Tuesday

1:45 I leave work early, Tuesdays I don’t have daycare and he is in a special after-school tennis program so cannot take her home when school lets out

2:00 I board the Seabus

2:15 I board the bus

2:30 I walk home

2:50 I walk to school

How Modern Family is Saving Social Morals from Themselves

and other funny stories.

We hosted a dinner party for three women and three men. Two of the women are in a long-term relationship. One of the men is in a long-term relationship with one of the women. That leaves two men unaccounted for.

Our two male guests happened to be wearing the same shirt.

“Time to play: Who wore it best?”

A mother’s image

It’s not that I hate being framed by the lens of a camera, rather it’s that I hate what it might “see”.

Out of my profile a nose arcs out like a parrot’s beak. My mouth is typically caught open in a gaping guffaw or wide smile that forces my lips into the shape of a curly bracket } and my cheeks into a featureless beach ball. And, the penance I pay for a lush head of hair? A peach-fuzzed visage topped off with a post-partum shadow over my upper lip. My patchy skin, my short forehead, my bushy eyebrows, my thick neck… the list of critiques is lengthy and I haven’t even begun to describe below my shoulders!

That’s what I see, but this is what she sees:

Welcome to the blog

I love a good photo, but a dreadful one is even better! Especially this one for its pairing with the birth of an adoption; a process I can’t wait to follow.

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Live within limits without limiting life

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Dorothy Was Adopted

This past spring I FaceBook posted a truly epic photo of me. I was in all of my glory – disheveled hair, buggy wild eyes, and a strained expression extending from collarbone to forehead. You can imagine the comments (I love you all, I really do).

The truth is that photo was one of the more important ones taken of me in my entire life.

That wintry and blustery day last spring, Martin and I had rushed during our lunch hour to get an RCMP clearance check. We handed over several pieces of ID, got fingerprinted, and then photographed. A few weeks later, we had another important piece of documentation in our hands – confirmation by Interpol that we are clear of any previous criminal activity. Another hurdle cleared.

We’ve been doing a lot of high jumping this past year……….because there’s a lot of paperwork to be done when you’re…

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Where

Mama, sing a song.

Baby, what song shall I sing?

Sing a song that is happy.

A song about love?

No, love can be lost.

A song about friends?

No, friends can be forgotten.

A song about dancing?

No, dancers get tired.

Baby, what song shall I sing?

A song about home, mama.

Because home is where the heart is?

No mama, because home is where you are.

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Live within limits without limiting life

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My nephew’s film debut!

Youth Team – How to do Research from
North Van Museum and Archives

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Live within limits without limiting life

Follow me and check out my new blog! Meat Eating Vegans

Almost Crimes – Broken Social Scene

Imagining the story behind the song…

Almost Crimes

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I get up to pee. It’s early still, the house is quiet.

I live alone. What changes from night to day. Is it outside noise—cars, birds, neighbours?

I realize I’m still sitting on the toilet for no reason, just lost in sound and silence.

I live alone, where does the sound come from?

I flush. Onomatopoeically speaking, flush is not particularly accurate. It’s too gentle for such a violent sound—rushing water gulping air, desperate for the return of calm.

I’ve broken the seal, sound floods in. Who says “onomatopoeically speaking” anyway?

I hear the furnace rev up, readying to deliver the day’s warmth. Heat is energy and so is sound. It’s more than just fan noise. In the cold there is silence, in the warmth there is sound.

My body is humming.

As if mocking my reverie, the music visualizer on my laptop is pulsing in an electric light show. Even in the silence there is sound expressed in light and shapes and flashes of darkness. I press the mute button and the sources of the vibrant show suddenly flood my ear canals.

… The Yukon keeps me up all night

Complications seize your best…

Drums punctuate guitar riffs, rolling and stopping, pacing the vibrations as if the drumheads themselves were plucking the strings. Voices exchange words and sometimes interrupt. It is a love song. It’s on repeat and I replay the night before.

The ache returns.

____

In the quiet

Two square shapes
On one rectangle
Their sides rectangles too.

She reaches out
With her cylinders
And lifts an angle.

Her big circle stills
Her small circles
Rest on the squares.

Repeat.

She puts the sphere
Together
As though it could be taken apart.

Put together
Taken apart
Put together.

All that is left is to
Choose the colour.

This moment is hers
I pause
And this is my reward.

~Anonymous

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Live within limits without limiting life

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But what does it mean

They’re drifting
I thought they’d stay
I lose more
With each day

Half full
And my heart beats off and on

I pine and wane
Interchangeably
This is my fate
Brought on by me

Half full
And it seems I’m losing steam

We count the like
In the face of stars
It seems so small
But my heart is theirs

Half Full
And a solo is this song

A new beginning
Brought a new end
I have to start
To start again

Half full
And myself I have to blame

All that’s new
Seems permanent
I cannot see
A return again

Half full
And life here is unknown

Late at night
Voices the same
I cannot see
A logic game

Half full
And here I must remain

They said I’d turn
It could be so
I can’t predict
What’s left to show

Half full
And so I plod along

If you see
I’m there today
Please forget
What I might say

Half full
My thoughts are wicked friends

~Anonymous

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‘He’s welcome anytime, and I’ll tell you why’

was how her story began.

I was meeting her for the first time, but she felt she knew me.

‘Some of my daughter’s classmates told her she was too small to play their game,’ she explained, ‘and I overheard him tell her “Do you know what? One of the greatest basketball players in our school is one of the smallest kids I know.” I’m not sure he knows what that meant to her, but she certainly does.’

I have worried about raising a sensitive boy who is acutely aware of what is fair and what is not. Is it fair to impose my values about fairness and kindness and inclusiveness on him?

He’s the one who has to navigate his own world, not me. Am I putting him at a disadvantage? Is he cursed to become a doormat or someone’s punching bag? Should he be tougher?

We were just two moms ducking Vancouver’s spring rain and suddenly her words celebrated a boy, my boy, who stands up for fairness and kindness and inclusiveness.

Now I know there is no one braver and I’m proud of him, but most of all, now I know he  (along with everyone around him) will be okay.

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Live within limits without limiting life

Follow me and check out my new blog! Meat Eating Vegans