Mommy’s Groove

Dear Oconto Counsellor,

Mary S Edgar, the founder of Glen Bernard camp famously wrote: “Once you have been a camper, something has come to stay. Deep in your heart forever, which nothing can take away. “

This poem rattled around in my mind this week, as I prepared my daughter for her first weeks away at camp.  As I talked her about her upcoming Oconto experience, I relived many laughs with friends, overnight trips, camp songs and waterfront challenges. It felt like I could step back into those days again, and enjoy the camp experience all over again with my daughter. I wanted to go to camp too!

I was excited for her first canoe lesson and pull of the bow at archery. I could almost smell the cinnamon buns on Sunday mornings, and the hot cocoa on a rainy day. I could feel the nervous excitement of waiting behind the curtain for my part in skit night. And I held my breath imagining my broken-hearted daughter leaving new camp friends at the end of the session.

Today was perfection. A glowing child, who had packed all by herself and was prepared for her first camping experience.  The sun shone bright, and the welcome committee was out! As I scanned through those faces, young and bright, reality met my memories and I knew camp was no longer my place. I had long ago entrusted it and the spirit of camping to another generation.

But driving away, having left my beloved daughter in your care, my mind turned from nostalgia to a more parental perspective.  It is her turn to be given the camping spirit.

I remember being where you are.  The feeling that camp is in me. I wore my staff shirt with pride and sense of responsibility. I remember feeling as a counselor like a natural extension of the camper experience.  I loved having my cabin group of kids who relied on me and whose shining faces I would greet each morning and evening. I wanted to help them find a challenging camp activity and experience the soft landing place in friendships by the fire. I wanted to sing with them and see their faces shine with the pride of a new skill acquired.

My daughter is now one of those faces. I have hopes for her to embrace the spirit of camping and to challenge herself in whatever ways her heart desires. I want her to sing til her voice is tired, to bravely jump into a spotlight and to show her caring by helping a friend settle-in or succeed. And I hope that you, between teaching your camp activity and enjoying your camp friends at play, take time to see her for who she is and what she needs from you – her mentor, caregiver and camping leader.

Thank you for your care of the one I love. I know you have been taught well, because once you have been a camper, something has come to stay…

Yours in camping,

Your camper’s Mum

There is struggle going on between me and my writing. I am doing my usual processing: allowing the facts to hit me, soak in and be understood in their own sweet time. I always know that when the path to wherever is clear, I will start typing and be off. No hesitation, no judgment no worries.

But she, my writing, has another agenda. She wants the flexibility to get on with it. She doesn’t want to wait for the clouds to part and for there to be focus, clarity and a driving structure. She wants to get dirty, wrestle with the words and see what sense they will make of themselves.

I love structure and order. I consider myself a lover of systems and process. But I have also proved that I can live with ambiguity and pace myself through change. This is the real root of the conflict between me and her. I feel as if I am in transition, one foot here and another peaking out the door to I don’t now where. I busy myself during this time with the details of living. I reason that with Chuck travelling for long stretches and the kids still turning more toward me than away, that my scatteredness is justified - no, it’s an asset. It makes me available, it requires me to be Present, in the Here and Now.

For those who like structure, order and value routine, being Here and Now is not a comfortable place. For the Here and Now is messy. It involves dealing with the emotions du jour, picking up the threads of instruction from school and weaving them into dinner preparation or plotting the next tour du Kitchener-Waterloo to gather life’s necessities. Order and routine involve planning, an understanding of motives and a grand plan to deliver a highly valued scheme - like consistent bedtime so one achieves the benefits of serotonin and can be alert at school. I like the bigger picture, but my life cannot be planned and I live in the tension between the uncertainty in my daily life and the illusion I create that I am able to order and plan. For I am not.

So my writing and I, we have tension we are trying to reconcile. It’s much like the tensions between Mommy’s Groove and the corporate head which still dwells within me. We continue to wrestle. This is our dance.

Dear House,

You have been so much more to us since those tentative early days of 1999. Remember when we first met? You were nothing more than joists, new shingles and a dry foundation.

In those first months, you came to know what a loving couple could do for you and must have resolved to repay us. Our debt to one another is paid. While we embraced you from those first days, visiting, attending to every detail to ensure you were sound in form and function you emerged to be our strong, safe home base. You sighed with us as we navigated those first complicated months, and you cocooned with us when we needed reassurance and refuge.

As we brought in pieces to make you a home, you stood with pride, steadfast in your resolve to meet our needs. Then you were witness to our marriage vows and welcomed our new family for the first time. You watched as Kate came into the world, as startled as we were by her first fierce yells. Then less than 2 years later, as you held our first babe tight, we welcomed our sweet boy into your safe den.

Our family was made here. Our family as grown here. Our family has had happiness, prosperity, security and laughter. Blessedly, you turned a blind eye to our weaker parenting moments and allowed us to celebrate the tickle fights and the new puppy’s arrival.

When I leave this house on Thursday, I will cry like I am leaving a old friend forever. Something will be lost that day. Your neighbourhood where we have made warm, loving friendships will no longer be our path through life. We will have to find new friends, favourite tea shops and trusted advisors. While we cannot take you with us, we will keep our beach friends. And we will leave you with a sound foundation, beautiful energy and the blessing of a new family for which to care. Be as good to them as you have been to us.

Thank you house for giving us the many blessings of our 9 years together here: The laughter, the love, the wonderful food and lovely wine, the baby clothes and the colourful snowsuits, the cribs turned to big kid beds, the workout room adjacent to the playroom, the tub big enough for 4, the candle light nights and the Jane filled days. These are among many gifts I am thankful for this week.

And for the friends to whose doors you lead me, for the schools who nurtured the love of learning in Kate & Michael and for the local beauty, I am grateful. House you will be missed, fondly remembered and a mark on the map as the house where I joined the love of my life and were my children were born. You’re the best house on the map from where I sit; still right here with you.

All my love, Kath

I must break my little boy’s heart now and again.

It’s at the same time of day—you know the one. Just after your body has moved into that state of deep relaxation which allows you to do your night work—learning, remembering and problem solving—REM sleep. Then suddenly BHAM!! You’re called upon to mother in the dark.

I have confessed before, and clearly I need more work because my shortcoming remain: I am a better mother in the light. The dark voice is mostly silent when the light shines in. But woken out of that deep, vulnerable state, I suck. It must be a heart breaking experience for Michael. I am clearly not his Mum.

Saturday night, jolted out of my sleep and into the room, I could only think about how I was sick and tired of being disturbed during my sleep (me, me, me) and how Chuck suffers more from interrupted sleep than I (he’s going to be grumpy). I wanted Michael to just stop and go back to bed already!

I did not even attempt to problem solve or listen to his concern; I never even asked. I was too deeply into myself and Chuck’s issues. Even his tears left me unmoved. I heard them as theatrical, not real in my dark sleepy fog.

But then I made it worse. I got angry that he settled into the floor mattress in our bedroom (set-up because being near me seems to resolve any need he presents, with the added benefit that I don’t have to physically get up), and irrationally decided to add to the dynamic that he should stop sleeping with us. Why did I say that? What was the point in the dark of night, with 3 sleeps disrupted, when he would have settled down?

It was fear. I was talking from a fear of having an upset, cranky husband who needed to start the week rested, not exhausted. I take ownership of resolving these night wakings because it is me Michael wants. Ergo, I should be able to prevent these issues, my mind erroneously asserts in the dark.

I had another recent failure, when I reasoned that perhaps the middle-of-the-night accommodations in our room were just too comfortable and perhaps if I made them less ideal he would stay put in his bed. No, he didn’t stay put. We had a couple of nights of his waking up like clock-work, settling in and sleeping restlessly as his blankets came off repeatedly. That was cumulatively painful for Chuck who had been trying to get up to work-out at 6 a.m.. He lost his rhythm and his work-outs and spent the start of every day flogging himself and feeling tired. I felt like it was my fault.

I fear the failure.

Yet somehow, that fear doesn’t propel me to act from my heart which always resolves issues, it inspires knee-jerk, ineffective solutions and heightened adrenaline. All unhelpful for resolving a little boy’s problems and getting everyone back to sleep quickly. And I cannot in good conscience help but wonder where these crazy ideas come from in the middle of the night. They are so clearly not part of my make-up during the light, so where am I getting them?

It’s all completely irrational, and this discussion of it, total naval gazing. I should simply follow the fine example Chuck provided me on Saturday night and just give Michael what he so clearly needs for a fear of the dark which is obviously (obvious in the light of day) real. He (the one I was so worried would be wiped out by the disruption) got up, took Michael back to his bed and lay with him. That is the time honoured remedy for fear of the dark—company in it.

So it’s not naval gazing: it’s nothing less monumental than learning what mothering means. It means tuning out the voice in you which says in essence, leave me alone, when it’s inconvenient to be called upon to mother. It is my job to be his soft spot to land when he’s scared, hurt or unsure. I can’t control when I’ll be called upon to do my duty, I just have to be there to do it. That is what mothering is all about.

[And for the record, we’ve tried night lights and they seem to wake him and keep him awake. I am also afraid that the light will not allow him a full, healthy sleep, having read that we need darkness to produce the right conditions for sound sleep. So I compromise with a night light on in the adjacent bathroom.]

Last night after dinner, Michael ate ice cream cake (the “real stuff” - not frozen yogurt).

Then he slept through the night without so much as a peep.
Do you think this means I should feed him ice cream every night before bed?!

I love birthdays. Any excuse to celebrate an individual and recognize her uniqueness is as good a reason for cake as any other. But I have a secret about this birthday cake, I feel it’s as much for me as it is her. It was me after all, who sat 5 years ago perched on the threshold to motherhood, unable to see the next steps, choosing faith and love as my only companions.

Shooing fear and doubt away with every labour horror story I willed to bounce off me was easier said than done. Those acquaintances are the type that like to visit at dusk when I’m most tired and susceptible to suggestion. You have no idea how much pain you’re going to be in they’d taunt. What if the striking ambulance workers can’t get to you fast enough? You’ll never forgive yourself! they’d whisper ominously into my heart.

I still struggle to explain where the confidence to birth at home with a licensed midwife came from. There is no explanation except somewhere within. It’s not something I can share or teach. I looked hard at what I could control and how I felt in the quiet of myself to make that choice. I asked until I heard the answer: Where should we be? Where will we be safe? In a hospital was never part of the picture I got, neither were the anticeptic smell, bright halls or gowned strangers. I went with what I got. The quiet of our bedroom, the firm softness of our bed and the smell of my husband’s pillow. Love made the choice, faith showed me the place.

As I stir the batter for her 5th birthday cake I read the recipe, following the steps I’m reading for the first time. I’m poor at reading a recipe through before making it—I have all the ingredients on hand, I just fail to read the instructions in my haste until I’m in the moment. This lack of preparation usually leaves me feeling a bit trepidatious, with butterflies in my stomach—particularly when I come to a part I didn’t anticipate. At that moment I scramble to make what skills or utensils I have accomplish the task. And I throw in a big heap of intention and silent prayer. Becauase I love to feed people—well.

My mothering is basically the same. I haven’t read the receipes for raising a child. I mostly ignore parenting advice except from trusted sources and I scramble to handle the surprises I get along the way. But because I expect to be surprised, I have learned to trust that I will adapt. Jack Canfield in The Secret compares the road to life as being like driving in the dark: you can only see ahead as far as the head-lamps will show you. But that ambiguity about the whole journey doesn’t stop you from driving. Similarly, he notes, we climb stairs in the dark believing that there will be another, and then another step for our sure footedness. As I licked ice cream and wandered around my neighbourhood pacing my way through the early stages of labour I held onto that trusting faith. I have no idea what’s next, but I’m going with it.

Shocked was how I felt when I held Kate in my arms for the first time. Observers might say that’s because she was howling to wake the dead (and perhaps she was?). But I was stunned silent by her formidable presence, her strong and yes, vocal spirit and the fact that there she was in my arms for now and always. My legs shook as I knelt, holding her head-down to allow her lungs and passages to drain. I stared first at her red face, then at her long length and girl parts. Here she is, my daughter. I thought. I’m so glad you’ve come to me!

So as I prepare to ice the cake, putting a heavy dose of love on it, I’ll mix onto the sweetness my secret celebration of my on-going journey, now 5 years old. Michael added a new layer of engagement for me and for us. He’s made us richer, laugh harder and love more deeply still. So I ice the cake for both babes who come for me to mother, and celebrate the mysterious, affirming and surprising mothering journey we are on together. Happy Birthday Kate!

Sliding up beside me as I introduce her to her back-up caregiver at Kids & Company, she is quiet. She demurs from an introduction, not meeting the woman’s eyes for more than a moment. She pulls me down toward her to ask in a whisper if she and Michael can be in the same room. (more…)

This afternoon, I heard the clinking of ice in my water glass with nostalgia. It made me warm and happy and brought a smile to my face. Where did that all come from? I wondered. The sound took me back to childhood to one of those “adult” noises I dreamed of possessing. My grandparents and parents drank mixed drinks in glass tumblers and the clinking sound was their ice being swooshed around while they chatted and cajoled. I witnessed many family discussions over that noise. Discussions of which I longed to be a part when I grew old. (more…)

I don’t profess to understand very much about Zen. I think it’s about being conscious and aware in this moment, now. I read Momma Zen this week, written by Mom and Buddhist Priest Karen Maezen Miller. Her writing is clear, funny and somehow peaceful given the topic! (more…)

I usually credit my Gram with instilling in me the mantra “anything worth doing is worth doing well”, but in truth this belief rans rampant in my family. I admit that this can drive unsightly perfectionist tendencies in my behaviour, but it also means that I approach most life with zeal. But there’s an extra layer for me in doing something well, and that is also “getting it right”. (more…)