Wish I'd Known

No big deal.
Just a literal walking dream come true.

When I was fifteen, my family moved to New Zealand for a short time. Fifteen is an interesting age to be uprooted and dropped into any new school and community, let alone one halfway around the world, but I signed on to the adventure willingly.

While I was there, I became a fan of an Australian TV show called Home and Away, which at that time starred actress Isla Fisher, and I thought Isla was the most beautiful name I’d ever heard. I’d dreamed of being a mother since I was a little girl; at fifteen, I day-dreamed that one day I’d have a little girl of my own named Isla.

Fifteen years ago today, my Isla was born.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I wish I’d known at fifteen, what I wish for my daughter to know as she sets off on another year of growing up and growing into herself.

I wish I’d known that perfection is an illusion and striving for it is a fool’s game.

I wish I’d known that self-validation feels so, so much better than validation by anyone else, and particularly the validation of boys.

I wish I’d known that you can be compassionate and also have boundaries, and that each is strengthened by the other.

I wish I’d known that opinions, particularly of the unpopular variety, make a woman an inspiration, not an outcast.

I wish I’d known that it is okay to be angry and sad and to say so.

I wish I’d known I had an abundance of time and opportunity ahead of me, so I could relax a little.

And when I was fifteen, I wish I’d known that when you came into my life, my Isla, you’d be an answer to the question: What am I here for? I wish I’d known that mothering you would save me and give me purpose. I’ve been your mother imperfectly and I’ve carried you while carrying my self-doubt and I’ve battled my shadows while your tiny feet shadowed mine, and now I have both the incredible pleasure and the heart-shattering agony of watching you begin to take steps away from me, without my hand in yours.

It is wild to me that I’m the mother of a fifteen-year-old. It is wilder still that I get to be the mother of you in particular and bear witness as you build what I know will be a beautiful life. I would say that I wish I’d known it would be like this, but the truth is I’m happy for the delightful surprise of you. You’re kind of a big deal. You’re a dream come true.

Welcome Home

My home. Or the bank’s home, I guess, but they let me live here.

In early March 2020, I signed paperwork to purchase a home. It was a significant moment. I had owned a home before, but this is the first time I would own one on my own. In the early days after my divorce, living in my rental, trying to figure out what life might look like moving forward, I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to a time when it would be possible to own my own home. I felt proud that day.

And scared. And even more scared when the pandemic hit and my town went into lockdown a mere 11 days after I’d legally promised to pay for this house. None of us knew what was coming. Fortunately, my family remained healthy, my job remained stable and, weird bonus but I’m grateful: mortgage interest rates came down. The kids and I moved into our new home in late June 2020, waving at our new neighbours from a safe distance, and it became our sanctuary during a few of the strangest years I think many of us have experienced. (If you have to weather a pandemic, I recommend doing so in the countryside if at all possible. Also, foster kittens and adopt a few because four cats is a totally reasonable number of cats to own.)

As physical structures go, there have been three places in my life that have really been homes to me: my grandparents’ farm up north, the little green and white house I grew up in, and my home in my small country village. But what makes these places home can be found in places not made of brick and mortar, not surrounded by wildflowers, not decorated with a million throw pillows (I have a problem). Home means calm to me. It means safety. It’s a place where I can be myself. It’s an opportunity to connect with the bigger picture, not only the stars above but the stardust I’m made of.

Home can be found in people, and I’m fortunate to have several beautiful homes who text to check in on me, who find thrift store treasures they think I might like, who will at least tolerate if not laugh uproariously at my goofy jokes.

Home can be found in moments in time: in noticing the soft tree-sifted light of a forest, in wearing the same shirt as a stranger, in seeing a ‘90s neon wind suit costume at Spirit Halloween.

Home can be found in art: brushstrokes that just get it right for you, a TV show that is warm and perfect like the best mac and cheese (food can be home, too), hearing a song come on the radio that is your JAM (also, jam on toast, am I right?).

Welcome home: You are safe and loved. You are a part of the universe, you are located on a motherlovin’ timeline. You are meaningful: you are FULL of meaning and stardust and ‘90s Canadian soft rock song lyrics.

I am expansively grateful for the walls surrounding me, but I’m more grateful for the home I experienced in the moments when we painted them, so imperfectly, laughing. I breathe so easy in my cozy bedroom but I also breathe in home through the window screen in the sounds of the coyotes at night and nearby cows braying the day away. I love my open concept living space but I love even more the home I feel when my kids and I play Bananagrams here and watch Stranger Things and lift our feet because Ewok the hamster’s speeding by in his plastic ball (oh yeah, we got a hamster, too).

I wonder: Where do you feel at home? Who do you feel at home with? What song lyrics do you live in? Also, do you have a good mac and cheese recipe? I wonder many things. I’d love to hear from you, below. And if you’re struggling to find the safety and warmth of a home - in walls or arms - I am wishing it for you so hard and, in the meantime and always, please make yourself at home here. You are seen and you are stardust.

Reacquaintance

A calm, sandy beach with only the most delicate of waves. A dark land mass is seen on the horizon and above it, a blue sky with puffy white clouds. Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia.

We went to the beach at low tide.

It was summer, the one just past, and we were in Nova Scotia visiting family. Or, not visiting family. They caught the virus-that-must-not-be-named so we couldn’t see them until the end of our trip. Therefore: exploring.

A beach at low tide might be one of the top three places for exploration, in my opinion. Also up there: a really, really old - like really old - and cluttered antique shop. And a mother’s box of costume jewellery and trinkets when you’re a kid. And when you’re not a kid.

Do you like shells? Do you like stuffing your pockets with all the pretty shells and figuring out later how you will take them on the plane ride home because that’s a tomorrow problem? Do you like smoothing your fingertips over pebbles and finding one that has the perfect cove for your thumb? You’ve come to the right place.

As in-landers who generally have to content themselves with lazy lake shorelines that are tight-lipped with their secrets, the ocean is magic. (No hard feelings, lakes. You’re pretty great.) We spent a few hours in the roll of it: solo contemplation scanning feet-ward for treasures, dotted with exclamations of success and joy.

Crabs! An in-lander knows that ocean beaches have crabs but THERE THEY ACTUALLY ARE. And oysters in their shells (we think they’re oysters). Can you pick them up? While the others gently poked at them with driftwood, I found myself reaching down. What’s the worst a maybe-oyster could do to me, I thought, and it turned out to be not much. Spit some water, I guess. No big whoop, as we used to say and should definitely start saying again. We left with pockets heavy and hearts light; sometimes a cliché just gets it right, you know?

The past few years have been a low-tide scour. An unearthing of what hasn’t been seen or even sought after. An unoceaning, rather. Yes, I like that better. I don’t know what the moon has been up to but the ebbing has been vast and swift and in many ways very necessary, and with every drawing back of the wave, I’ve heard the question: Who am I now?

Who am I now?

Who am I now that we are all so sick, and sick of being sick?

Who am I now that racial violence is erupting, new and yet so very achingly old?

Who am I now that my children are teenagers and nearly-teenagers and eyeing the runway?

Who am I now as relationships unfold?

Who am I now as they fall away?

Who am I now in this body that is both failing and awakening in the same moment?

Who am I now in this moment?

And who am I now in this one?

And who am I now?

And who am I now?

Our collective ebb and my personal, customized-just-for-me-by-the-universe unoceaning have revealed both unexpected treasures and maybe-oyster-like curiosities requiring brave examination: And what are you? And what are you? And what are you?

And through these years of ebbing, I’ve wondered about the flow, and then pleaded with the flow, and then resolved myself to it never returning. But here it is and I want to write again and I have something to say. Nothing earth-shattering, I imagine, but there are words and they are only here because of that profound ebbing. We need to fall away to come together. We need to think before we speak.

I’m excited to share with you all the pretty shells I found and the weird things I got brave about, the sharp rocks I avoided and the ones that I couldn’t sidestep no matter how hard I tried.

I have been happy to make my reacquaintance and I’m happy to make yours, too. Thank you for flowing this way, either again or for the first time. If you’re new, I hope you like long-winded analogies.

And who are you in this moment? What has the unoceaning revealed to you? I’d love if you’d share below. I’ve missed you, kind of a lot.

Jump for Joy: Play

I’m tired
And some days I need to rest
Cheer you on from the sidelines
Turn when you say “Look mama!”
Give you juice and gentle hugs
But on others
When I can
I’ll be your lift off
Hold you up by my feet so you’re flying
Tumble on the soft grass
Fling these bones into cartwheels and handstands
Chase you into giggles
Do it all again

Jump for Joy is a series on JTTG about small, simple ways to boost the joy in your life.   

Within These Walls

My girls and I moved into our home 4 years and 7 months ago, and tomorrow (or later today, I should say) we move out and on to a new life in a new home. I'm too tired to find the words for everything I want to say about what this home has meant to us, but it's too momentous an occasion to let it slip by without some acknowledgment.

When we moved in, I was a wreck.  My relationship of 16 years had ended and for the first time in my adult life, I was alone.  Or not quite.  Alone with my daughters - 2 and 5 years old - who depended on me to figure this new life out, which seemed a tall order when I had no idea who I even was anymore.

The first night I moved in was New Year's Eve and, with the girls at their father's as it was 'his' night (a bizarre concept then and even now), I felt truly alone.  At midnight, I took off my wedding ring and told myself in my bravest voice that I was going to be okay, not really believing it but knowing that those two little girls needed me to try.  I recently came across a piece I wrote a few years ago about that turning point in my life and moving into this home.  In it I wrote: "I found a new, ghost-less home, warm and bright with a playground nearby.  It would do.  The walls looked thick enough to withstand my heartbreak and its alt-folk soundtrack."

I wrote not too long ago about how much has changed for me since that time, so I won't repeat myself here.  I am leaving this home a different woman, and a very grateful one.  I'm grateful for so many blessings in my life, not the least of which has been this home that has been my sanctuary.

Tonight at midnight, I took a moment to say thank you.  I even left a note.  Several months, perhaps a year or so, after I moved in, I decided to paint my bedroom and in doing so came across a note that someone had written on the wall inside the closet, up above the closet door.  It is faint and difficult to decipher in the photo.  It reads: "My 2 beautiful babies have blessed this home, and have created so many wonderful memories for me within its walls.  Me. 10/21/03".  I painted around it, and later discovered that there were dates and names - presumably those of her (I'm assuming "her") children - written on the walls inside the closets of the other two bedrooms.  It continues to fill me with such warmth to know that they loved this home, too.

So tonight, before they went to bed, my girls scrawled their names and the date inside their closets, right beside "Sydni" and "Noah".  And at midnight, I climbed up on a chair and added my note to the wall in my closet, soon to belong to someone else.  I didn't have time to think ahead about what to write, to plan things out as I always like to.  I just went with what came from my heart in the moment:  "This has been our home for 4 1/2 years.  It is where I healed, and where my daughters and I have grown.  It has been full of love, and we are leaving with so many happy memories that we made here within these walls.  This is a special place, and it will always hold a special place in my heart.  Kirsi July 29/17".

As I sit here tonight, in this home for the last time, I am thinking about those happy memories.  My girls are now 7 and 9.  They've grown so much here.  And they can't wait for the new bunkbed in the new room they'll be sleeping in tomorrow night and the big back yard and mostly the cat that they think we are getting soon (that yes, we are probably getting soon).  But I know that they will remember this place as fondly as I will, and we will go on to make new memories in our new home.

The tenants moving in after us are a mother and child.  I hope some day they come across our notes and the ones from before us, and they add their own and speak of the love and joy they found here, too.  There's plenty of room for more love and joy and gratitude.

Shine

My daughters are rock hounds.  They come home from outdoor outings pockets heavy with their treasures: sparkly mica, smooth pebbles, rocks shaped like hearts, mama!  One afternoon last fall I took them to a gem shop I'd discovered and their jaws dropped at the sight of a room full of polished stones of every colour.
 
They are not terribly discerning in their selections, though, to my eye.  Pale, dull, ordinary granite is as precious as glittering quartz and magical tigereye.
 
Which is how a chunk of concrete that somehow became detached from our front porch - no one knows how, mama! - came to decorate our bathroom shelf alongside an amethyst I purchased for a pretty penny.  "Really?" I asked my daughter when she brought it to me, delighted at her find, before I swiftly shut myself up.  She thinks it's beautiful - all the small stones bound together in shades of steel and mouse and storm - and that's all that matters.
 
Like I have with so many other works of young art and scavenging, I put the concrete on display to appease her.  I don't have a home, to my mind.  Rather, I have the pleasure of living in the home that belongs to my daughters.  This home is the scene of their childhood, in significant part, and I aim to make it warm and safe and a reflection of them and our love.  I'll have plenty of time to have a home of my own - with things 'just so' - when they grow up and leave me, a day that is coming far too quickly (sob).  Until then, our home is their nest and they can weave it with whatever shiny things catch their crow eyes, whichever bits of concrete they pry loose, as far as I'm concerned.
 
But I've found, over these last few months, that my appeasement has slowly given way to appreciation, my eyes seeing beauty through hers.  The stones are both precious - one by birth and one by my child's holy anointing - and they have come to serve as a reminder to look for the beauty in the everyday, to try to see the world as a child does, which is just as it is in all its splendour: wonderful and gorgeous without even trying.  Worth a second glance.
 
The stones have also proven to have healing properties.
 
When the unusual pairing catches my eye, this Lauryn Hill lyric almost always floats to the surface of my mind:
 
 "Don't be a hard rock when you really are a gem."
 
I've been a hard rock, lately.  I've been closed off and shut down by circumstances both within and without.  Depression blew down my door with the cold wind of winter, not as ferocious as in years past but still biting and ambivalent to my corner-cowering.  My foundation has also been rattled by some upsetting interactions - one very personal, one professional, and one with a complete stranger - which all share the common thread of my words being taken by others not as they were intended, or with the benefit of the doubt, but instead, in twisted ways that formed spike strips, busting my tires and the self-belief they were inflated with.
 
Truth, or at least my best attempt to reach it, is the reason I write because it's the reason we're here.  I wear my share of masks and utter pretty cover-ups, too, but the good stuff is always the raw, honest truth underneath what we manufacture. Life is about mining for that truth - for what is honest, for real connection - and vulnerability is truth's necessary companion; it's the rope down that chasm.  It's slippery and knotted at uneven lengths or not at all for a stretch.  It's a long way down and vulnerability is the only way to the bottom where the good stuff is waiting.  But it comes with risk.  The rewards are worth it, but the slip-footed fumbles make me question the expedition, sometimes.
 
Do I keep writing? I've asked myself.  Do I keep telling my truth?  Do I keep entrusting it to ears that may ring with judgments and malformed translations?
 
Do I turn bitter and angry?  Do I turn away from those who have hurt me?  Do I board up my heart?
 
I've been holed up these last few months, quiet with my questions and doubts.  I've been hardening beneath their weight.  The truths I want to tell - which are simple and concomitantly complex -  have compressed smaller and smaller into a thin layer of exhausted meekness formerly known as ferocity.
 
Then, one recent morning, the stones caught my attention and the refrain again belted through my brain: "Don't be a hard rock when you really are a gem."   This time, however, the soloist kept repeating: You're a gem, you're a gem, you're a gem, you're a gem, you're a gem.
 
You're a gem.  And you need to shine.
 
The tectonic plates under my life shifted in that moment and there was a buckling in me.  A new mountain range.  These events are never really as sudden as they seem - they are the culmination of millions of moments - but the feeling that overcame me felt that way.  I felt suddenly done.  Done with ears that don't listen.  Done with thoughtless broken telephone games that lead from careless ears to mistaken judgments on lips.  Done with being a hard rock.
 
I'm going to shine.
 
I'm going to keep dangling on vulnerabilities.  I'm going to load my pockets with the truths I find down the chasm, and I'm going to climb back up and shout, "Hey, guys! Come see what I found!" and speak those truths loud and clear.
 
I'm going to thaw my heart and forgive and give others the benefit of the doubt even when I feel they haven't done the same for me.  I will meet callousness and carelessness with kindness.  I will keep striving for connection.
 
The stones will remain on our bathroom shelf, lining our nest, a priceless art installation on the themes of beauty and strength.  And when my eyes alight upon them, I will hear that familiar refrain and be reminded to shine.

I will feel beautiful in my shades of steel and mouse and storm.  And on days when others see me as concrete, I will anoint myself as precious.