times like these...

I haven’t listened to music much lately in the past couple of weeks, which is odd because I need music the way I need oxygen. Not a single day goes by when I’m not listening to something on my computer at work and then plugged into earphones when I’m walking or running. It’s a rare sight to not see me accompanied with a soundtrack of some kind.

I’ve craved silence though lately. I’ve needed solitude and even the poetic words of my favourite musicians couldn’t pull me out of hiding. I’ll admit…the quiet is nice. Being left alone with my thoughts and emotions has been enlightening and I think in many ways, has helped ease the pain of this process a little bit.

I felt a bit lonely last night though. It seems strange to feel that way when we’ve been completely surrounded by so much love and support but alas, I needed my friends…my other friends…my melodic friends! So I took the ipod from it’s home in the living room, went upstairs to our bedroom, plugged in my earphones and listened to whatever song happen to come on.

Sure enough, I had to laugh when the moment I pressed play, the Foo Fighters enlightened me with this…

I am a one way motorway
I’m the one that drives away
Then follows your back home
I am a street light shining
I’m a wild light blinding bright
Burning off alone

It’s times like these you learn to live again
It’s times like these you give and give again
It’s times like these you learn to love again
It’s times like these time and time again

I am a new day rising
I’m a brand new sky
To hang the stars upon tonight
I am a little divided
Do I stay or run away
And leave it all behind?

It’s times like these you learn to live again
It’s times like these you give and give again
It’s times like these you learn to love again
It’s times like these time and time again

Coincidence? Probably not!

I always knew God was a fan of rock music!!!

{ I need a hug }

awakenings...

“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away” ~ Job 1:21

I’ve been thinking about this passage a lot lately. I woke up this morning finally starting to feel like myself again. I’ve been a bit anxious about the dark lately and finding myself procrastinating about having to turn off the lights each night. Things always seem harder for me in the dark and it was such a relief to awake this morning realizing that I had finally slept soundly through the night.

When I reflect on all that we’ve been through over the past week, I recognize more and more how hard it is for us humans to deal with the unexpected. Job 1:21 clearly states that the powers that be hold the future in their hands, and yet we are a breed that thrives off having control. We’ve managed to control so much of our lives and our world; we control our climates and our communication, we control our schedules and our need for convenience. We can even control our moods and our sleep patterns through a variety of means. Nature doesn’t play a very strong role in our day to day lives anymore and when something comes along that can’t be controlled with technology or medication, we find ourselves crippled in fear at our inability to let go of the final outcome.

But alas, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. For better or for worse, this is life. And like Jacob, we struggle with it. We fight with God over it and in the end, we lose. We stumble over ourselves trying to prevent anything from being taken away but why does it have to be such a bad thing? It’s true…the Lord does take away jobs, loved ones and security. But the Lord also takes away fear, doubt and cancer.

As I sit in the midst of the latest that has been taken away, I also realize that it’s small in comparison to what has been given. While our joy and anticipation has been taken away, the necessary strength and courage has been given. While innocence and immediate hope has been taken away, faithfulness and trust has been given. While certainty and confidence were taken away, perspective and gratitude were given.

The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.

Life is really about character and the only way to determine our future is by how we choose to handle the past. A life spent only in blissful perfection is not a life gained by knowledge or growth. Can you fully appreciate the happiness never having experienced the pain? Can you truly leave a mark if you’ve never been inflicted with one?

I’ve decided to take this as a time to grow. I’ve decided that as we cradle our heads in our hands, we will take this experience and add another notch in our belts. It will be yet another battle scar in a life that is uniquely ours. The dust is settling and we are opening our eyes in astonishment at how much life can change so quickly and more so, just how much we can change with it. For all of our controlling tendencies, it’s possible that we don’t give ourselves enough credit.

I remember vividly standing in our shower saying out loud to myself “I don’t think that I can do this” and all the while, suddenly realizing that I was doing this. It was happening and I was okay. It wasn’t pleasant and it wasn’t pretty but the battlefields of life seldom are. But sure enough, I was still breathing and living and surviving and being. Life was happening and so was I. In all of my worst imaginings, I would have been curled on the floor of the shower in a twisted mess of panic and despair. Instead, I breathed, and I breathed, and I breathed again.

And that’s what you do; you breathe and you breathe and you breathe again until one day you wake up feeling more like more yourself because for every restless night there awaits a new awakening.

The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.

voices...

Did you ever have an imaginary friend when you were young?

I spent a lot of time by myself when I was a little girl, mostly because of school; the bus ride was long, the bus stop was far and I usually had a couple of hours to myself before my Mom arrived home from work. I can’t remember how old I was but at one point in time, my Mom and I moved to a newer neighborhood in London and our home was still surrounded by wide open spaces that hadn’t yet been developed. I used to have to walk through a large field to get from my bus stop to our house and the walk was about a kilometer in distance – not far as an adult but certainly a hike for a little kid, especially through an empty field and with a vivid imagination!

It was during this time that I met Penelope. She was my imaginary friend. She was older and wiser and made the time by myself a little less lonely. At first, she was only around during my walks to and from the bus stops. Then she would appear on nights when I would lie awake in my bed unable to sleep. Eventually, she was always just kind of there…lingering by my side. She would talk me out of being scared or help me to mentally prepare myself when I knew I was about to get in trouble for something. She tried to help me with my math homework too but we both knew that was a lost cause!

In grade six, just after my Grandmother died, I started talking to her instead. I would spend countless hours conversing with her and asking for her advice. I missed her immensely and needed someone to listen to me. I needed someone who understood the people around me better than I did and someone who could guide me through the endless web of adolescence. Her absence was difficult for me and talking to her as though she was right next to me made the pain seem more bearable.

It wasn’t until a desperate night in grade eleven that I spoke to the God for the first time. I was tired, in mind and body, and desperately needed my life to be different. The last couple of years had been tumultuous for my Mother and I and few things seemed like they offered any stability anymore. I remember lying in my bed that night sobbing and begging God to make things different. After crying myself to sleep, I awoke the next morning feeling more peaceful than I had in a long time. Life proceeded to get even harder for the next few years but I continued to talk to God and every now and then, I think that He even talked back.

As you can see, I have a long history of hearing voices! Some people call this mental illness and in a mad attempt to convince myself that I’m not a schizophrenic, I prefer to call it the angels assigned to my case! We do a lot of things to ensure that we don’t feel alone in this world and why shouldn’t we? The love that surrounds us isn’t always so obvious and in some ways, these people…these voices, are merely our calmer and more comforting selves stepping in to take over the reigns; Our alter ego, our divine creation, our higher being…the self we long to be but can’t dig ourselves out of our doubt, our fear and our sorrow long enough to uncover them. We often need to hear things from somewhere else in order to truly listen.

I spoke to God a lot this past weekend. I pleaded in desperation for words…any words. I longed for words that weren’t my own and words that could somehow make this better. While I concede that I may be completely delusional, I’m also willing to testify that when I calmed down long enough to be still, I truly felt someone hold my face gently in their hands and whisper in my ear, “This too shall pass.”

Even more miraculous still were the many voices that followed; the very real voices of the people we love, the people who reached out to us in our sorrow and who asked to carry the weight for us. The people who cried with us and the people cried for us. I am overwhelmed at the amount of love that comes from grief and because of that, I am also forced to wonder if part of the reason such things happen at all is to simply remind us that whether we hear voices or not…we are never alone in this world. Never…

matthew 5:4...

Every day after work, I walk across the Alexandria Bridge to meet Steve. His building is just across the river from ours on the Quebec side and while I can see his office from my own office window, we are still parted by the rushing waters of the Ottawa River and technically, a province apart.

Every evening, when I proceed with my fifteen minute walk, I pass the same people and see the same view every time…and I just love it. The sun is often setting in front of me and the city seems so quiet and tranquil. I have seen that same view through various seasons and weather conditions and times during life, and all the while, it’s always comforting to me. The water still rushes from the current and flags still blow in the distance but the ice melts and the trees bloom or the snow falls and the Christmas lights appear. It’s such a comforting example of how things change yet they always stay the same.

I’m not really a person who likes change very much. The older I get, the more open I am to it, but I still love my routine and the consistency of my life…and my walk across the bridge. I often take that time to breathe deeply and spend some time with myself. Often, as I notice the little things that have changed since the last time I was there; the colour of the sky, the amount of traffic, the number of boats in the river…I wonder about the days when I will be more different than the route that I am walking. I wonder how different the world, my world, will look when I’ve changed more than everything around me.

Tonight, as I walk across my bridge to meet Steve, I will be the different one. I am different today then I was the last time I crossed. I will seem like the shift in the scenery and not the view. I will be the difference in the air and not the temperature. And my world will look different. My world does look different. And it hurts.

The Gospel of Matthew says “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted”, and I believe this to be true. I believe that while I will never be the same person crossing that bridge ever again, I also know that it won’t always seem so different. There will come a time when the person that I’ve become over the course of the past four days won’t stand out so much anymore. I believe that the peace I find when I see the air form over the frozen water or the sun reflect off the building windows is the same peace that will make this walk easier each day. Or at the very least, I hope so. I pray so.

There is a part of me that just wants to stand on that bridge for as long as I can. I want to stand there with the cold air blowing in my face and making my skin feel the way the rest of me does. I want to stand there and watch the sun disappear. I want to watch everyone walk by and new people appear. I want proof that I’m not the only one changing.

I want things to stand still for little while so I can remember what it feels like…

five is such a great number...

I just love living in hockey country!!!

(photo courtesy of The Ottawa Citizen)

so long...

It’s the fifth day of the New Year already! I’ll admit that I’m a total sucker for resolutions. I just love the whole idea of clean slate…a beautiful blank calendar not yet filled with bad judgment or less than stellar moments. As Anne Shirley would say “every day is brand new…with no mistakes in it.”

American Industry Author Bill Vaughn once said, “An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.” I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve most definitely been both the pessimist and the optimist. Some years it was all I could to put the year behind me and other times, I could hardly wait for the next year’s arrival. I think that this year, I was more nostalgic than anything else. We had such a wonderful and exciting year that it was kind of hard to say goodbye to 2008. Between our first house, our trip of a lifetime to Australia, the adventures of having our house invaded by Tugger and a million little things in between…2008 was good to us. I welcomed some amazing new relationships into my life, was forced to let go of others (sometimes more than once) and was blessed enough to add yet another year to many of the relationships that continue to build. I laughed, I cried, I pleaded and I raised my hands to the heavens time and time again.

It was definitely one of my better years.

This New Year’s Eve though…I got to celebrate the best of both worlds; giving a fond farewell to 2008 with eager anticipation for 2009. Already, I feel like it’s going to be a year of great change and growth. I guess I’m at a time in my life when I’m far less afraid of the unknown and have decided that even in times that don’t turn out exactly the way you planned… “This too…is God”.

I don’t know what 2009 has planned for us but it sounds like a good number to me! Either way, I think that life is what happens when you’re turning the calendar pages!!!

ringing in the new...

Long before Steve and I knew each other, while I was at the University of Ottawa, Steve was living and studying in Toronto. Many, many years later, when we first started dating, he told me a funny story about a friend of his from Residence during their first year...

Apparently, his friend was a big fan of this relatively unknown rock band named the Rainbow Butt Monkeys. As chance would have it, this group was going to be playing at their campus bar and his friend was planning on being the first in line to be there. Well, fortunately for him, the line wasn't very long as there turned out to be more people in the band than there was in the bar! Poor Rainbow Butt Monkeys! But that's what die hard fans do, right? For better or for worse...they stand in line when no one else does!

Last summer, Steve and I were driving to Tilbury for Heather and Roberta's wedding. Any time we pass through Toronto, we take the opportunity to listen to 102.1 The Edge...one of our country's very best radio stations (in my humble opinion!). Not only do they play great music but they have some of the best radio shows I've ever heard, one of which being The Ongoing History of New Music. I believe that this show used to originally be aired only on The Edge but has since been syndicated nationwide. It's just that great!

Anyways, on this particular occassion, when we were driving through Toronto, they were airing a little segment on {wait for it...} the Rainbow Butt Monkeys!! Steve and I couldn't believe our ears and found ourselves completely enthralled in the apparent legacy that they seemed to have left behind. We heard all about their two albums that were released in 1992 and 1995 but the real surprise came when they were finishing up the segment and mentioned "for those of you who aren't really familiar with the Rainbow Butt Monkeys, maybe you'll be more familiar with their new name...Finger Eleven"

Steve and I sat there as astonished as two people driving on the 401 could possibly be to have just found out that the Rainbow Butt Monkeys were in fact, one of our most favourite Canadian rock bands EVER (their songs are numerous and plenty on my running playlist!)! Our 2008 Juno Award Winners for Best Rock Album of the year had to endure a time when their band members outnumbered their fans?!?! Where is that friend of Steve's now?? He deserves a medal!!!!!

Now armed with our new knowledge regarding their complete devotion and patience towards their love of music, our affinity for Finger Eleven has grown exponentially! Really, how could you not love a story like that?!?! So, to show our appreciation in return, we braved the cold Ottawa night in -29 degrees Celcius to ring in the New Year with one of our favourite bands! After they watched Canada beat the U.S. in the World Junior Hockey Championships (apparently they were treated like rock stars or something!!) and we watched on the big screen downtown...we all joined forces on the canal to hear them play some of their greatest songs and warm up the night! As midnight approached, we all counted down, watched the cold night sky light up with fireworks and sporting Team Canada jerseys a plenty, Finger Eleven belted out their famous song Paralyzer (with a little Pink Floyd in the mix!)...and we showed the rest of the country how New Year's Eve should really be done; with great Canadian hockey, great Canadian rock music and great Canadian frostbite!!!!!

ahead by a century...

There seems to be a contrasting energy in our house right now leading up to the New Year. Steve has been a whirlwind of projects as he’s spent the past few days busily tying up loose ends and completing projects before 2009 leaps upon us. I, on the other hand, have been more in a state of quiet reflection as I watch the calendar slowly come to its final day.

Last night, while Steve was painting our kitchen, I curled up on our couch downstairs and watched the second half of Anne of Green Gables. This was, by far, my favourite movie growing up and it’s been over a decade since I last saw it. When I was little I could literally recite the entire movie word for word. I discovered last night that, even at thirty, I still love every moment of that movie. I never realized before though just how romantic it really was! The love/hate relationship between Anne and Gilbert is desperately romantic and had I been any older when I first saw it, I don’t know if I ever would have been able to wait to find out if they finally found their way to each other. The agony would have killed me.

Watching the movie started me thinking about feminism and how very different it’s become over the years. Coincidentally enough, one of my other favourite movies is Little Women; a movie whose main character - Josephine, is very much like Anne. Both are strong, brilliant, determined women who decide that in order to pursue their craft, they must forgo the likes of other womanly desires, such as romance and a family. In the end though, love always conquers and they discover that no amount of scholarships and or academic achievements can replace our natural inclinations to need another human being.

I’m sure that in Anne and Josephine’s day, to have gone against such conventional wisdom would have most certainly deemed them as feminists. A hundred years later though, I watch either movie and find myself longing for a day of puffed sleeves and horse-drawn carriages. The romance of “courting” and dance cards is overwhelming beautiful to me and yet, all the while, it’s the same thing that most women were hoping to break free from.

I live in a day and age where it’s never occurred to me that I couldn’t have both a career and a family. I’ve never had to choose between a man and a corporate title but if I did, I’m sure that women every where would likely be disappointed to know that I the man would probably win. In fact, whenever the topic of men would arise in my life, I would often hear the age old argument “You can’t let the opportunity to {insert career possibility here} pass you by for a man!” Every time I heard this though I always thought to myself “How is a relationship not an opportunity as well?” Of course, having to choose one over the other is not ideal in any situation but if the decision was between a brand new relationship and having to move far away for a new career (in which case, the relationship would have to be sacrificed as a result) why exactly, is it assumed that the career is always the better choice? That new relationship could end up being the relationship and the relationship could result in marriage and that marriage could result in creating a family and fifty years later, you could wake up and realize that you chose a lifetime of miracles over a job. Why is that so bad?

Maybe it’s just the idea of wanting something that you can’t have. Maybe Anne and Josephine longed for the life that they were encouraged to put aside because they didn’t want to fit a mold that they were expected to live up to. Maybe I find Christmas Balls and afternoon tea romantic because it too, is something that I have never lived.

Once again, I will end a year with more questions than I have answers! But isn’t that always the case?!?!

On the bright side though, tonight I will bundle myself up (it is -25 degrees Celsius in Ottawa today!), take my handsome husband by the arm and participate in some New Year’s Eve festivities. Then, come Monday morning, when we’re all rested and recovered, I will dress my corporate self up and greet my wonderful colleagues in the office for yet another year. Best of all though, I will do so with the grateful knowledge that I was fortunate enough to never have to make the decision. Thanks to the likes of Anne and Josephine, I get to ring in 2009 with the best of both worlds!

Happy New Year! May your 2009 be merry and bright!

there's no place like home...

We're in Tilbury now...finally! Actually, it's 3:23pm and I'm just getting out of bed. I know, it seems a little late (even for me!) but I assure you that there is a very valid excuse other than the fact that it's Christmas Eve and we can do whatever the heck we like ;)

We left Ottawa yesterday at 3:30pm for the long drive back to the Smyth house. We know the drive well...we've done it many times. And other than the sometimes long lines at the highway rest stops, it's usually a pretty smooth trip. On average, the holiday drive takes us between 7 and 7 and a half hours. Not great but certainly manageable. We seldom ever drive home on the weekends so we end up missing most of the traffic and sometimes, even find ourselves a bit lonely on the highways.

We had Tugger in the back of the car (can I just say that he's not crazy about car travel!) and the instant we got on the 417 (about three minutes from our house), we were bumper to bumper. Ottawa's not a very big place and with a major highway running right through it, getting from one end to the other makes the city even smaller. ONE HOUR! That's how long it took us just to get out of the city...one hour! We could tell instantly that there wasn't going to be much love on this road trip!!!

Things actually looked up once we got out of the city and reached the 401. The roads were clear and there wasn't much traffic..and then the snow started to fall. And fall and fall and fall and fall. It never ended. It turned from snow to ice to rain and back to snow again. By the time we hit Toronto traffic (near Peterborough), we had already been the road for about six hours! We stopped and called home to let them know that we would be arriving a bit later (we were hoping for an ETA of midnight-ish). During this time, Steve and I observed no less than fifteen snow plows clearing the other side of the highway and we had yet to see one clearing our side. In the meantime, Tugger was curled up in the back of the car wondering if we were taking him to the depths of hell! Poor guy...he was such a trooper!

About thirty minutes outside of London, we stopped again to get Tugger some food and water. I kid you not when I say that we could barely see the car in front of us nonetheless anything else. It was going on 12:30am or so and the end certainly wasn't near. We considered bailing in London and just staying for the night but by this time, we were determined to conquer in the end! Or so I thought! Little did I know that it would finally be a scrawny teenage punk at the Tim Horton's that would be my ultimate demise.

When we got to rest stop and decided to keep on trekking, we also decided that we needed to take some time to eat and rest as well. Our last stop had been before Kingston and that was nearly six hours earlier. It appeared from the outside that the Tim Horton's was still open even though the rest stop was mostly closed for the night. I think it's also worth mentioning that by this time we had managed to see another ten snow plows or so...again, on the other side of the highway. Apparently West bound traffic was of little concern. Jerks!

So anyways, while Steve took care of Tugger (who had finally resigned himself to the fact that this car was indeed his new existence!), I went in to get us some food. The line was enormous. Seriously, I counted eighteen people in line in front of me. All of us tired, grumpy and in desperate need of whatever donuts happen to be left! After an undetermined amount of time, I made it to the front of the line feeling a little bit more uplifted. I made my order, the little man who was stuck working that night gave me my total, I handed him our credit card (because they don't take debit and we had used the last of our cash in Kingston not thinking that we were stopping again) while he looked at me and said "I'm sorry Miss...our machines aren't working tonight". I just stood there, blank gaze washed over my face and didn't move. He gently probed..."Ma'am?" I finally took a deep breath, looked at him and said "Please, for the love of God, tell me that you are joking?" "I'm sorry Ma'am...I'm not." I looked at him, blinked once, turned around and left. I trudged through the snow back to our car and proceeded to have a complete meltdown! That's right...my lack of toasted bagel with butter was indeed the end of the world to me and nothing was going to make it better! It couldn't take it anymore!

After some hugs, drowning my sorrows and a few jokes from my amazing husband, we carried one. Really, after nine hours...what's another three?!?!? We couldn't catch a break...it snowed heavier than ever and we held our breath as every maniac transport truck driver passed us in a flurry. The gusts of wind and slush that they created was enough to make anyone call it a night. We passed countless cars in the ditch, three transport trucks buried in snow and NO SNOW PLOWS!!!!!! December 23rd, 2008 will forever be remembered as the day that Westbound travelers got neglected!!! Until our exit, of course! Sure enough, there was two snow plows about a hundred meters ahead of us just as we turned off the highway! Funny!

About three hours later, close to 4am and over twelve hours after leaving Ottawa, we arrived at the Smyth house. After a big hug from two very worried parents, a couple of cheese sandwiches later and some much deserved attention for Tugger, we crawled under the blankets in our king size bed and said farewell to our horrific drive home. We got up around 9:30am to fill our bellies with a bit of food (aka. Kathy's Christmas baking!) and then curled back into bed with our feline.

It was, by far, the worst drive either one of us has ever experienced and to spend Christmas with this house full of smiling faces...I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

joyeux noël...

It’s almost time! In one more day, we pack up our car (and our Tugger!) for the long drive back home for Christmas! I can hardly wait! Every time we drive home, I find myself lost in a daze of Christmas bliss and wondering what new and funny stories will come about from a week of family sharing a house together for a week!!!

We celebrated Christmas with my Dad this past weekend in our new house, around our first Christmas tree and in front of our new fireplace. We were suppose to volunteer at a senior’s home that we go to every year together but this year, due to a variety of illness (on the part of the seniors, not us!), the building was under quarantine and we were given the day “off”. So instead, we picked up Dad and took him to all the places that he can’t otherwise get to because of the bus strike. With all of our Christmas shopping already done, it was actually a lot of fun walking amongst all the other frenzied shoppers and enjoying the liveliness of the pre-holiday rush. Starbucks in hand, we walked from store to store and picked up a few things while soaking in all the pretty decorations. It was actually a really nice afternoon!

We then headed back to our place for a big dinner, dessert and exchanging gifts. It was so delightful to sit around the fire and just chat while being surrounded with torn up pieces of wrapping paper everywhere. My Dad brought his dog, Simon, to our place and you could even see the beauty of Christmas peace between Simon and Tugger as they enjoyed a harmonious evening in each other’s company.

The whole night got me thinking about memories of Christmases past. I’ve enjoyed so many wonderful holiday seasons with friends and families that to pick a favourite would not be easy but there are a couple that stand out more than others to me and every time I think of them, the biggest of smiles crosses my face!

Despite my parents being divorced, two of my favourite Christmases were ones that the three of us spent together. One year, when I was about ten years old, my Dad came to London from Ottawa to spend the holiday with us. Mom and I had created not only a beautiful gingerbread house that year…but an entire gingerbread village fully equipped with an ice skating rink and Christmas trees galore! It was awesome! Well, that is until the next morning when we woke up to realize that the cat and dog had conspired to systematically pick apart our hard evening’s work and consume every last bit of it. Monsters!

That year, one of my gifts had been the game of Jenga; a game that can get rather intense and loud given enough time! After opening gifts and filling our faces (on Christmas Eve, because that’s how the French do it!), we opened up the game on the kitchen table and to this day, I don’t know how many hours went by spent stacking little wooden block on top of little wooden block. It was insanity! And the roar that would go up around the house each time the tower fell was enough to leave us doubled over on the kitchen floor in laughter! It was, by far, one of my favourite family memories ever…the three of us, united in laughter in the middle of the night, playing Jenga. Thank you Hasbro!

My second favourite Christmas memory was another year that my Dad came to London to visit. I must have been about thirteen or fourteen and my Dad had given me the Super Mario Bros. 3 game for the Nintendo that he had given me the year before. My Dad, who is not much of a video game person, said that we could crack open the game early while we waited out the hours of Christmas Eve for midnight to come along. My Mom had gone for a little nap so my Dad and I used it as a perfect opportunity to test out the new game. Pretty soon, there we were…just the two of us insanely trying to beat dragons and hop around on dinosaurs to collect eggs and such. Most hilarious of all was our belief that if we physically moved our arms around faster, that would, in turn, move our players around the screen faster!!!! Skewed logic, I know…but it made sense at the time!! With all the excitement of moving from one level to the next, we actually ended up missing midnight and it wasn’t until my Mom awoke from all of the ruckus that we noticed the time and that there was a tree full of presents yet to get to. It’s rare that something could pull a teenager away from the countdown of opening presents, but computer animated Italian plumbers on a quest to save a Princess can do it!

{It seems the moral of the story here is that games create joy!!!}

That’s what I just love about Christmas…you collect the most random of memories that carry you through a lifetime. They infuse every year that follows with a joy that makes every thing else that much better.

So, as we pack our bags in preparation for another Christmas adventure, I wish you beautiful memories of your own and laughter that brings you to tears.

At the risk of sounding too cliché…

From our family to yours…
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

six decades of progess...

The year is 1948. The average cost of a new house is $7,700 and a loaf of bread is 14 cents. Indian Pacifist, Mahatma Gandhi is murdered by a Hindu extremist and Israel is declared as an independent state. The Land Rover is introduced for the first time at the Amsterdam Car Show and NASCAR holds its first race for modified stock cars at Daytona Beach. The World Health Organization is created as instances of Polio are increasing worldwide. Velcro is invented by George deMestral and the game of Scrabble is introduced by James Brunot. The Winter Olympic Games are held in St. Moritz, Switzerland and after a twelve year hiatus due to World War II, the first Summer Olympic Games opened in London, United Kingdom. A 6.7 magnitude earthquake hits Ecuador in the Andes and a new weather record is set in the Yukon when the temperature plummets to -66.11 degrees celcius. Then, on December 10th, 1948, the world comes face to face with the greatest acknowledgement of human rights mankind has ever seen when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR)…an event that sixty years later, would be celebrated worldwide as a document that reinforces “Dignity and justice for all of us.”

As World War II was coming to an end, mankind had witnessed cruelty towards one another that was beyond comprehension, often simply because of a difference in race or religion. Suffering was being endured at the hands of anger and apathy forcing the world to question whether or not there was a better way to harmonize our otherwise depleting value system. It was this divide that inspired national leaders from around the globe to meet and in turn, to form the United Nations. In late 1945, these leaders would proudly state their vision and hope for a peaceful future…

“We, the peoples of the United Nations [are] determined…to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small”.

Three years later, the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights occurred under the belief that “…All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” As the first international document of its kind, the UDHR was intended to set a standard of basic rights inherent to all people – regardless of race or religion, age or gender, economic or social status – without distinction of any kind. The Declaration has come to represent a contract between governments and their people that commands a level of justice, fairness and equality across all boundaries. While not all governments adhere to all human rights treaties, all countries have accepted the UDHR as an influential statement of standards -- an accomplishment that likely surpassed the hopes of even the most optimistic of its original founders.

So this December, sixty years later, in a time that perhaps needs this Declaration more than ever, we raise a glass to the men and women whose vision and refusal to give up created a legacy that has endured the test of some very tumultuous times in hopes of continuing to discrimination a thing of the past.

around the bay...

I was just about to start updating all of you about how our “training” is going when it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t yet told you that we were training for anything to begin with! How could I have forgotten to do that?!?!

Any of my close friends likely wouldn’t hesitate to call me a runner if given the opportunity. I’ve been running for almost seven years now. It started as a physical outlet for a rather sad time in my life and turned into a great passion that I can’t imagine living without. I’ve had some of the greatest experiences and met some of the most wonderful people thanks to this sport and when all else fails, the world truly does feel a bit lighter after a few kilometers in my running shoes.

I ran my first half marathon two days after first meeting Steve, completed my first full marathon the year before we got married and decided then and there (at the finish line) that I would never run again! I was wrong! A month later, once my legs had recovered (yes, it took that long!), I was up and going again! I tried three more times to train for a marathon and each time, I was forced to reluctantly call it quits for a variety of reasons (all of which made me cry!). I can say with utmost certainty now that the hardest part of any race isn’t getting to the finish line…it’s getting to the start line.

After the heart break of too many attempts at another marathon, I decided to use my joy of running for a different purpose; to help other runners reach the finish line. On my “list of 100 things to do before I die” was to be a pace bunny for the National Capital Race Weekend; a feat that I thought would still be many years away. Pace “rabbits” are hired by races to finish in a pre-determined time so that other runners around you can set their own pace to yours in order to reach a goal time depending on how they hope to finish. Pacing is not an easy thing to do. Most runners’ pace is dependent on the weather, the terrain, their physical condition at the time and a number of other factors. Some runners however, can run nearly every kilometer in the same amount of time regardless of these factors (or at least make up the differences throughout the race without a significant change in pace). In Toronto, there is a waiting list of hundreds of runners hoping to be pace bunnies for their varying races. Runners don’t take pacing lightly. While at the end of the day, pace bunnies are just like anyone else (they have their bad days too), they are expected to represent the race by finishing within three minutes of their pace time.

Now, I’m not really sure what compelled me to do this but, I walked into the office of one of the organizers of the race weekend and said, “It’s on my list of 100 things to do before I die to pace the half marathon. Can you help me?” He looked at me pretty intently, gave me a slight cautious grin and said “Let me see what I can do!” By the time I got home a half hour later, I had been copied on a email from him to some of the race officials asking them to register me as the 2:30:00 pace rabbit for the half-marathon; the largest pace group for one of the largest half-marathons in the country! This is where the panic set in!

Once I calmed down a bit from the initial terror of what I had just committed myself to do, I figured that the most ideal step to take was to train for this time along with everyone else. So, I offered to be a group leader for anyone training to finish the upcoming half-marathon in two hours and thirty minutes. This way, not only could I help runners get to the finish line, but I could also help runners get to the start line…the real test. Four months later we found ourselves at the start line of the 2007 National Capital Race Weekend Half-Marathon on a cold, rainy day in late May. I was sporting a pair of bunny ears and packs of nervous runners hoping to come out of all this alive! The start gun went off and 2 hours, 29 minutes and 29 seconds later, I crossed the finish line! How’s that for punctuality?!?!

I don’t know that I’ve ever had as much fun as I did during that two and half hours except for the four months leading up to it. Deciding to be a group leader was by far, one of the best decisions that I’ve ever made as I ended up meeting some of the most amazing people that I’ve ever met and have continued to have the privilege of knowing even now. We continued to run together long after our race and have since been on the sidelines or in regrettable weather together as we all continue on with our running legacies.

There was one slight misfortune to all of this though; my husband was not a runner! He runs and he runs quite fast but he’s never enjoyed consistently running and certainly doesn’t enjoy running long distances at all! For him, the sooner it’s over, the better! This has posed a problem for me because frankly, my husband is adorable and I simply don’t like spending that much time away from him…and training takes time. Often, it takes lots of time. He would always be there supporting me along the way but it’s still always been my thing which means that there is often a choice to be made; Sleep in with the cute husband?? Go running in the cold for an hour with silly running friends?? Decisions, decisions!

This past year has been shameful for my running. Between the move into our house and our trip to Australia, I completely fell out of my routine and haven’t run consistently since. I still met up with my friends to run on the odd weekend but usually, I didn’t find myself running in between much. Honestly, the break wasn’t all that bad. I’d been running almost non-stop for nearly six years without a lot of time off in between races and I think that my body appreciated the change of pace for a little while. Eventually though, you realize that you can take the girl out of the running but you can’t take the runner out of the girl!!!!

So that’s how we got here…to what I forgot to tell you! About a month ago I was feeling restless. I’d wanted to get back in to my running routine for a while and was finding it harder and harder as more time went on. I found myself conflicted again though between the countless hours running in the cold and the cute husband back home but my body was craving running and I simply had to find my way back to it. So somehow, by the grace of someone (Patron Saint of Pounding the Pavement perhaps?!?!), Steve agreed to run with me!!!! And not just run with me…but train with me…for an actual race!

We decided on the Around the Bay Road Race in Hamilton Ontario on March 29th. ATB is the oldest race on the continent (older even than the Boston Marathon) and is a unique 30km race (instead of a 21km or a 42km race). This seemed to offer the potential best of both worlds…a bit more challenging than a half-marathon without the agony of a full-marathon. We’ll see…we may find 10km into it that it blows either way!!!!

Et voila…that’s where we’re at! We have become the running couple extraordinaire now! We run three days a week, cross-train twice a week and will suffer through our Ottawa winters together! So far, we’re having a great time! His speed pushes me harder on our short runs and my pacing helps him on the longer distances. Both seem to assist greatly with the countless amounts of holiday treats that we have been consuming as of late!!!! We’re only two weeks into our training so far but the beginning is almost always the hardest part (that is of course, until you get to mid-February and you would rather give yourself a root canal then go for another run!!!).

And on that note…this is what we’ve had the pleasure of running in this past week…

Jealous?!?!

waiting to be saved...

The other day, a colleague and I were at the corner waiting to cross the street and standing on the opposite side of the street was a family with their teenage son. Their son had Downs syndrome. My colleague looked over at the boy and then over to me and said “Gosh, that’s so sad. I would like to know one day why God does that to people.” “Why?” I asked. “Well, he’ll never be able to have jobs like us or experience life like us. There is just so much that he will miss out on.” I just smiled at my colleague and looked across the street. The boy had a huge smile on his face and was completely fascinated with the newly falling snow. In fact, he looked happier than anyone else I had seen that day.

I spent a lot of time when I was younger with other children who lived with Downs syndrome and from my experience; they appear to be some of the happiest and most vibrant people that I’ve ever met. My life was, most definitely, made richer by having known them and having shared in their lives. People living with Downs have a purer sense of innocence that fills their days and a childlike approach to life that the rest of us seem to grow out of at a certain age. They don’t learn judgment the same way or many of the other detrimental emotions that keep us hurting ourselves and each other. I really had to wonder if, given the choice, they even want to see life any other way?

The reality was that it was sadder for us to witness his disability then it was for him to live with it because likewise, we can’t imagine our lives being any other way. Would his life really be better with a corporate job and a blackberry in hand or can fulfillment still be found in watching the snow fall? Would his life genuinely be more worthwhile with bigger dreams and bigger vision instead of contentment in the small joys and abundance in everyday life? It’s a classic case of having tunnel vision but, as North Americans, I think that it’s begun to reach out into far more than just the boy across the street. It lead me consider how many other things we impose our sense of happiness upon assuming that our “shoes” are the only ones worth walking in.

Steve and I were discussing the other day about the whole concept of “fair trade” and how it’s perceived by our society. Steve and I do not go out of our way to purchase products that are fair trade and while we are certainly not oppose to it in any way, we do question certain aspects of its rationale. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know a great deal about fair trade other than what is presented to me from our local businesses but, based on that knowledge alone…I’m lead to believe that we are encouraging better pay, better working conditions and a “fair” exchange of services between us, the consumer, and them, the provider. There is, of course, an entire environmental aspect to this as well but for the most part, I get the impression that it has a lot to do with the lively hood of those working on the other end of our morning coffee. Okay, so this is very noble, I agree, but (there’s always a but) who decided that “they” needed rescuing in the first place? I’m not criticizing as much as I am genuinely asking if they are truly unhappy. True, they likely make less (comparatively) and it’s also true that their lives are spent at the hands of a field instead of a business office but who’s to say that they are not happy to harvest fields all day and be out in the sunlight? Would they even want an office job or rush hour traffic? Are we assuming that because their lives are not like our lives, then they can’t possibly be happy and in turn, it’s our job to save them?

This very question also brought about my very mixed emotions about the Middle East and Islamic culture. We, as a society, are very quick to judge their motivations and intentions. We consider them violent, oppressed and behind the times socially. I agree that there are elements of their culture that I struggle with and violence is certainly one of them. I am appalled at the idea of stoning a person because of their infidelities but I’m equally appalled at the idea of dragging a black man behind a pick up truck because of the colour of his skin…and that happened in the U.S. We look at them and see mistreatment of women and distortion of religion. For all we know, they may look at us and see misguided youth and a value system so deteriorated that we have entire magazines devoted to celebrity gossip. We see them covered head to toe in a veil as a lack of rights and they may see us without enough self-respect to dress for any purpose other than sex. We assume that all of these things, because we don’t share them, must mean that they are unhappy. We assume that their lack of reality television and wardrobe attire to choose from must mean that they feel deprivation that we, of course, need to rescue them from. To take over another country under a cloak of good intention and to assume that our way of doing things would suit them better poses a lot of questions for me. First and foremost, it sparks the question of whether or not our way even works for us nonetheless anyone else?

On that note, let’s take this opportunity to look at our lives for a moment; we are a society of great wealth and consumption. We work long hours and grow up too fast. We are connected to each other at all times while never really being connected to anyone at all. We are in a constant hurry to get to places that they don’t generally want to be. We have the convenience of doing our grocery shopping from home and all the while, we’ve never been more stressed. Our bodies are filled with disease and our minds are filled with dis-ease. We aim for bigger houses, faster cars and fancier televisions when we should be aiming for broader perspectives, grandeur experiences and better relationships…and I don’t mean with our cell phones.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging the state of how we live our lives. It’s all relative and our necessities sit pretty low on the hierarchy of needs. More importantly though, I feed the beast in my own way as well but what I’m questioning is whether or not our morals and values are really the appropriate measuring stick by which all others should be judged? We live lives that seem privileged and innovative. We live lives that seem a step above the rest but we also live lives that are out of touch with the very basics of what it means to be human. Life is simply not meant to be lived in nothing but a frenzy of technology and corporate ladders.

So, all this being said, as I looked across the street at the teenage boy joyfully catching snow flakes on his tongue and fully immersed in the day that God had given him…I couldn’t help but painfully wonder if we were the ones who really needed to be saved?

our first noel...

Christmas was a big deal in my house growing up. In fact, the entire month of December was something to celebrate. My Mom and I would spend every weekend baking Christmas cookies, building gingerbread houses and filling our house with the holiday spirit. It was fantastic! Traditionally, in honour of my French heritage, we would celebrate Reveillon, which meant staying up late and celebrating once the clock hits midnight. Usually we would attend midnight mass and then come home to tons of food and open gifts by firelight until the wee hours of the morning. We would then sleep in late on Christmas morning and have a huge brunch once everyone crawled out of bed. It really is a wonderful way to celebrate!

One of my favourite memories of Christmas was the year that we lost all of our power late on Christmas Eve. We ended up sitting around dozens of candles and our fireplace, and spent the entire night surrounded with the sounds of our own laughter and joy. It was so magical and memorable. The power came back on during the night and we awoke to several feet of snow and more peaceful souls. I think that everyone should try spending a Christmas without power!

Over the past decade though, Christmas has been a very different experience for me. Once I moved to Ottawa and my Mom moved to B.C., the holidays were a bit sporadic and the concept of resting really didn’t exist much anymore. I would usually work an additional job over the holidays and not take more than a day or two off and the month of December was spent studying for exams and the Christmas spirit was left to those with more time on their hands.

Once I met Steve, the joy of Christmas was reintroduced to me by the Smyth Family. In all honesty, spending Christmas with them is like spending Christmas in a Bing Crosby movie! One year in particular, all of the “kids” (that’s us!) sat in the living room wrapped up in blankets, surrounded by the giant Christmas tree and the stockings hanging over the fireplace. We sipped on ice wine that we had all received as stocking stuffers and we watched slides from thirty years earlier. I will always remember how happy I was at that moment…how content I felt and how blessed I was to be in such a place.

Steve and I have spent the last five Christmases together and each one has provided its own funny story and adventurous tale of holiday travelling and family visiting! This year though, is our first year in our new house and this means that we are in the midst of starting our own Christmas traditions! So exciting! First on the list…finding the perfect Christmas tree!!

I haven’t had a Christmas tree in about twelve years and the prospect of having one this year has left me boiling over with excitement for too many weeks now! We were originally going to just go and buy a tree to bring home until our good friend Danelia invited us out to her property in Wakefield to actually go and cut down a tree! Really, how National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is that?!?!? So that’s what we did! On Saturday morning, we put on our snow pants and drove the forty minutes out to her beautiful piece of land and began the hunt! We strapped on some snowshoes and headed out to the woods with her furry friends, Qete and Temu, by our side. After a gorgeous stroll by the water, Steve and I took one look and spotted our tree in the distance! It was lovely and I was so excited! Once the boys cut down the tree, we all headed in for some warmth by the fire and much earned hot chocolate!

But let’s be honest…no tree hunt is complete without a tree trimming party to follow! After getting the tree strapped securely to the roof of the car, it was time to head back to the Smyth house so that it could finally live out its Christmas destiny! We drank wine, ate lots of food, indulged in bite size Toblerones and quickly realized that what may seem small in the forest can be quite large in one’s living room!!! Sure, it may be “full”…but it’s ours and it’s the most perfect Christmas tree that ever was, complete with silver ribbon, energy efficient twinkle lights and stunning red ornaments (and of course, my Starbucks snow globe from Kelly!). So just like that, we are off to a beautiful start for the Christmas season!

We did have one slight oversight on our part though; Tugger! We underestimated just how unpredictable felines can be and it was less than twenty-four hours before our own fur ball finally had his way with the giant evergreen taking over his home. It’s now tied to the wall!

more joy in more places...

And the award for
"Gen's favourite Christmas commercial of 2008"
goes to {drum roll please}...

getting on with it...

So let’s skip over any eloquent intro and cut right to the chance…what is up with our Government?!?! Honestly, I feel like I went to bed one night with the Conservatives in power and then woke up the next morning to this “new” Government. Crazy.

Given the rather speed of light manner in which all of this Coalition stuff happened and the alternate universe that I’ve been living in for the past two weeks, I haven’t really had the time yet to read up much on what all of this means and the possible effects that could come as a result of it. What I do know is that it’s made our drive to work absolute anarchy because we pass by both the Governor General’s residence and 24 Sussex…two places that seem to have the ideal outdoor spaces for protesting (and no lack of people willing to join in the fun!)! This alone is putting me in a bit of a grumpy state towards our fearless leaders!

In all honesty though, I haven’t yet decided how I feel about the whole thing. I am a Liberal and have almost always (with one exception) voted Liberal. Internal conflict aside, it’s also in my best interest to have the Liberals in power. They support better environmental initiatives and provide greater support towards the arts; two things obviously near and dear to our household. Now, before any of you get your Conservative knickers in a knot, I also feel that we had the election and that Canadians made their choice. As a voter, I’m willing to respect that choice and hope for a better one come the next time around.

It’s at this point in time that Steve and I begin to have a slight difference of opinion! One of the major arguments regarding the Coalition is that we would suddenly have a Prime Minister who, in fact, collected the least number of votes for his party in years. This is a concern that even I, someone who voted for him, have. Steve, on the other hand, believes that this shouldn’t be an issue because he believes that we don’t actually elect a Prime Minister…we elect Members of Parliament. The bottom line is that Steve is right; ideally, we are to vote for the most appropriate Member of Parliament in our riding, regardless of political affiliation and in turn, once that person becomes Member of Parliament, they are to represent all of their constituents, regardless of who they voted for. Ideally being the operative word.

Realistically though, I don’t believe that is how most people vote. Be it right or wrong, I think that the leader of any given political party highly influences the outcome of an election, in which case, it also highly influences how people feel about a sudden switch in power…especially one that wasn’t made by Canadian citizens. It almost seems to defeat the whole point of democracy in the first place! Perhaps an alternative would have been to include the option of a Coalition on our ballot or even to have a vote for it now.

Either way, I would like to get to work in fifteen minutes or less sometime in the very near future (really…some people can be so self-involved!)!

advent conspiracy...

Join the conspiracy...

by water's edge...

I had the strangest dream last night...

In my dream, I was best friends with a guy whom I don't know in real life. He was tall, with dark hair and had incredibly sad eyes. The two of us were in a wooden row boat and he was taking me somewhere. He was leaving me actually. The water was very calm and there was no one else around and eventually we ended up at a cherry blossom tree along the edge of the water. This tree was "our" place...the place where the two of us realized that we would be friends for life. The problem was though that this tree was also the same place where he fell in love...but not with me. He was leaving me because things could no longer be the same. He was saying goodbye because in some strange way, me and the girl that he fell in love with were one in the same...too much the same. In my dream, I remember feeling so sad...missing him already and yet he was sitting right in front on me still rowing the boat. He kept looking at me as though he wanted me to know that this wasn't happening because he didn't love me. He did...but it was time.

After a while, we weren't on the water anymore. We were on land now. As I looked around trying to figure out how I gotten there, he handed me a balloon and said "I simply couldn't resist". Then he kissed me on the forehead and walked away. As I watched him leave, my heart filled with sadness and I couldn't take it anymore. I ran up to him, grabbed his arm and when he turned around, I hugged him. I held on so tight and just stayed there with my arms wrapped around his neck...and then I woke up.

There are two things about this dream that seemed especially odd to me; first of all, this guy...this friend. When I was much younger, I used to fantasize about this kind of friendship even more so than I did about falling in love and getting married. I daydreamed about a friendship that wanted nothing more than to protect me from life and love. I wished for a handsome guy that I could run to every time I had my heart broken. I wished for a guy that would remind me that they were all crazy and didn't deserve me in the first place. I wished for the guy that would be the bar by which all others would be measured. I learned quickly however that the few guys who entered my life in this capacity would be the very guys that I would end up having to protect myself against after all. I simply don't trust their purity and innocence anymore. I never did have this kind of friendship with any guy during my life but instead, I fell in love with my beloved and he's more than anything I ever dreamed up in my younger days. And the woman that I am blessed to call my best friend is one of the most phenomenal people I've ever had the privilege of knowing. The very thought of things being any other way just makes my heart stop beating.

Secondly, I couldn't help but notice that almost all of my most upsetting dreams occur near water. When we were in Australia, I had an especially bothersome dream that also involved being on the water. That was the last really sad dream that I had and I remember the remnants of it lingering for days on end. All of my subconscious sadness seems to happen by the water's edge and I can't seem to let go of trying to figure out why. I love the water and would spend my life within arms reach of it at all times if I had my way and yet...when my eyes are closed and my mind is lost, more tears seemed to be shed there than anywhere else. It's so unlike my usual emotions in the presence of water.

I know that dreams don't mean everything but I believe that they do mean something. In the deepest and darkest recesses of our mind, our thoughts come to life when we least expect it. I seemed to have settled down now from my rattled night in the row boat but I wish I understood why some dreams feel even larger than life...why some moments are heart wrenching even in sleep...and why some water just seems hurt more than others.

a moment of reprieve...

I’m sitting in my office right now looking out over the Ottawa River. The Canadian flag is blowing in the wind above the peace tower. Everything seems to have a slight glow and twinkle to it thanks to the newly fallen snow (which I love!). Winter is definitely in the air! It’s not dark yet but the darkness is definitely looming. In another hour or so, the street lights will start to come on, the stores along Sussex Drive will start to light up and the night will come to life.

I am surrounded, quite literally, by dozens of red roses and deep blue ribbon. We are opening our winter exhibit tonight; Bernini and the Birth of Baroque Portrait Sculpture, and the excitement is nearly over flowing in this building. It’s a rare quiet moment right now in what has otherwise been an adrenaline filled week. It’s so easy to forget the meaning and importance of our jobs sometimes when we’re knee deep in the mundane and occasionally repetitive tasks of our day to day routine. But then there are those moments in which it all comes together and you get to realize the significance of your contribution and how the picture wouldn’t be complete without it.

For weeks, I’ve been hiring contractors to mount posters, distribute brochures and create banners. I’ve been coordinating caterers, security, audio technicians, floor plans, volunteers and florists (so many red roses!). I’ve been going crossed-eyed with biographies of curators and artists, press releases, image sheets, lists of lenders and having nightmares about the wrong colour of blue! This is my job and tonight, it will play a tiny little role in the making of history…

Tonight, some of the most respected curators and gallery directors in the world will see the accomplishment of their life’s work through the opening of this exhibit; a look at 17th century sculpture in Italy. It’s been said that it’s likely we will never have the opportunity to see these pieces of art together in the same room ever again during our lifetime...and so tonight, we all come together, we open the bar, we raise a glass…and we celebrate. And then we sleep for the next four days!!

I love my job!

st. lawrence river...

Confession...

I’ve been having a secret affair. For a decade now, I’ve had an insatiable, irresistible, pulse quickening, heart pounding, legendary love affair. Regardless of the men who came in or out of my life, this one has prevailed. I had a date with my love just last night. And it was everything I remembered it to be.

His name is David. David Usher. His power of seduction is his first solo album entitled Little Songs and his poetic words from track number two, St. Lawrence River, is what keeps me coming back for more. Like the allure of an intoxicating scent or the secrets kept behind deep, dark eyes, I simply can’t resist. One moment of weakness and I’m caught up in his sweet story of redemption and I find myself falling in love all over again. Technically, I suppose it’s the album that I’m passionately in love with but since the music cannot exist without its maker, by default, David becomes part of the package!

We have just celebrated our 10th anniversary together. It’s hard to believe how much we’ve been through; our solid casings have been battered and cracked, our eloquent liner notes are fading away, but we’ve endured and we’re that much wiser for having done so.

It’s a funny story how Little Songs entered my life. It was 1998 and I was in my second year of university. I walked into a Gap store in downtown Ottawa in between classes. In the grand tradition that is Gap, one doesn’t get very far before “assistance” is eagerly gnawing at your heels. On this day in particular though, I found myself pleasantly surprised…a tall, cute, well-dressed guy with the most charming of smiles. He strolled up to me, said “hi” and when I smiled back, he said, “don’t I know you from somewhere?” “Hmmm…that’s original”, I thought to myself. “Aren’t you in my Theories of Communications class on Thursday nights?” he asked. So I was! Embarrassed that I didn’t recognize him in return, I proceeded to chat with him as long as the manager on duty would allow. Greg was his name…Greg from Kingston. Twenty minutes later, I had purchased a lot more than I could afford and felt a bit more excited about a class that otherwise left much to be desired. Things were looking up for the Gap!

And so it went for the next few weeks. We would chat and flirt during class. I would laugh at his jokes and he would compliment me on my newly acquired wardrobe. Finally, one Friday night, a couple of my friends and I went out to the campus bar for some drinks. Sure enough, through the crowds, towering above everyone else was my personal shopper…Greg from Kingston! Not only were we rather pleased at finally running into each other somewhere other than class but as it turned out, one of my friends happened to be good “friends” with his roommate (and from the looks of it, was hoping to become even better “friends”!!). So six of us spent the evening drinking, dancing, talking and hoping that it would stay 11 o’clock for hours on end. Wishful thinking aside though, closing time came after all and the bar was shutting its doors for the night. In denial, all of us headed back to Greg from Kingston and his roommate’s apartment. We ordered pizza, played pool and watched as the wee hours of the Saturday morning come one by one.

I think it’s worth mentioning that Greg from Kingston was a perfect gentleman. It wasn’t until the sun finally made its appearance over the horizon that he finally made his move! The apartment was winding down and I was getting ready to head home. My friends were fast asleep on couches nearby and Greg from Kingston replaced Lenny Kravitz with a newly opened CD from his stereo. As I was cleaning up beer bottles in his kitchen, he leaned in for the much anticipated first kiss. It was well worth the credit card debt in new clothes and lack of focus in class! Just moments into our kiss though, I heard it…the light strumming of a guitar and a melancholy voice that followed. I soon found myself unsure of whether or not I was lost in the kiss or this beautiful song. I had to know. Just like that, I forced myself out of the moment and asked him, “What is this song?” Slightly puzzled and certainly questioning his kissing abilities, he replied, “It’s St. Lawrence River by David Usher. I just bought the CD this morning”. Satisfied with my new found knowledge, I returned to my interrupted kiss, but this time, it was different. This time, it was the kind of kiss that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up…the kind of kiss that makes your stomach flip…the kind of kiss that tells you nothing will ever be the same ever again. I have to be honest though; it wasn’t Greg from Kingston that was making it happen…it was David and all the romance surrounding the river! I was falling in love!

I left shortly there after and never saw Greg again, but I did buy Little Songs the very next afternoon and it’s been a very passionate love affair ever since.

I saw Greg from Kingston a few years later and when I asked him how he was doing, he said, “Good! But I don’t listen to David Usher too much anymore…I didn’t appreciate him stealing my thunder!” I gave him my cutest wink and wished him farewell. I think he could tell that St. Lawrence River and I were still going strong!

Poor Greg! I couldn’t help but feel a little bad!

What’s a girl to do though? The sad, romantic melody…the sweet, sultry sounds…let’s be honest; this kind of love only comes around once in a lifetime!

“Funny how quiet has slipped to our corners
Worn all our edges away
You are watching breathing and baiting
Wanting and warming and cautiously waiting
For some simple signal to creep cross your conscience
Uncover redemption and oh did I mention
I carried you down to the St. Lawrence River
The banks running dirty the water's beginning to freeze here”

mothers and daughters...

I often get a lot of people emailing me about various posts that I submit on this blog, either responding to something that I’ve written or asking further questions about something that has peaked their curiosity. I enjoy receiving this feedback because, as a writer, it helps me to see where my writing leads people. Does it close the story or leave people hanging? In the publishing world, both are sought after in a writer (and being able to do both is even better!) but as the person doing the writing, I’m often so absorbed in the words that it’s hard for me to step back far enough to see where one story ends and the other begins.

This having been said, in recent months, I’ve had a lot of people write me to ask more about my relationship with my Mother. Obviously, I don’t write a lot about my Mother here. Much of the reason is because I knew that my Mother read my blog on a fairly regular basis and I always committed myself to not using this space to be hurtful to anyone (certainly not deliberately). In light of the current state of our relationship, I knew that could be done all too easily or at the very least, interpreted as such. Mostly though, I don’t know very much about my mother. I don’t know her very well as a person and I haven’t had a relationship with her in a really long time…so this doesn’t leave much to write about.

I’ve been realizing lately though that maybe this isn’t really true. Maybe there is a lot to be said in regards to that relationship but I don’t do so in order to cast aside certain feelings. Really what this means though is that I am compromising my own feelings in order to manage someone else’s…something that I’ve been doing for a very long time and needs to stop. This doesn’t mean that I am no longer forced to be objective about our relationship or even compassionate for that matter, but it does mean that for perhaps the first time in my life, I am realizing that my feelings have to matter as well.

My Mother and I were a great team when I was little. She raised an only child on her own and fully committed herself to giving a life better than the one she knew growing up. A notable and medal worthy task for any parent none the less a single one. She was fantastic and for all of her own troubles, distinctly found the way to infuse me with all the skills I would need to make it in this world. She is strong and creative and inspired and really wants to leave a beautiful mark on the world, which in my opinion, she already has. My Mother sacrificed a lot for me…maybe even too much. She basically sacrificed her entire entity into being a parent and left very little room for being anything else.

During the mid 90s, I moved to Ottawa to go to University, she moved out West for a new life and all the while, we basically walked away from our relationship, leaving it behind to wither and die like a plant that hasn’t been watered for too long. While the leaves still had a bit of life left in them, we did try to pick things up where they left off but the problem was that things change. People change. We changed. We changed so much that eventually, we were like two strangers walking in the world together. Not only had all the leaves on the plant died…but all the roots were gone as well. There was nothing left.

I struggled internally for a long time to accept the dwindling state of my relationship with my mother. Our final visit with one another, in early 2006, was devastating. Like most of our visits during the ten years prior to this one, it was filled with anger, judgment, resentment and criticism and it was during that visit that I uncovered my biggest source of unhappiness in regards to my mother; I realized what I disliked most when relating to my mother was me. I didn’t like my self in her presence. I didn’t like the person I would become and the emotions that I would feel every time she would reappear in my life. It became clear to me that parent/child relationships, especially ours, are very co-dependent and fragile. My mother did the very best that she could in raising me and her best was everything I needed as a little girl. The reality was though that we were no longer an only daughter and a single mother…we were adults and adult lives are about choices and having the courage to make the necessary choices. After my mother finally left to go back West, I spent nearly fourteen hours cleaning every square inch of our apartment and I made the most important decision that I’ve ever made; that I was no longer going to dislike myself ever again.

The months that followed were potentially the most emotionally grueling that I’ve ever endured. I cried almost every day for four months, even when I thought that there wasn’t a single tear left to shed. I wasn’t angry at my mother…I was grieving for myself. I was mourning the person that I never became because I had never learned how to let go of being anything but my mother’s daughter. There is such a danger in becoming the very essence of another person, even a person that you love and admire because we simply can’t live for each other. Nearly thirty years had passed and I was still making decisions to please someone that wasn’t even a part of my life anymore. I was making decisions to get the approval of other people…a driving force that can eat you alive if you let it.

Over the course of the years that followed, I learned more about myself than I had in the twenty-five years leading up to this moment. I was finally becoming me, a person that I had never really met before and the process has been one of the most incredible experiences of my life. There has been a down side too though; as I broke away and learned to walk through this life as my own person, I also had to accept that my relationship with my mother was never going to be the same again, and that was very sad. I had to accept that our relationship, for the last ten years, was indeed unhealthy and that if it was ever to exist again, it had to become something different. Somehow, in the back recesses of our mind though, even the things that upset us the most can be hard to let go of because while they made be dysfunctional…at least they are something, which for some people, is better than nothing. And so it went…I mourned the death of a relationship that couldn’t be saved and with it, any anger and resentment that came along for the ride. It’s as though I woke up one day and suddenly realized that, without even noticing it, I had let go of her. Just like that, my existence was no longer tied to hers anymore and my life had begun to go on without her. It’s been nearly two and a half years now.

For so many years, I had fought with my mother for feeling like she was crossing and pushing my boundaries but during all that time…I had never bothered to set my boundaries with her in the first place. I was constantly getting angry for a line being crossed that I had never actually drawn in the sand. It’s just one of the things that I’m learning how to do in this new time, new place, as this new person. And so that’s where we stand…and that is why I don’t talk about my Mother too much here; in both of our transitions, we haven’t found a way to know each other again. Our paths have not only been unable to cross again, but they have actually gone in completely opposite directions. I don’t know the person that she is now or the person that she hopes to be. She doesn’t know who I am now or the person that I hope to be. It just goes to show that east doesn’t necessarily always meet west and that blood isn’t always thicker than water. In the meantime though, I talk about what I do know…holiday memories, childhood days spent in London and a time when we tackled the world together before the fate of parting ways took over.

If your path happens to be fortunate enough to cross hers…say hi to her for me…and tell her to let the phone ring twice, hang up and call again. She’ll know what it means.

waiting...

My father is at the hospital right now. While everyone else was taking a moment of silence for Remembrance Day...I was driving my dad to Montfort hospital to sign him in for his surgery. I knew the moment that I saw him that he was nervous; He was pale and quiet...just what I would expect. I would likely be the same way.

Hospitals leave much to be desired. This one in particular though is even less appealing because it's currently undergoing renovations. We walked in through the main lobby and felt like we had just entered a dungeon. Construction workers everywhere, dark and dinging lighting, improvised admission areas to accommodate the otherwise congested wings of the hospital…it makes the experience of waiting for surgery even more anxious.

I don’t know how people do it…the people that have to spend countless days, weeks, months or even years going in and out of hospitals. How do they cope with the endless despair of being in these places? The bare walls, the medicinal smell, the token coffee and gift shop down in the lobby. It seems to me that if anywhere should be wrought with design consideration, it should be hospitals. There has got to be a more hopeful way of plastering the walls than this.

When we arrive at my father’s surgical wing, they ask us to wait in the hall. A “waiting room” has been created in the elevator lobby for all of us. I’m sitting on a plastic chair next to a vending machine while my father paces up and down the hallway. Finally, the nurse comes and tells us that visitors are no longer permitted from this point on and that it would be in everyone’s best interest for me to go home and wait there. “We’ll call in fiver or six hours,” she tells me. Dad and I look at each other and I give him a hug. He goes in to experience an endless array of medical jargon from anesthesiologists and surgeons, and I go home…to wait.

I feel like we’ve been waiting a lot lately...

bondage by any other name...

Have you ever been given permission to be angry?

I know that this must sound like a very strange question but I’m genuinely curious to know. Anger was not something that was easily addressed in my family, at least not in a productive way. Anger often resulted in extreme defensiveness and hurt feelings. Most of all, anger usually resulted in unresolved issues years, and even decades later. I don’t judge or criticize my upbringing at all because anger is not an easy emotion to deal with nonetheless to teach others how to deal with, but I did grow up believing that anger should be avoided at all cost…or at the very least, the expression of anger should be avoided. I believed this because anger so often seemed to be associated with blame and I was always taught to be accountable for your own actions and to consider what contribution you may have made to any given situation. In an age where society is found less and less accountable for their actions, I feel that my parents (and those that assisted in raising me) were brilliant to enforce this in me at such a young age.

I bring this up though because I am starting to see anger quite differently as an adult. My husband and I seldom get very angry with each other but when we do, we give each other permission to be angry. Sometimes, that’s all we need; an hour or so to be curmudgeon and cranky before we move on to resolution. This has worked well for us and our anger rarely extends for very long. My marriage has enlightened me to the necessity of actually feeling and expressing our anger and how easily it can be overcome when it’s addressed constructively.

Right now, I am angry about something; something completely unrelated to my marriage or my work or even my day to day living for that matter. It’s something that has been a long time coming and something that I have been forced to avoid feeling angry about because I’ve managed to convince myself that I don’t have the right to be angry about it. I was reading a psychology book a little while ago and it was discussing how so often, in our desire to forgive and let go, we tend to bypass the process of feeling angry in order to bring closure to whatever conflict we are dealing with. As a result, we often find ourselves with very unresolved emotions that can often manifest itself in very self-destructive ways. This book also discussed the ever so sensitive issue of blame and the role that it plays in conflict. Apparently some believe that while everyone does have their part to play, in many instances, someone truly is to blame more than the other. In an ideal world, we could all share equal responsibility but in a realistic world, we have developed so many different coping mechanisms that this is rarely the case.

What happens though when your anger is directed towards the human equivalent of a brick wall…someone that won’t listen, won’t fight back and certainly won’t acknowledge or apologize? This is the dilemma that I find myself in; to finally express (or at least, put into words) my feelings and risk further anger due to the lack of responsiveness, or walk away…aware that it will most definitely remain unresolved, likely for all the days of our life?

As I have come to understand anger a bit better over the past few years, I have also come to realize, much to my own surprise, that I’m actually entitled to be angry. I have the right to have feelings as well and most of all, I deserve closure from it and the permission to move on just as much as anyone else does. There is one last thing though…one final piece to the emotional puzzle; when you finally discover that you have the right to be freed from the bondage of your anger, you also discover that the only person able to grant you that permission is you. And that, my dear friends, is all the freedom that you’ll ever need.

what a wonderful world...

"I see skies of blue...clouds of white...bright blessed days...

dark sacred nights...and I think to myself...

what a wonderful world..."

~ Louis Armstrong

Tell me...what do you see?

procrastination...

“Procrastination is the thief of time and the grave of opportunity”

This is what my English teacher had posted above our black board when I was in grade six. It sounds a bit intense for twelve year olds but I have had it memorized ever since. My English teacher always believed that the only thing standing between us and our purpose in the world was procrastination.

Have you ever found yourself saying the following statement; “When [blank] happens, then I will finally [blank]”? You know…”when I lose weight then I will finally starting running” or “when I meet the right man then I will finally be happy” or “when I have enough money then I will finally start saving for that dream trip”… and the list goes on. Really, it’s basic math, right…X+Y=Z. Or is it? Instead, is it possible that it could be procrastination cleverly disguised as rational planning?

Personally, I’m not much of a procrastinator at all. I have a tendency to be addicted to lists. My brain LOVES lists and these lists keep me on a constant roll of checking one thing off after another. I have though, just recently found myself caught in the very trap that my English teacher warned us about so many years ago…

I am procrastinating the writing of my book!

There, I said it! It’s finally out there in the universe and there’s no taking it back now! I realized this just this morning as I was getting infuriated with myself about not having enough time to get all the writing done that I wanted to. Somehow, even when the smallest little window of opportunity presents itself, I manage to find something else that simply can’t wait. And so, the cycle continues. Oddly enough, the subject line to my daily devotional this morning was “what’s your excuse?” I had to laugh at God’s sense of humour!

So then, what is my excuse? Well, based on our very reliable formula for life, I would have to say “when everything else gets done, then I will finally throw myself into my book”. Ha…now there’s a joke if I ever did hear one! When exactly will the day come when EVERYTHING will get done?!?! The answer to that equation is easy enough! This very obvious flaw in my logic left me with no other choice but to confront the real reason why I seem to be putting it off…

Failure is scary…but success is even scarier.

happy obama day...

I can't possibly think of a more beautiful

day to start changing the world!

my missing link...

I spent the day at home yesterday trying to ward off a nasty cold that I’ve been shaking since before Thanksgiving. While I’ve been feeling much better over the past couple of weeks, our busy weekend left me feeling a bit depleted and I could feel the germs trying to take advantage of my weakened immune system. Punks!

Anyways, I spent part of the day yesterday going through some of my old post and archiving them on my hard drive. I also took the opportunity to look through my online statistics to see what some of my most popular posts are, either by voluntary hits or by search words. As it turns out, there are a lot of music fans out there eager to read up on other music fans!

Not only do people google “John Mayer” a whole heck of a lot (and really, who wouldn’t?!?!) but this post about my CD collection and old boyfriends, first written last fall in preparation for our move, ranks right up there as one of the top read articles on my blog. Apparently I’m not the only one whose CD collection is the musical equivalent of a relationship bone yard!

Anyone that knows me well knows that I need music the same way I need books and oxygen; life simply isn’t sustainable without it. My uncle was in the radio and music business when I was young and I spent a lot of time being constantly surrounded with music of all kinds. As I grew up, I used music as a means to manage my feelings and I simply became dependent on it the same way some teenagers become dependent on drugs or athletics. I suppose it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when my first love turned out to be a musician that was also in the radio business!

Music has become one of the ways that I have defined the moments of my life. When I don’t have the words, any number of songs seemed to be able to fill in the blanks for me. Music reminds me of people, places, times both good and bad, and often changes the course of my day when it seems headed in the wrong direction. Music is my escape and my indulgence; it’s my addiction and mode of recovery; it’s my pain and my joy. So needless to say that it seemed a bit strange to me that I had no reference to it at all on my blog other than what I expressed in my own words. How could this blog possibly be an accurate reflection of who I am when music was left out of the picture? Madness, I say!

So, with no html experience at all, I went on a mission to add the missing piece of my life to my corner of cyberspace…I went on the hunt for a useable playlist! Blogger has a lot of really good gadgets and features but unfortunately, playlists are not one of them! But like any good junkie, I wasn’t going to let a technical difficulty stop me! So, at long last (three hours later to be exact!), I had “trial and error-ed” my way to the fancy new playlist on my sidebar…a very tiny glimpse into my love affair with music. I have to say…I was rather proud! Being the technically crippled person that I am, it felt like something worth singing about!!!

Enjoy! You may even see a song about you on there!