then I can’t help but notice my precious calendar has gone missing. It was a few pieces of paper stapled together, where could it have gone? At first, I’m busy, we’re literally moving back into our house. There are groceries to get and laundry to fold, so the missing calendar will have to wait.

A few days goes by, and suddenly it seems imperative that I find the calendar. My past self knew things she needs to impart to my future self, which is my current self, and I have to unlock her secrets. The calendar becomes a map to my destiny, a beacon of hope for the future and the wonderful plans we’ve made. But I can’t find it. Anywhere. Now I’m leafing through piles and files and folders, I’m crouching down to check under shelving. Maybe the calendar came loose and fluttered into some crevice? This is ludicrous. I’m tearing my hair out “where could it be!!??” I text my husband; he was there when I wrote it.

I leaf through my day planner, maybe I stuck the calendar in there, and I stop at the current month of December. Below the month bares an inscription. The words bring me instant calm.

Every end is a new beginning.

I say the words again in my mind, slowly. Every end is a new beginning. Of course I realize the words are a cliché and fairly obvious when applied to the final month of December, but I don’t care. I take them as if they appear just for me. And in response, I feel a real glimmer of hope. Our trip may be over, but that just means there’s room for something else marvellous to begin. Thank you, universe!

Dan texts me back, “Are you sure you didn’t just write the calendar in a notebook?” I thumb through the Hilroy notebook I had on the go before we left, and sure enough, there are my well laid plans for a bright future – except, you know what? They aren’t as great as I remembered them.

We can work on that.

Lovely Lisbon, Perfectly Portugal: Saying Goodbye

You’ll have to believe me when I tell you it’s hard to fathom six and a half weeks has gone by in the blink of an eye. It has. Don’t tell our parents, but I was loathe to return and see our trip come to an end so much so that I pleaded with Dan to extend. Morocco, we would head to Morocco, a place I originally slated into our itinerary, but for lack of time, we had to leave out. Africa! I made my case, then let Dan mull over the pros and cons of asking work for yet another week away, and in the end let’s just say it didn’t work out. I’ll have to live to see Africa another day. I can dream, but I can’t complain.  We had an incredible trip.

I’ve enjoyed travelling so much so in fact that I would have happily continued to do so for a year, maybe more. We met a few awesome families along the way, one of whom were fellow Canadians travelling for a year with their two girls; another group from Oregon travelling for two years with teenage daughters and a son Elyse’s age. I’m reading a book, One Year Off by David Elliott Cohen about a U.S. family with three young kids, ages 2, 7 and 8 who sell their home and make for the globe. When you get a good taste for travel, meet other families who are travelling longer, and read about world travelling families, it isn’t too hard to envision yourself in their shoes. Maybe one day. In the meantime, back to work and real life. Christmas is coming!

Lisbon was a dream. European cities hold old world charm and there was an abundance to discover. The history of the place is staggering and humbling. Their statues honour those who discovered “new worlds”, i.e. America. Lisboa in a snapshot is all squares, some raised on stilts (!) and painted tiles called azulejos; dank alleyways and lit smokes. Exuberant grandmothers tapping our girls on the cheeks, dark hair, dark eyes and tanned skins, yellow trams used as buses or elevators, seven mountains with viewpoints, miradouros, high above; fado music acapella floating in through our window, oceanfront graffiti, and custard nata tarts. Salted cod fish, bacalhau, hearty lunches, late dinners, cobblestone streets, narrow passageways and secret staircases. NASCAR taxi drivers, euros that slip away like a fish from your grasp, roundabouts round, a zoo, the oceanario, and the beautiful language of Portuguese, obrigada, thank you (obrigado for a man). Cruise ships docked and tourists, throngs of us, teaming the streets; wolfish vendors and restauranteurs with hungry eyes, licking their lips. The clown who gifted our children with balloons we did not want, never asked for; Dan and I rolling our eyes, playing along, for the children, think of the children. “One euro”, the clown’s hand outstretched. I reach into my bag, pull out the piece.

“Each”.

“No.”

“One euro, each.”

“No.”

The clown isn’t smiling. Her eyes grow cold. I don’t budge an inch.
She leaves, with a flourish of her hand, dismissing the children.

Never-mind.

Chocolate cake and croissants with chocolate, decadent desserts, creaky wooden steps and floorboards, sleepy children, wine glasses clinking, a courteous knock on our apartment door, “Excuse me – I understand, I once had small children, but they are running on my head.” Walking feet and tippy toes, an antiquated apartment. Acoustics. Sound that carries.

A statue, arms wide open, churches set against blue skies, layers of edifices, centuries old, millenniums. Concrete steps to climb on, balance, jump off. City jungle gym. The rattle of our rickety fold-up stroller. The piercing smell of human waste, piles of clothes, empty bodies, missing. The telltale signs of any big city. A beggar woman cross-legged in front of a two-thousand-year-old church, clanging a coin in a tin cup.

Chickens! Roosters! Brightly coloured, mosaics, checkers, paintings. Old meets new. Sleek, exhibition park, pier-side, a gondola ride. Jellyfish-spotting from above. Blub, blub.

The ease of normalcy returning; the familiarity of Europe in food and folk. A French tour guide, the awesome surfing waves of the Atlantic crashing against the rugged coastline. A farmer’s market outside of town. Six euros for an armful of fruit. A large mango – surprise! – papaya. And octopus, you must eat the seafood, that tastes like, well, chicken.

Castles and palaces, kings and queens past. Whole rooms dedicated to mermaids. Thrones and royal gardens. Grand walkways and palisades. Ariel’s search for the crown jewels, but none to be found in Sintra’s summer palace (try the permanent residence). Pena’s towering height and bright pastels, turrets and towers, staggering views, but mind the drop. Cheapo vino, dark ale, bitter coffee quick quick, make it an espresso.

An unassuming day, an unassuming time, a riotous uproar down the alley to my left. Football fans leave the bar, as dusk settles, on the move, chanting for victory. A pregame display of machoism, patriotism and club fidelity. Do not get between a man and his ball.

Where are all the women?

Sports fans? Joggers? I encounter mostly men. Families in the squares? Mostly it is men milling about. Do I imagine, when I handle our affairs, the men eyeing me curiously? Small men with tight-fitting jeans. Have I stumbled into a man’s world? Back in time?

It’s a new world. Old world charm. Could I fit in here? I already know I would.

Many a stone left unturned, more to see and learn,
Until we meet again.
When one trip ends…another one begins.