This Much I Know Is True: Part I

I figure there is no better way to end the year and start a new one than to reflect a little on lessons learned during this last spin around the sun. That's what you'll find here over the next few days: my biggest Aha moments of the year. Now, some of these lessons I learned for the first time this year, some I re-learned for what seems like the gazillionth time, and some of these I am still in the process of figuring out. Hopefully, you can find one or two lessons to relate to. And, if you read my growing list and find yourself shaking your head and saying, "Girl, took you long enough," then you should probably contact me so we can talk about you becoming my guru or life coach. Seriously.

But here you have it- the first few ideas that, thanks to the passing of another 365 days, I finally absolutely positively know to be true:

1. Time ripens all things.

I’ve been scribbling this little Cervantes quote in birthday cards for years, but this year, I think I finally started to believe it. If I think back to many of the big decisions I’ve taken and the important changes I’ve made, they often seem to the outside world to be either unforeseen impulses or plans that I talk and talk and talk about but never actually do. The truth is, I’m a "percolator". I sit on things for a loooooooong time. I used to think this was fear-based, and maybe sometimes it is, but, really, so what. I know many say that when you have a wish, a dream, a vision, a goal, you should just go for it, but I know I have to let things soak in, let the seeds take root, feel it out from different scenarios, hum, haw, and then one morning, I’ll wake up and be ready. It’s taken a long time of living inside this head and going through the decision-making process to finally recognize that this is my process, and that my process is totally okay. If you think about it, all these years of living on this spinning planet have allowed me to invest in myself, hone my intuition, gain skills and experience and hopefully a little wisdom along the way, so that when the time is right, I’ll know it. Few huge decisions need to be made overnight. There’s rarely a need for urgency. This means that if an opportunity comes up and I’m not ready, then I’m not ready- as simple as that- but someday I might be, and if it turns out that when I’m ready, it’s actually too late, that I’ve missed out on some once-in-a-lifetime awesomeness, chances are that some other equally awesome opportunity will very likely come my way. And recognizing that is a fantastic relief!

2. It is almost never actually the end of the world.

This, I suppose, is an idea connected to the first truth. I figure if I can trust that I will know when the time is right, I can also trust that I will know what to do in a time of crisis, that I can probably handle any worst-case scenario thrown my way. Sure, maybe I might need a little help, maybe I might need a little time, maybe there’ll be some unfortunate cost, but seriously, I have yet to encounter a situation that truly deems the anxiety I bestow upon it. I sometimes think I am addicted to anxiety, that I can’t handle stillness so I create catastrophe, and creating catastrophe all the time is so bloody exhausting. The truth is that in spite of hitting some pretty low spots over the last few years health-wise, money-wise, relationship-wise, there’s never been a hole so deep that I haven’t somehow managed to find my way out. I have to remind myself of this constantly- that the world will keep on spinning in spite of my missed deadlines, messy house, unclear vision of the future. There are very few things that warrant an urgent sense of crisis. The funny thing about anxiety, though, is the (dis)connection between the physical response- the knot in the stomach, the heaviness in the chest, the shortness of breath- and the mental understanding of the response. Sometimes, I physically feel the anxiety first, and because I feel the physical sensation, I assume I must be legitimately in need of worrying, justified in my panic response. In these moments, there are two things I try to remember. The first is that it is very difficult to argue with Anxiety. You can pretty much always find something to worry about. Always. So trying to rationally approach Anxiety doesn’t really work. It will always argue back, which is why I jump directly to the worst-case scenario. If I can imagine it, and then understand that I can handle it, then I can believe that it is not the end of the world after all, and then somehow I can give myself permission to not let the physical sensation dictate what should be going on in my head space. The second thing I try to remember is something I learned from a wise woman this summer when I was in Costa Rica. She told me that when we find ourselves in a freak-out swirl of worry, it helps to just “drop into the now” and breathe. If you are really, truly focusing on your breath, there is no room for worry. Now, I can't really truly focus on any one thing at a time so I haven’t quite mastered this one, but trying is a very good start!

3. “No” doesn’t need to be followed by “but” or “because”.

Now, this one has taken me a very long time to learn, perhaps because of all these years I’ve spent arguing with teenagers in my classroom about why my “No means No”, answering their “Why”s and their “But that’s so unfair”s with detailed explanation as I try and guide their still developing brains to an understanding of delayed gratification and the value of foresight. This has all somehow made me believe that I must offer others an explanation when I say “No” to undertaking a project, to participating in a meeting, to offering extra help, to attending a dinner party, but the truth is that very rarely does anyone ever ask why I am saying “No.” Funnily enough, most folks seem to assume that if I said “No”, I must have a perfectly good reason. In fact, asking me for a justification of my response would actually be kind of rude! And, a little addendum here, it turns out that when the request happens to just be for a favour, the decision to ask me specifically very, very, very rarely has to do with the asker valuing my unique expertise, but much more so with the fact that my long-standing reputation as an infrequent naysayer has landed me the spot of first target on their quest for a sucker who will say “Yes”. 

More later.

Mirror Mirror On The Wall, Let's Please Be Friends (formerly unfortunately known as Mirror Mirror On The Wall, Go F*ck Yourself)

I am visiting my grandparents in the Caribbean for a few weeks and doing the things one does when visiting 80-something year old grandparents. We drink coffee and we drink tea, and we go grocery shopping and run errands, and I drive them to their various appointments, turning left when I am told to turn left and turning right when I am told to turn right, and I offer Opa a young, sturdy arm to hold onto after his swim in the ocean so he can more easily make his way out of the water over the rocks and the uneven sand, and I carry things and bring the car around, and I ask a lot of questions about life when they were younger, and I try to listen, as there is still so much to learn and remember.

Well, a few days ago,  as we were standing at the counter of the grocery store café ordering our post-shopping cappuccinos, the front cover of a magazine on display caught my eye. (I have tried now I don’t know how many times to be all tech savvy and put a picture of it here but for some reason, it’s not working, no matter how many different ways I try, so I’ll just have to describe it for you). Basically, what grabbed my attention was a column along the left side of one particular cover, which read “15 stoere vrouwen in bikini (zonder photoshop).” For the non-Dutch speakers, this can probably best be translated as “15 bad-ass/fearless/ballsy women in bikini (without photoshop)”. Interesting! Under this caption were three small pictures of  three very different women, each strutting their stuff in a stylish and respectively flattering black bikini. The picture that intrigued me the most was one of a woman who I later read was 125 kilos, probably one of the largest women I have ever seen wearing a bikini. There she was - posing for all the world to see,  hand on her hip, hair coiffed, shoulders back, with  a confident smile on her face. She looked fabulous! And then, in big, bold letters just below these snapshots, it read DIT IS MIJN LIJF, which means “This is my body”.  I saw all this and I thought to myself, “The rest I have to see!”

Now, I know we have the Dove ads that try to show a girl who is “normal,” who is not stick-thin like so many cover models, or perfectly curvaceous like the Guess girls or Victoria’s Secret pin-ups, and now we’ve also got Lena Dunham of the HBO TV show Girls. She is a feisty young woman who has stirred up a little controversy and been called “a pathological exhibitionist” and a “little fat girl” because she almost weekly takes off her clothes in front of the camera to unabashedly reveal a body that does not quite match the western world’s mainstream societal standards of beauty. But this magazine in my hands seemed somehow different.

Later in the day, stretched out on a lounge chair at the beach (how fitting), I started flipping through the pictures. The girls in this particular photo shoot, were not, as far as I could tell, models- stick-thin, “plus-size” or otherwise. They were just average everyday students, cashiers, social workers, mothers, real women- some with small waists and wide shoulders, some with large breasts and larger hips, some flat-chested with strong and solid legs- they spanned the spectrum of tall, short, thick, thin, stout, pear-shaped,  but were all proudly “imperfect”. The lighting here hid nothing, and while these women had certainly sat for a good session of hair and make-up, everything was visible- stretch marks, cellulite, pores, rolls, moles- everything.  I read and reread, and looked and looked again at these ordinary women volunteering to participate in something extraordinarily empowering, and the whole experience got me thinking about something that has been on my mind for a while now.

You see, I’ve recently had some back-to-back instances of negative body image bullshit. It started a few months back when I had a good look in the mirror post-shower and heard myself say, “Girl, you certainly aren’t as young as you used to be” and an unnecessarily extensive, super close-up inspection of my face revealed lines and pigmentation spots and aging that I had never really noticed before. Soon after, in preparation for summertime, I stood in front of my full length mirror and tried on all my bikinis and warm weather wear to determine what should stay and what should go, and I just remember that experience bringing on a whole lot of discontented sighing and head-shaking. Then, just a few weeks back, on a balmy beachworthy day, a group of my girlfriends decided to go to the public pool for a session of sunbathing and swimming. A great idea! I didn’t go- partially because I had an overdue to-do list in need of attention, and partially because I am not a fan of spending a day surrounded by shrieking children, but also very much so because I have absolutely no desire to flaunt my pasty, veiny, bumpy bits of flesh in a public place where I might run into students, colleagues, and acquaintances. No desire whatsoever.  To top it all off, a few days after I left to come here on my vacation, I saw a picture posted on facebook of friends having a late afternoon dip in a nearby swimming hole, and I realized that if I were still in town, I would probably have been invited, and more importantly, I realized that I probably would have declined the invitation. Late night skinny dip (i.e. nudity in the pitch black dark): no problem. Hanging out in a bikini on a beach with strangers whose opinion I give less of a shit about: maybe. Midday early summer bathing suit-clad swim with friends (i.e. absolutely no tan yet to at least somewhat camouflage the pasty, veiny, bumpy bits): no thank you.  

That’s messed up.

And what’s even more messed up is that this is not something new, not some new kind of discontentment that has evolved with the recent realization that I am in possession of an aging, gravity-obedient body. This has been an issue for as long as I can remember. I would have reacted with the same hesitation to a late afternoon swimming invitation 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago.

Messed up.

The thing that struck me, thinking about this collection of recent body-conscious moments, the history before it, and then this experience now of taking in the images of these bold, bikini-clad women bearing their (almost) all on the pages in front of me was this: I am 35 and have spent almost my entire life being discontent with my body. That’s a really really really long time, and, quite honestly, I am tired of it.

Now, many of these women in the magazine had lost a substantial amount of weight and were proud of themselves for overcoming such a life-defining obstacle, or they had recently given birth and were getting used to their newly shaped body, or they used to be shy and had finally begun to feel comfortable in their own skin. My reality is that I have never really had any *significant* body issues or particularly noticeable shifts in body image. I don’t have any disfiguring scars or skin conditions or disabilities or any kind of otherness that make me look significantly different from my peers or that might lead me to feel self-conscious. I am not overweight or underweight. I am tall, but not exceptionally tall. I pretty much fit squarely in the category of totally and completely average. Nobody’s ever called me “fat” or suggested I don’t eat a second cupcake. Nobody’s ever called me “ugly” (except maybe one of my siblings mid-fight sometime a gazillion years ago) and while teasing is an unfortunately prevalent activity among kids, aside from my long, lanky preteen self being teased about the flatness of my chest and told I should eat something or the wind might blow me away, little of the bullying I endured as a child centered on my physical appearance.  Very little guilt surrounds my mealtimes, even if I sometimes have a few more bites than I need. I have a gym membership I barely use, which sometimes causes me teensy little waves of shame, but that’s more about the wasted money than untoned muscle. What I mean to say is that the common body image issue that many women often struggle with- this everpresent awareness of one's shape and size, and how that relates to the shape and size of others or to the shape and size of the past self (or the ideal self), doesn´t generally permeate my daily routines.

So some might say, really, what’s the problem? The problem is that, in spite of being without what one might deem “significant” body image struggles, in spite of being a reasonably confident woman who recognizes my worth and the fact that my worth extends far beyond how I look, I still insist on continually being unkind to my body, picking, judging, harping on all the little imperfections I see when I look in the mirror. I try not to be a public harper (aside from this grand reveal), one of those girls who constantly goes on and on about my thighs and my zits and my hair and my this and my that. But privately, when it’s just me and the mirror, I am a downright critical bitch- like, a clipboard in hand, tsk-tsk-tsk, displeased, disdainfully eye-rolling, critical bitch.

This is my point. My body is healthy and strong, my face is joyful and expressive, and generally everything seems to work as it should, so why why why do I give so much attention to creating, maintaining and bemoaning the long list of little things I don’t like, all the features I find out of proportion or unattractive?  And the sad truth is that this list of mine is absurdly long and embarrassingly detailed.  It includes the size of my eyes, the shape of my nose, pores that are too visible, and a face that is never ever ever without a blemish. It includes my smallish breasts (I mean, I think God could have easily blessed me with an extra cup size- I am certain I could pull it off). It includes my slouchy posture, my full upper arms, my worker hands, my pasty white complexion. It includes my ever-growing web of spider veins-  the rivers of blue that wind underneath the transparent skin of legs that are, by far, my least favourite feature. I have long felt that these too-thick ankles, and sturdy, muscular, Dutch legs, designed for bicycling or speed skating, belong on a girl with a bigger frame and a shorter torso. And this intense dislike for my lower limbs reaches way way way back into my youth. I remember once sitting in the summertime on a bench with friends and being very much aware that my thighs spread out so much more than those of all the pretty girls around me.

This is part of the problem, perhaps where it starts- the self-sabotaging act of comparing oneself to all those pretty girls. I look at their big, lashy eyes and their flawless skin and their jiggling breasts and their slender legs and their itsy bitsy little ankles and I feel envy. I felt envy as that 14 year-old girl sitting on a bench, and I feel it sometimes still. In fact, I admit that I have wasted a significant portion of my life feeling jealous of beautiful women, of my perfectly photogenic sister, of my fashion model high school best friend, of the carelessly pretty popular girls, and my collection of gorgeous girlfriends . Envy is dangerous, because it leads to insecurity and discontentment and sometimes even resentment, and it leads us to view difference with judgmental and ungrateful eyes, and these states of being are far more unattractive features than fat ankles or pasty skin.

I know that I have, for a very very long time now, often tried to compensate for feeling less beautiful by being louder, bigger, bolder, wilder, wittier, artier, smarter or sweeter. I suppose this is because a very long time ago I decided that I would probably never be a “head turner,” in the traditional sense of the word.  Someone won’t walk past me and give me a second look because of my physical beauty. I can believe they might stop and take another look because they got distracted by my fabulous shoes or my hearty laugh, or perhaps they got a kick out of the animated way I was telling my friends a story, or they might have been impressed by my vocabulary or my wicked trivia skills, but “Hey girl, you’re gorgeous” is not something I have often heard, except maybe at the end of the night when the bar is closing and buddy is drunk and looking for a companion to take home. Cute, sometimes maybe. Gorgeous, not so much.

Now, why am I sharing all this? Please rest assured that this is not some pathetic, self-pitying solicitation for my friends to pile on the compliments and make me feel better about myself. I generally, in the grand scheme of things, when evaluating the combination of my inside and my outside me, feel pretty good about myself. I can see the good in me, and I am very much aware that much of this stuff I have allowed myself to believe for so long is more or less ridiculous, irrational, trivial, and maybe some of it isn’t even truth. I know that, and I also acknowledge that it is deeply unfortunate that I have wasted so much time and energy on disliking a body that has generally served me quite well.

Unfortunate. Ridiculous. Irrational. I know. But still, I can’t help but wonder where these absurd ideas about beauty come from, as well as these tendencies towards needless comparison, discontentment and self-criticism. And I wonder how these beliefs manage to remain so strongly etched across time and space, beyond the me that was a young, insecure teenager getting used to her body, all the way into the adult life of a strong, reasonably successful woman. And I wonder- most importantly- how to finally and completely override those beliefs. Because that’s the point, isn´t it? It’s not really about what’s actually standing there in front of the mirror. It’s about what I choose to see, what I choose to believe.

I know I have certainly made some progress over the last decade or so in terms of accepting, maybe even sometimes enjoying, this body of mine. Small and simple steps have positively impacted my appreciation of my body, little things like finally having no issues throwing on a pair of three inch heels, even if results in me towering over some of the men around. My younger self would have felt that kind of tallness was unfeminine. I have also come to recognize all the excellent bonuses to my smallish breasts- I can run without them jiggling and causing me discomfort, I can spend pretty much this entire vacation braless, I can wear things that women with a more ample bosom probably couldn’t get away with. And I have taken to snapping “selfies” to document moments when I am in a good space or with good people, when I feel happy and confident, because it seems that when I feel good, I am more likely to feel like I look good, and all these self-portraits provide a kind of reactionary evidence  against the infinite piles of pictures of myself over the years that have made me moan and groan. So, there has definitely been some progress, but it’s not enough, because as long as there are still moments when I look in the mirror and snarl a little, then that’s a problem- one that must be remedied. The sooner the better.

Now, this moment- here, now, of being confronted with the reality of a body image that’s still in need of a little improvement-  is not exactly something new. I mean, that’s how life works, right? Growth isn’t really a linear process but cyclical. Lessons, emotions, experiences recycle themselves until we finally actually get it. So, we find ourselves again and again in a familiarly uncomfortable situation, with ugly emotions we recognize from the way they sit in the gut or bend the spine or press on the lungs, and hopefully, each time we arrive in that spot again, we have wiser eyes, and a stronger character, and a more patient heart, and a mind that is ready for a new idea to root itself deep down.

So, in this particular revisitation of the body image issue, the fifteen bad-ass women staring back at me remind me that there is still work to do. They remind me that not only is beauty in the eye of the beholder, but that perspective and perception is everything, because it is not really body issues that so many of us struggle with, but body image issues. The problem arises in the act of our own beholding. These women remind me that beauty, like intelligence, exists in a delightful multitude of forms. They remind me that, just as we can all agree that the IQ tests of yesteryear made a nasty little mess of trying to evaluate an abstract, culturally-dependent , individually-defined concept, we should also be able to agree that the idea of a bunch of women with different backgrounds, stories and values all striving for a uniform standard of beauty is slightly ridiculous. Put these ideas together and out of it grows the unmistakable truth that somebody somewhere out there is bound to find attractive the very things about my body that I so fervently dislike. I mean, I can think of dozens of examples of a friend sharing one of the aspects of her body that gets in the way of her smiling at her reflection, and my response being one of complete disbelief because I hadn’t even ever noticed it, or I personally think that feature is beautiful or unique, or I simply can’t wrap my head around how it could possibly even qualify as an issue. Now, there is of course the reminder as well that far too often my ideas about what is beautiful are too greatly influenced by what I believe society in general, and men in particular, think is beautiful, and so I am reminded that I need to be able to appreciate my body in spite of/without outside commentary. But, it is good to remember that it is often easier for us to see the beauty in others than in ourselves, which means that maybe me should more often practice looking at ourselves through the eyes of another, or –even better- looking at ourselves with the same gracious eyes we use to look at others.

Then, of course, there’s the whole sticky problem of this word “beautiful” because while it is, by definition, just a harmless little adjective, it is actually oh so much more. It is different from other descriptors like funny, serious, introverted, extroverted, these words that exist on a spectrum where the different possibilities at each end are both valued and respected as desirable attributes. “Beautiful” is problematic because it is a very weighty word, carrying this massive value judgment that is connected to all kinds of personal and cultural baggage. I wonder if we can move away from this idea of “beautiful” altogether as the universal deciding determinant of whether or not we are allowed to be happy with what we see in the mirror. This idea of striving to be able to look at myself in the mirror and tell myself that  I am beautiful feels a bit silly to me. I wonder if there is a way to have a more positive relationship with my reflection without having to rely on these kinds of value judgments. We might also want to consider, of course, the complicated semantics of other descriptors  used when discussing our bodies, and their connectedness to our perception of what is attractive and acceptable: “stocky” and “skinny” feel much more negative to me than “strong” and “thin.” I don´t know, but it’s something I’d like to think a little more about.

Anyways, back to the reminders.

I am reminded this time around that pretty much every woman I know- even, it seems, those pretty girls- has a list as long and detailed as mine, and I am reminded that perhaps we, as women, need to do a better job of appreciating our fellow womankind, of making sure that we frequently tell our friends  and loved ones what we value about them, how they enrich our lives, what makes them unique and awesome. We need to try and balance out all the superficial, surface stuff, to bring perspective to the abundance of messages concerning what we should look like that are stuffed down our throats by Hollywood and Paris, by storefront windows and magazines, by our would-be boyfriends and well-meaning mothers . And when we venture out into the territory of commenting on the outer shell of the women around us, we need to make sure our compliments are sincere and selfless, rather than the far too common dirty compliment such as, “God, I love your hair. I wish mine was curly like that” or “Look at you. You´re so skinny. Do you even eat? You’re lucky. I am constantly on a diet but could never get as tiny as you” because these aren’t really compliments at all but rather self-focused complaints, and I mean, how exactly is someone supposed to properly respond to a “compliment” like that? “Um, thanks….I think.”  

I am reminded that how I talk about and treat my outer self reflects my relationship with my inner self. I am also reminded that, like it or not, given my line of work, I have a moral obligation to the teenage girls sitting in my classroom to model positive body image, to show them what self-acceptance and contentment look like. Actually, to be quite honest, I don’t really like that term “self-acceptance” because acceptance insinuates putting up with something that isn’t ideal, which is about judgment and evaluating and agreeing that there even is something ideal to aim for, and I don’t like the term “contentment” either because it also implies being happy with meh, with not bad, with good enough. I want to strive for self-celebration instead of self-acceptance, and delight instead of contentment.

So, these are all certainly important reminders, reminders  I will likely need to hear again and again and again, but this time there was also a new realization in the cyclical lesson of learning to look on my reflection with greater kindness and grace. And that new realization was this: my body tells a story- an evocative, complicated, fascinating story. As I was looking through that magazine, the body and posture and facial expression of each woman told a little bit about where she came from and what she’d been through. One woman had fresh stretch marks which told the story of her new motherhood. Another woman had considerable rolls of skin above her belly, which made her feel both pride and insecurity, pride because those rolls were evidence of the weight she’d worked so hard to lose, insecurity because those rolls still got in the way of her fully appreciating what she sees in the mirror.

My body tells its own stories. I, like many other people, have a nice little timeline of awesome scars- there’s the burn mark on my forearm from the first time I cooked a Christmas turkey by myself, the slice across my ankle where I was attacked by an angry, spiky palm tree leaf, the hairless line in my eyebrow that tells of the close encounter my toddler self once had with the corner of a coffee table. There are also the metaphorical and metaphysical stories layered underneath the obvious and superficial. My pale complexion, for example, reminds me of the need to slow down, to pay attention, to take the time to respect and protect myself, to resist the temptation to urgently and eagerly just get out there already. My slouchy back and my ongoing struggle to straighten up and fully embrace my tall stature speak of my internal struggles to stretch out and up and take the space I need, to stand firm and tall so I don’t waver when others need/expect/disagree/disapprove/demand. The importance of perspective and interpretation factors significantly into this storytelling business- again, it’s not so much what is there but what we choose to see. Recently, after revealing to a friend how bothered I was by my increasingly veiny legs, she turned to me and told me she thought  those veins were beautiful because they signified vulnerability. What a fascinating perspective. What a wonderful thought.

Perhaps, however, the most interesting and important story told when I look in the mirror is the story of where I come from. This story reveals itself when looking at family photo albums with my Oma. I see faces I may not have ever known but still recognize, and I see myself in the younger versions of my parents and grandparents. I experience this story when I meet people here on the island and they tell me they could see that I am the daughter of my parents because I have my father’s eyes and my mother’s smile. I am reminded of it when I think of my little nephew and how often people naturally try to claim ownership of his feet, his eyes, his mouth, his hair. We carry in our body, in our reflection, the stories of our family and our roots. I am, after all, not a sculpture chiseled in an artist’s studio, not some kind of on-line avatar clicked together by a gamer, not a Gattaca baby, with all my phenotypes and genotypes deliberately selected before my conception. I am a patchwork quilt of family features stitched together, grown, blended, passed on. That means that when I sit here bitching about my ankles and my thighs and my eyes, I am not only being unkind to myself but I am disrespecting the ancestors who passed them on, disrespecting the gifts given to me by those who love me and delight in seeing themselves in me, disrespecting my mother and my Oma and my sister and my cousins who share some of the same features as me.

There is the story as well of what I was designed to do. None of us, obviously, were evolutionarily intended to lie around on beach chairs looking pretty or to sway our hips and flick our hair as we strut down the runway in high heels and a tight skirt. I look at myself in the mirror and I know I was designed to work.  I can picture myself one hundred years ago in wooden shoes, shoveling hay and milking cows and fixing fences. I have a long, lean back and strong hands and strong arms and even stronger legs. I can work hard and I can keep going. I can pull, push, lift, carry because I was intended to be strong. Probably,  I wouldn’t be so strong with skinnier ankles and leaner legs and tinier upper arms and a smaller stature.  So if I really really think about it, when I am standing there at the shore line with my bikini on, and the sun is glistening off all my freckly, pasty whiteness, bouncing off of the blue veins winding through my calves or a dimple in my jiggly butt cheek, and I firmly plant these sturdy, solid legs on the ground, and I know with great confidence that when Opa grabs my arm and holds my not so girly hand, he can trust my strength, that I will be able to support his unsteady, 70 kilo frame, well then, I suppose I’d have to admit, if anything makes me appreciate my body, that does, and if anything is truly beautiful, that is- pretty damn beautiful actually.

A Summer Prayer of Thanks for All Things Good and Wonderful

I am grateful for this new day, for the sun who faithfully ushers in a fresh start each time he takes his place in the sky. I appreciate that no matter what events have transpired the day before, no matter how dark the night, he can be counted on to shine with the same vigor each and every morning. I appreciate his graceful entrance, how he politely eases himself into the sky so I have a few moments to get used to the idea that it is time, yet again, to rise and begin. I am grateful for the sounds that rouse me from sleep- the rhythmic rustle of the palm trees beyond my bedroom window, and the excited tweets of the birds overhead. Their melodies blend together and I can’t help but smile a little as I eavesdrop on their chirpy conversations. I am grateful for the sounds of family, for the reminder that I exist in community, for crying babies and barking dogs and laughing children, for the swoosh of splashes in the pool, the whistle of a tea kettle, the clinking of cutlery and breakfast plates.

I am grateful for a strong body, for legs that are eager to explore new paths, for a back that is straight and a mind that is clear, open, and ready, for lungs that breathe easily, and for an abundance of fresh air to fill them. I am grateful for inquisitive eyes and alert ears and thin skin that feels the subtle nuances of changing temperature and shifts in energy. I am grateful for the goose bumps that involuntarily cover my flesh when I come in contact with something beautiful, for the skip of a heartbeat, the flip of the belly, the gasp for breath, all those glorious reactions that take place when this strong body and open mind witness the extraordinary nestled right in there with the ordinary.

I am grateful for the fresh smell after a short summer rain, and the mystical synergy of sun and shower. Here, now, there is no either/or, but both in turn. I appreciate the way in which the midday sun sometimes backs away from his centre stage for a while. He sneaks behind a curtain of clouds and allows the grey to roll in with choreographed grace. How wonderful to look up and catch that exact moment when the clouds open up and pour just enough rain to bring all the thirsty, sunburnt plants back to life. Everything then is fully alive, and the sun returns to his rightful place, and all is in perfect harmony. I am grateful for the presence of green and brown existing side by side, the reminder that death and life belong together and grow from each other. I appreciate the circles and cycles that shape the path of all things living, because those circles prove that none of this is ever really over. I appreciate the lessons learned from the solitary plant that survives in spite of its surroundings- its roots make their home in nurtured soil, but also in the tiniest crack in a hunk of rock, or even in old, lifeless, used up dirt. I watch the wild goats and donkeys feast on the only speck of green found in the grand scapes of brown, and I am reminded of the intensely powerful force that is Life, the desperate desire of anything born into this world- no matter what its beginning or current circumstances- to live, survive, and eventually thrive.

I am grateful for all the colours and shapes and sizes I see around me- so many different kinds of flowers, birds, fish, leaves, people; and all that variety enriches my experience and my understanding of how this world works. There is always something new to discover and appreciate. I am most intrigued by nature’s “mistakes”, the unintentional hybrids and mutants whose specialness and fragility make them all the more beautiful and teach me that conformity is overrated and that few things are actually impossible. I appreciate the unique blend of cultures, languages, art, music and food that has been birthed here. A messy mix has brought about an awesomely distinct flavour. I appreciate the fluid way words here have evolved, and the incredible story the language of this island tells of its complicated roots.

I am grateful for the peace found at the beach, the perfect juxtaposition of manmade joyful noise and nature’s meditative soundtrack. The crash of waves, the whisper of swaying trees, and the caws of hovering sea gulls mix in with the giggles of teenage lovers, the boom boom boom of the Caribbean DJ, and the sighs of an exasperated mother trying to keep her toddler from drowning, from burning, from falling. All these layers of sound lull me into an accidental afternoon snooze.  There are few things I appreciate more than an accidental nap on the beach, protected by the shade of a giant tree and cooled by a gentle breeze. I am grateful for the vastness of the ocean, the ancient tales it keeps safe, and the way in which it holds this world together with its connective and protective force. I am glad that I am no longer afraid of it like I used to be. I respect its power and I am intrigued by its mysteries but I am grateful I can now swim out into the dark deep and trust my own strength to bring me safely back to shore. I appreciate the delicious jolt of that first dive under water, how the salt stings my eyes and scrubs my skin clean. I appreciate the restoration and meditation found in the simple act of swimming- the breathing in and breathing out, the kicking, and propelling forward. All this clears my mind. I always exit the water holier than I entered.

I am grateful for the perfect temperature right here, right now, but I am also grateful for the less perfect temperatures during the rest of the year as they allow me to appreciate this all the more. I am grateful for the luxury of a vacation, and for the hard work that comes before it. I am grateful for a job that pays me well to do what I love to do. I am grateful for a beautiful living space that has become my haven, and I am grateful for finally having a city I can sincerely call my hometown. I am grateful for the sense of settling, for finally feeling at peace and ready to grow roots. I am grateful for a secure home base that allows me to step out and seek out adventure. I appreciate that I can go far away for a while and know I will safely return to a familiar sense of community and belonging. I am grateful for a family who loves me unconditionally, who accepts me and my swirling mass of contradictions, who helps me see myself when I forget who I am, who offers me wisdom, empathy, encouragement and grace. I am grateful  for my “urban family,” for the strangers who have become acquaintances who have become friends who have become my sisters and brothers, my soulmates and confidantes. I am my best me in the presence of their loyal and comfortable company.  I am grateful for the abundant collection of enduring friendships I have amassed from all the places I have called home. I appreciate the wonders of technology that have allowed me to stay connected to the many beautiful souls who inspire me, motivate me, teach me, and ground me. I am grateful that my heart is open and roomy and has near infinite space to let people in. I am grateful for the lessons learned from the friends, lovers and strangers that have come across my path. They each teach me new lessons about trust and love and authenticity. They challenge my preconceived ideas about living and loving, my stereotypes, my egocentricities, my insecurities.

I am grateful for the beautiful gift of memory. It always reveals itself here in this place. The stores and shores and seaside bars are filled with familiar faces, smells, sights and sounds. I appreciate that I can come back to this island again and again, and smile when I remember again and again the people I can now only access through standing for a moment in the past. I am grateful for the stories of my grandparents, for the afternoon teas spent reminiscing, for photo albums overflowing with black and white slices of life. I like watching their faces as they recreate the past for me, seeing the smile of what was once a shy young man in love, eyes that show remembered sorrow, shrugged shoulders that convey a time when all you could do was say “C’ést la vie.” Those stories make me feel connected to the ancestral souls who sourced my DNA and shaped my history.

I am grateful for time. I am grateful that it faithfully keeps on ticking, that if you wait long enough, fruit always ripens, wounds eventually heal, storms inevitably cease, and seeds sown long ago promise to someday be ready for harvest. Time is perhaps the most precious gift- both constant and fragile, a blessing and a curse. I am grateful for the hope that exists in knowing there will be a tomorrow. I am grateful for the lessons learned from all my yesterdays. I am grateful for an awareness of the fleeting nature of the now, not an awareness that sparks urgency and anxiety, but one that makes me smile with secret glee that I turned in time to see the sun seconds before it set, I looked up just as the chick hatched from its egg. I want to make sure I am able to clear my mind- even if just for a split second- from worry and regret,  long enough to truly feel the awesomeness of all of this, of being fully and completely here now. I appreciate the importance of learning how to attain that delicate harmony between remembering yesterday, imagining tomorrow, and being present in the present.  I appreciate the connectedness of these realms, their interdependence. None can exist without the others. I am grateful for the ongoing lesson of learning to let go of the fear that time is running out, the fear that there is something somewhere out there that I am missing out on. If I cannot be everywhere with everyone doing everything at once, then I suppose there is no place I would rather be than right here, right now, in my today. Perhaps, of all the things I am grateful for, I remain most grateful for today.

Happy anniversary to me!

On this long weekend, fifteen years ago, I got married.

Crazy. I know.

The funny thing, though, is that when I think back to that day, I don’t really feel any sadness about something lost, I don’t feel regret for making a decision that pretty much changed my life, and I don’t feel anger at myself or him or the universe for the whole thing falling apart. Instead, I feel this kind of pleasantly amused and nonchalant nostalgia.

I remember that day like it was yesterday. I remember the warm glow of spending a full day in the presence of so many people I loved. I remember the thoughtfulness and generousity of the words spoken and gifts given by friends and family. I remember feeling beautiful and happy and so so ready, but most of all I remember the incredible certainty and conviction with which I spoke my vows, these intense feelings and thoughts that had been sitting in my belly and swirling around in my head for months and were finally scribbled down on the back of a used envelope the night before the big day. And remembering all that makes me smile. In fact, it even makes me laugh a little- appreciatively- at the boldness of my 20 year old self’s complete faith in our ability to be together forever, to love each other always, and to- no matter what- just figure it out.

It seemed surprisingly simple. You hear people talk about getting “cold feet”, about having doubts before they walk down the aisle. I don’t remember feeling even a drop of doubt or the slightest twinge of fear. I just knew. I knew he was the one for me. I was in love- and not in that cutesy, desperate, you complete me, I’m lost without you kind of way. I was a relatively independent girl with a fiery spirit and huge plans. I was not one of those young women who dreamt of playing house. I aspired to so much more than simply being somebody’s wife. I had grand visions of changing the world and leaving a legacy, and while I thought that I would certainly someday marry (after I had sufficiently changed the world), I never thought it would be so soon. But when I met him, and found his audacious, brilliant, quirky self to be my match, it felt like the most normal and natural thing in the world to just agree to be together. I believed with every ounce of my being that I was a better me with him by my side, invigorated but oddly at peace, challenged but unconditionally accepted, inspired, supported, motivated, affirmed, safe, at home, and I was quite certain that the two of us together would be completely invincible.

Here, far far away from my past, many people are surprised to discover that I was once married. It’s seems to some as crazy a confession as if I were to share that I did hard time for a string of B&Es or that I had a lion act in a traveling circus. Crazy! The further away I get from the life I once lived, and the more settled I become in creating this here and now, the less he and us come up in conversation, but they still do. It’s inevitable. We were together for over a decade and we essentially became grown-ups together, which means that much of our life story overlaps and many of our memories are intertwined. Also, there’s no escaping the fact that me as a one-time wife is an essential component of the me I am now. Those experiences have shaped me, and provided me with lessons and insights about love and life and heartache and decision-making and forgiveness and self-discovery and commitment and all that good stuff.

The most common question people ask me once they get past the initial “What??? Married?? For that long??” is, of course, “Why?”.  Why on earth would any twenty-year old kid deliberately choose to be with one person for the rest of your life? I mean, even if you’re in love? Why? The natural assumption many make when they discover another aspect of my past, namely, the fact that I grew up fully submerged in the evangelical subculture, is that we got married in order to avoid the big Christian NoNo of premarital sex, which is simply not the case. I have always been a bit of a flexible interpreter of biblical teachings, and my interpretation of the conditions of God-ordained intimacy was as personalized and lenient as my interpretation of scripture on eating habits and Sunday dress. We certainly didn’t go around announcing our night-time activities at bible study, and I suffered from the occasional pang of Christian guilt, and we probably waited much much longer than heathens would have, but official permission to go ahead and….you know…wasn’t exactly a big motivator. Plus, really, since when is marriage just about sex? It's about togetherness and sharing in all its aspects, right? Looking back though, I see that many non-Christian young folk in our state of in loveness would have probably opted to just move in with each other rather than to tie the knot. Moving in together would have most likely been frowned upon by our parents, as both our fathers were men of the cloth and familial reputation was somewhat of a priority, and also it wasn’t really something people in our social circle did, but an even bigger factor than all of that was the fact that my weird little young ego had this idea that if he decided he wanted to live with me but didn’t want to marry me, it was kind of like he needed a test-drive before he committed to the full deal, and my all or nothing self wasn’t exactly cool with that idea.

People often also ask what our parents thought, if they or anyone else tried to talk some sense into us. Aside from the fact that young marriage is totally typical of this subculture we belonged to, I don’t really think anyone could have talked me out of this decision I had whole-heartedly made with my big, bad grown-up self. At the time, I was in school and working as a waitress, and some random customer threw her head back in laughter when she discovered I was getting married. She scoffed at me and proceeded to tell me I was too young and didn’t yet know who I was or what I wanted, and I remember feeling patronized and ridiculed by a jaded, cynical, pathetic woman who just didn’t get it, and that experience made me furious and furiously determined. That’s the thing about being twenty, and that’s the thing about being in love. Nobody can really tell you anything, because you’ve got it all figured out or at least you feel totally capable of figuring it out, and you always think your situation is different from everyone else’s and that they just don’t get it. Plus, I think my parents saw us together and saw how much we loved each other and how happy we were and that was enough. They also knew me well and they knew how I made decisions, and I think they also knew that, really, it was my decision to make. The truth is that people could have told me their opinion and tried to share their wisdom but I don’t think I would have listened. In fact, I probably would have been more motivated to prove them wrong!

Sometimes, when I see other “child brides” (the term some of us have very affectionately dubbed our young, naïve, eagerly married selves) excitedly make the decision to walk down the aisle, there’s this wee little part of me that wants to tell them to slow down. I want to remind them that there’s no rush, and inform them that they might want to consider the fact that the male brain isn’t fully developed until age 25, which is also, by the way, right around the time when mental illness tends to reveal itself. I am tempted to encourage them to get to know themselves a little more before they enter into this kind of a union, so that they don’t compromise their dreams and goals. I want to tell them that the tone they set from the get-go will likely remain unalterable throughout their relationship, and I want to remind them that boundaries and roles and expectations become very difficult to change. But then I remember myself at twenty, and I think, really, what’s the point?

What’s the point, not only because they, like me, won’t listen; not only because it’s not really my business in the first place, and they’re right- I probably don’t get it; not only because they might be one of the lucky ones whose young love grows securely and solidly and healthily in the same direction, but most importantly, because no matter what happens, even if they are not one of the “lucky ones,” when it comes right down to it, intense, fully committed, trusting, brazen young love is this ridiculously beautiful and powerful thing that sometimes seems irrational or completely insane but is something you really only ever experience once, and who wants to get in the way of that?? I mean, I am very much committed to keeping an open heart and an open mind. I still believe in the awesomeness of love, and there’s a part of me that believes that I will someday get the chance to experience true love again, but I recognize that it will be of a very, very, very different variety. And there’s no value judgment here. It is tempting to either romanticize or scoff at young love. All love, in its different forms, is good and great. This is just an observation, rooted in my own memory. But the truth is that no matter how hard I try to resist cynicism, to resist the temptation to protect myself from disappointment and heartache, to willingly and fully let someone in, I will never ever ever ever be able to enter into a relationship with the same level of unconditional trust and brazen faith that I did when I was twenty. And again, it doesn’t matter if you think that’s a good thing or a bad thing. It just is what it is.

I guess what I am saying is that I can look back on that day fifteen years ago with my pleasantly amused and nonchalant nostalgia because I can now, finally, after the hurt and the bitterness have long passed, admire my young self’s fearlessness in wholeheartedly pursuing love. I can respect her certainty and her completely unconscious choice to live from her heart. I can appreciate the commitment she made to be with another that wasn’t based on rational cost/benefit analysis and future thinking, but also wasn’t based on flighty in-the-moment feelings, but instead was firmly rooted in this kind of faith in her own knowing. And I guess what it really comes down to is that all love- like, the really really good and true stuff- can never be properly explained or understood or predicted. You can make lists of criteria to try and avoid past mistakes, you can evaluate compatibility and predict the likelihood of relational success, you can try and weigh which kind of love is a higher love, but all that caution and rationality can eventually dilute that deep down knowing that we often- at some point- stop trusting, and it can taint that real deal love with fear. I mean, it’s love, not a freaking business deal. No matter how much you try to negotiate and evaluate and predict, it’s always going to be complicated and flawed and maybe a little messy, and there’s always going to be bits of good and bad layered together. The big point here, which I am hopefully finally getting to, is that when I look back on all of it, even the messy and broken bits, I recognize that it was totally worth it. Love- even when it falls apart- is almost always worth it.

More later.

Q is 2!!! I wonder what he will do....

So, my nephew turned two this weekend, and we had a big ole party to celebrate. He really seemed to enjoy all the attention and affection and presents, as well as a massive assortment of playmates and three varieties of homemade cupcakes.

It was a good, full, happy day.

At this point, he wants for nothing toy-wise. The kid has everything he could possibly need to practice his hand-eye co-ordination, stimulate his imagination, promote numeracy and literacy, develop his fine motor skills. Whatever aspect of his little toddler self needs to be developed, there is certainly a toy in his playroom designed to develop it.

Alongside all the creative and thoughtful gifts of toys and books were generous gifts of cold, hard cash, which will quickly find their way into Q’s bank account, where the coins of this year will join the coins of last year and will all grow, grow, grow in value and interest, so that when the time comes that he has finished high school and is ready to head off on his own adult adventure, he will have some savings to help cover the cost of an education which, at that faraway point in the future, might very well be the equivalent of a mortgage on a mansion.

It’s funny how quickly children become their own people, how they so early on show off quirks and traits that are unique to them alone, and while all of us who love him want him to grow up in an environment where he feels nurtured and safe yet encouraged to explore and discover, we can’t help but wonder who he is later going to be.

So, in the spirit of celebrating a special little guy who has stubbornly and persistently grown from helpless baby to do-it-myself toddler, and also of planning for his someday training and education, may I present to you- based on my current observations and experiences- my top ten predicted possible career paths for Little Man Q.

1. Masterchef

While Q is always interested in helping out, he is particularly intrigued by the kitchen. As soon as anyone is busy making something, he pulls up his stool, and often even climbs up on the counter. “Mix, mix, mix,” he says, or he asks for a “mes” so he can help cut up fruit and vegetables. He helped me make granola once, though his enthusiastic “mixing” resulted in half the bowl spilling out onto the counter and the floor. Luckily, he is a hardcore “poetser” (not inherited from me, that’s for sure) and insists on the broom or the cloth to clean up any mess immediately. We have gone through a good number of bananas as they are soft and easy to cut (or at least smush) with a children’s knife, which gives him the sense that he is participating in creating culinary magic, without risking the loss of any of his cute little fingers. Where does the “master” part come in? Well, given the home he is growing up in, with parents who are skilled in the art of cooking and eating, genes that are infused with creativity and a drive towards perfectionism, and shelves filled with annotated cookbooks and culinary delicacies, I can’t see him becoming any other kind of chef!

2. Michelin Star Food Critic

Q has always been a pretty good communicator and has very little problem offering up his opinion, even without an extensive vocabulary. A few months back, if something was on his plate that he found particularly unacceptable, he simply chucked it on the floor. While that approach has recently been replaced with the more civilized act of removing the undesirable from his plate and placing it to the side, there is still the no-fail technique of simply opening his mouth and letting the unwelcome food spill out. Truly disgusting offerings are sometimes spat out with great vigor, and accompanied by hand gestures, a squished and twisted face, and creative sound effects. He is equally expressive about food he likes. “Nog, nog, nog,” he will demand (more, more more), even if his plate is already full of the good stuff. His taste buds, while sometimes intrigued by the samplings on the adult plates at the table, are most pleased with yogourt, dessert, dessert, dessert, and a whole lotta meat. He went through a phase of being especially fond of a sandwich with paté, though he would often lick off the paté and leave the bread. I admit that his table manners need a little refinement still before he can be sent on assignment, as his go-to food insertion method tends to be too big pieces shoved into an already full mouth, with minimal chewing, but we’re working on it.

3. Rock ‘n Roll Tour Bus Driver

Q loves all things motorized: cars, trucks, lawnmowers, planes, trains. When the road in front of the house was under construction, he stood with his face pressed up against the window and watched for hours on end. If he hears a lawnmower whirring away in the neighbourhood, he shouts out “motor,” and he becomes particularly frustrated when a plane passes by and we are not able to reproduce another the moment he excitedly demands “Nog”. But the bus seems to be a favourite. He has several t-shirts emblazoned with a bus, and “The Wheels on the Bus” tends to be one of his main songs of choice. I have sung to Q for a good long while now, and often when I’ve started to sing a song, he has said, “Nee, nee, nee,” which at first I must admit I took offense to because I thought he was commenting on the quality of my voice. It turns out I was often just singing the wrong song, and sometimes simply switching to “The Wheels on the Bus” is enough to get him smiling and bopping his head. For a while, he loved that song so much that on a recent babysitting visit, I put on good ole Raffi and started- of course- with this favourite tune. Once the song was over and the next began, Q reacted with a “Nee, nee, nee” and became so insistent that we essentially listened to that one song on repeat for two hours straight! Now, my prediction that he will be a rock and roll tour bus driver, as opposed to a city bus driver is simply rooted in my knowledge that he is an incredibly cool dude who loves good music, is often awake in the middle of the night, and has a great spirit of adventure.

4. Librarian

Q was a very early fan of books. He already has quite the collection, and while his attention has recently been drawn away from books by the delights of the world outside, he seems to be particularly fond of pop-up books and books about animals and automobiles. But almost as much as he enjoys “reading” books, he loves to organize them into piles and put them away, or take them all off of the shelf and then stack and re-stack. He also has a wicked memory, which I think could serve him well as a librarian, when people ask him to help them find “you know, that green book with the snake on the fifth page”.

5. Landscape Artist

Q is one of those hardcore outdoorsy kids. As soon as he wakes up, he wants his shoes so he can go “boete, boete” (outside, in dialect). He stands by the back door, deeply distressed, when it’s raining, and he is super content in the backyard wandering around, spinning in circles, kicking the ball, blowing bubbles, throwing sticks. One of his favourite toys, though, is his toy lawnmower. He also loves flowers and shoves his face into each bud to take a good, hard sniff. He likes to move sticks around from one pile to another, and enjoys carrying buckets full of weeds to the compost pile. He also likes to rake and dig and pull out grass. Some possible obstacles to this career path, however, could be the fact that he seems to be terribly afraid of bees and that he doesn’t like to get his hands dirty.

6. UN Translator

Q is daily surrounded by three different languages- English, Dutch, and the dialect of the region. He already has words in all three languages, and seems to understand instructions in all three. Given that he is smart as a whip, a good little problem solver and quick thinker, extroverted and has such an expressive face, I feel this path seems a natural fit. 

7. Traffic Controller

Q gives orders in a very authoritative manner. “Mooze,” he says if I am in the way (in other words, not where he wants me to be), and if I don’t mooze fast enough, he has no problem marching over to where I am at, pulling me by the hand to the desired location, or pushing, if necessary.

8. Stand-up Comic/Potential Finalist on the X Factor

This kid is already a comic genius. He is very in tune with the energy and reaction of his audience and will repeat the most ridiculous acts just to get a laugh. Laugh just once, and he does it again and again and again. Slapstick is his main schtick- you know, intentional falling, dancing, jumping, face-pulling, spinning around in circles until he hits the ground. He’s got a great smirk and is already quite the tease. He loves nonsense singing, is an expressive storyteller and expert peekaboo-er. It also helps that his laugh is a contagious cackle, and that he is a head-thrown-back, full body laugher (much like his crazy aunt).

9. Manager of Housekeeping at the Ritz Carlton

I have never encountered a kid so interested in cleaning. He has a toy vacuum cleaner and a kid-sized broom. As soon as he spots a spill, he wants to clean it up- thoroughly. He loves taking things out of drawers, wiping everything down and then putting it back. Why do I think he will be the manager rather than the maid itself? Well, he has a natural predilection for being in charge and bossing people around, combined with tendencies towards perfectionism and a surprising capacity for empathy. He is also terribly persuasive. Good management material, I’d say.

10. Zookeeper
Animals have long been an area of concentrated interest for Q. It started with a flap book filled with all sorts of different animals. Then there was another animal book and another and another. Then he learned many of the sounds and actions of the animals. (He does an impressive giraffe and iguana, and- believe it or not- knows the sound a water buffalo makes.) He has an extensive toy farm collection, and now, he frequently plays with a whole host of plastic animals, lining them up, grouping them together, moving them to a new location. He also has a great, always growing family of stuffed animals, all of which he has named appropriately. The best name, I think, is "Hap" (Bite) given to a massive stuffed crocodile. Now, of course, a love of animals is not sufficient to become a good zookeeper. Q, however, has a great eye for detail. He notices as soon as a member is lost from the group, and recognizes what differentiates one individual from another. He has already shown his ability to care for animals by frequently trying to feed the "meow" that lives in his house, and his sensitivity to living creatures, as well as his cleanliness, lead me to believe he'd be an excellent candidate for the job. On trips to the petting zoo, he is often a little hesitant to get too terribly close, which he might have to overcome, but maybe this isn't such a bad thing if he is to be dealing with lions and tigers and bears. Oh, and he also really likes playing with keys. From what I know of zookeepers, they usually have a good, hefty ring of keys. Bonus!

There you have it. 

It's fun to speculate, but of course, we all know the unintentional pressure that can be brought on by asking a kid what he wants to be when he grows up, or the anxiety connected to the desire to please our family and make them proud of us, and the delicate balance caregivers and family members must aspire to in helping a child uncover their talents and hone their skills without forcing our own will. The key, I suppose, or at least one of them, I think, is ensuring that this little guy knows that no matter who he chooses to be or what he decides he wants to do with his one precious life, he will be surrounded and grounded in unconditional love and acceptance, and reminded that, above all else, more important than making a lot of money or even making a difference, more important than being the best at something or being remotely successful, I think those of us who love him really just want him to be healthy and happy, because joy makes all the difference really between an okay life and an awesome life, and joy, as far as I can tell, is pretty intricately connected with being in a home where gratitude and freedom and stability and love and acceptance of difference are fostered and modelled. And if I'm wrong, and this is not the key after all, then I'd say it's a pretty good kind of wrong to be.

Who knew a universal truth could be revealed from standing on the wrong side of a locked door?

Most Monday afternoons, I head over to my sister’s place and hang out with my nephew, Little Man Q. Yesterday was an exceptionally beautiful day so I decided I was going to run the few kilometers between my house and theirs. I threw on my running gear, sunscreened my face, grabbed my sunglasses and my spare house key, punched in the alarm code, and headed out the door. Only once the door had shut and locked itself behind me did I realize that the usual bunch of keys I lug around with me (purposely left behind because they are a little too bulky to run with) was hanging out oh so inconveniently on the other side of the door. And then I realized that the fact that there was a key in the lock on the inside of the door meant that I wouldn’t be able to use a key in the lock on the outside of the door. I tried to tell myself- rather unconvincingly- that maybe, just maybe, this was a super special, magical, opens-from-any-side-anytime kind of a door. I placed the key in the lock, held my breath, and tried to turn it. Sure enough, it wouldn't budge. Then I tried to tell myself that maybe it was simply the key. I mean, it had been a little finicky lately. Perhaps I just needed to try another spare key. No matter what kind of a door this was or what kind of super special spare key might open it, I decided to head to my sister’s as originally planned. She was expecting me, after all, and she had the other spare key, plus a phone I could borrow since mine was (also oh so inconveniently) on the other side of the door.

As I jogged to my sister's place (at an increasingly pathetic pace), rather than enjoy the beautiful route alongside farms and wineries and fields in bloom- as I’d originally intended, I spent those 4 kilometres engaging in some pretty unfriendly self-talk.
“This is so typical of you. Only you could do something like this.”
“How could you remember to put the alarm on and not take the keys out of the door?”
“You were rushing again. Why didn’t you just leave earlier?”
And on and on and on it went.

By the time I reached my sister, I was sweaty and flustered and irritable. She lent me her key, her phone, and her bicycle, and on the 15-minute bike ride back home, all the self-criticism originally centred around the incident of the key swelled and festered to include anxiety and judgment about every unfinished task on my May Break To Do list- every email that hadn't been written, every essay that was not yet marked, every burnt-out light bulb in the house that hadn’t yet been changed, my incomplete Canadian tax return, the toppling pile of papers to be filed, the dust bunnies behind the couch, pretty much anything unfinished, forgotten or overdue.
And on and on and on it went.

After trying the second spare key, which obviously didn't work, I called a locksmith and waited for him to kindly come and break into my house. That half hour of waiting allowed me enough time to think of every ounce of energy and time I’d ever wasted on silly, careless, totally avoidable mistakes like this, and every penny I'd wasted on fixing silly mistakes like this, or because I'd been late with a bill or because I'd forgotten to send in a health insurance form or because I hadn't read a sign properly and gotten a parking ticket. By the time the locksmith arrived, my anxiety had reached a level that was almost palpable. While he worked away, I paced and hovered and apologized and even offered up convoluted, alternative ways of getting into the house that involved less violent jiggling and kicking of my front door. Finally, at one point, this calm, kind, sixty-something gentleman stopped, looked at me, smiled, and said, “Rustig, meid. Het komt allemaal goed.” (Pretty much "Chill, girl. It''s all good.")

He was right. I needed to chill out. It was all going to be okay. This was not the end of the world. 100 euros and three hours of my day- it could have been much, much worse.

Still, I had trouble resisting the temptation to delve even deeper into my memory in search of further evidence of my incurable idiocy. On my post-break-in bike ride back to my sister's, I spent those first few minutes sighing, rolling my eyes, and shaking my head as I steeped some more in the afternoon's long and generous dose of self-criticism.

And then finally it hit me: entropy.

Just a few weeks ago, I had been reviewing the topic of energy with one of my classes. While I am no real scientist, what I know is this: when the sun shines down on the leaves of the plants below, not all of that solar energy is used in the photosynthetic process. Some of it gets absorbed by the earth or reflected back into the atmosphere. And when that plant grows big and strong and a rabbit comes along and feasts on its leaves, not every drop of energy produced by that plant gets transferred to Thumper. And when coal or oil is burned to produce energy for us to use in our homes, there is always incomplete combustion, always energy that gets "lost" as heat.

Basically, what I realized is that if plants and animals and the sun in the sky can't fully and completely transfer 100% of their energy productively, what makes me think that I, an unpredictable, sentient and complex being, can do that? It is foolish to expect that every cent of my pay cheque can be accounted for, and that every minute I'm awake can be maximized and used "productively". That is simply not the way it works. The universe is set up in such a way that in every transfer and transformation of energy, a little gets lost. That's just the way it is. I'm going to make these kinds of mistakes, and no matter how hard I try, there are going to be days when I wake up late, or have a bad night sleep, or get the flu, or forget my lunch on the counter. C'est la vie! And all this time, I've been fighting the natural order of the universe by trying to use my resources with 100% productivity, and then getting mad at myself when I can't, reprimanding myself for "wasting" time and energy and money. I realize that my tendencies towards scatter-brained distractibility mean I might need more of a buffer than some of you hyper-focused lot out there, but even the most organized, efficient, frugal individual cannot control the inevitability of money/time/energy-consuming events like flat tires, stolen wallets, food poisoning, and traffic jams. It's just entropy, the inevitable and steady deterioration of a system.

I also realized that in those moments when I become even more obsessed with productivity, usually in response to one of these incidents, because I feel like I have to make up the time and compensate for my foolishness, the anxiety that ensues usually makes me even more scatter-brained and unfocussed, which makes me even less productive. Then add on top of that the energy used in getting mad at myself, and I end up making things worse rather than better. Finally, we could get all philosophical and ask what it even means to be "productive" and why it is so bloody important. Is my day worth less if I don't accomplish some task on my To Do list? Do I have less value if I am not constantly ProtestantWorkEthic-productive?

The lesson learned then is this: entropy is inevitable. What I can control is my attitude and approach to this inevitability. I can transfer positive energy grounded in the wisdom of acceptance, or I can transfer negative energy fueled by piling on the wouldcouldashouldas.

The choice seems stupidly obvious.

The birds, the bees...and blood?

Spring is here. I work in a high school, and at the first scent we teacherfolk catch of that Spring air wafting into the building, many of us heave a collective sigh and brace ourselves with an “Uh oh, here we go again”. Inevitably, alongside the blossoming of flowers and tweeting of birdies, comes the hypnotic, hormonal haze of teenage love. The girls start wearing fewer clothes and become particularly conscious of how they flick their hair and strut their stuff, the boys are permanently wide-eyed, restless, and eager, and the making and breaking of couples is happening left, right, and center. Interestingly, Spring also often tends to be the time in the high school Science curriculum when students get to learn all about the birds and the bees. A colleague in his last year of teaching was telling me last week that he has just started the good ole springtime unit on the reproductive system with a group of Year 7s. As he told me of his creative ways of helping squirmy little 12 year olds understand all the essentials, I couldn’t help but remember the many times I have had to teach Sex Ed, always an amusing and delicate undertaking. There was the year I had a student confused about the proper way to put on a condom (he’d unrolled it and tried to pull it on like a sock, and that- surprise, surprise- didn’t work so well). There was the year I had to remind my class of the boundaries between teachers and students when nearly half of the questions in the infamous, anonymous question box were addressed to me specifically, interesting though not quite appropriate questions like “When did you lose your virginity?”, “Have you ever had sex?”, and “Have you ever experimented with lesbianism?” And then there was the year I had to assure a panic-ridden girl who had missed her period that it was highly unlikely she was pregnant, given that she had never had sex nor had even ever been in the vicinity of a naked penis. As teachers, we collect stories, and I have to say, I think my story of the first time I had to talk with kids about the birds and the bees is probably one of the best in my collection.

Before I went back to school to study Education, I did a short stint as a teaching assistant at a local high school, where much of my job involved integrating kids with varying levels of developmental delay and special needs into mainstream classes. I got to work with a wonderful variety of cool and quirky kids, but I spent most of my time working with a hilarious and rambunctious trio of seventeen-year old boys. Let’s, for the sake of this story, call them Rob, Ryan, and Jesse.

Rob was the self-appointed leader of the pack. He had one of the healthiest egos I have ever encountered in a teenage boy, and he strutted down the hallway with the swagger of Danny Zuko from Grease, high-fiving the guys as he passed, and blazing his gun fingers at all the ladies, sometimes with a nod or a wink for extra effect. He knew everyone's name and from the Heys and nods returned as he confidently walked with head high and smile wide, it soon became obvious that he must, indeed, have been one of the most popular kids in school. His confidence was so healthy, in fact, that on the last day of school, he presented me with a neatly typed letter that can only be described as a break-up note. Made up of lines he must have borrowed from MTV afterschool specials, he told me that we’d had a good run together but that he had his life and I had mine and it was time for us to move on and go our separate ways. Rob enjoyed attention, he loved being the best, the fastest, the strongest, and he had a flair for the dramatic. When upset, he bit his lip or crossed his arms or made a fist and slowly turned away, in much the same exaggerated style as the dames of 1940s cinema. Once, after the boys received their results back from a little Science quiz, Rob became silent and visibly upset. After a good ten minutes of refusing to say what was bothering him, he took a deep breath, blinked his eyes, paced and shook his head, and then only after much more lip-biting, sighing, and arm-crossing in the corner, did he finally confess that he was upset because Ryan had scored higher than he had. With hands thrown up in the air, Rob cried, “But why? I just don’t understand. How could this happen? I always get the highest mark. Everybody knows I am the smartest in the group.” 

Rob’s best friend and faithful follower was Ryan, a tall and spaghetti-thin boy, with hair that was always a little too long, and pants that were always a little too short. He was a huge Michael Jackson fan, so much so that he dressed up as the king of pop every Halloween. He could frequently be heard singing one of MJ’s hits and he could do the kick/spin/crotch grab/Owww with practiced perfection. His gait was similar to how I imagine a tipsy, marching llama might walk- back straight, with one long leg thrust out far in front of the other, each step landing first wobbily, then solidly, on the sole of his velcroed sneakers. He often snickered to himself, sometimes because of a shared joke, but also often because of a private one, and he sometimes needed a gentle reminder that no matter how nice and warm it was down there, one really shouldn't be putting one's hands in one pants. He came from a particularly large and loving family, and the kindness of his parents could be seen in Ryan, who was himself a kind, calm, easygoing soul. His response to the above incident of the Science quiz was evidence of his nature- Ryan quickly hid his own excitement and instead put his arm around Rob's shoulder and gave him a bit of a talk-down, assuring him that he shouldn't worry or be upset because he'd do better next time.

Then there was Jesse, who was desperate to not ever miss a thing but was always just a little bit behind the pack, rushing to catch up because he'd been distracted or forgotten something or because he needed to know what was going on here, there, everywhere. He was almost always in a good mood, always eager to share a story- enthusiastically, loudly and so close to my face that I could smell what he’d had for breakfast. He had a very very long list of special needs and medical conditions, one of which was near-blindness. I'd heard that when he was younger, he used to have to wear a hockey helmet because he kept bumping into things, not only because he had trouble seeing but also because he was an excited, distractable type whose attention quickly strayed from the path in front of him to the gazillion other stimuli swirling around him. The most frequent thing I said to Jesse was “Personal space,” a friendly but firm reminder repeated several times throughout the day. He would respond each time by taking two giant steps back and then, of course, as he continued telling his latest story, as his excitement built, he would inch closer and closer and closer until he was right up in my face again, and- again- I would offer up yet another reminder. “Personal space, Jesse. Personal space!”

The four of us worked together in a variety of classes, and I very quickly grew to care about this awesome group of boys and looked forward to our daily adventures. The boys enjoyed school quite a bit but they really really enjoyed Science, especially, of course, when they got to be involved in cutting things up or blowing things up. They also enjoyed, however, the simple practice of taking notes and labeling diagrams, and all three were quite proud of themselves once they were able- after much practice- to locate essential organs on the body, like the heart, the brain and the lungs. They’d learned about the nervous system and the digestive system and the circulatory system, and at long last, with the arrival of Spring, it was time for the reproductive system.

I took the boys aside and tried to explain what was coming.

“Boys, listen. Very soon in Science class, we are going to start talking about the reproductive system. Do you know what I mean when I say ‘reproductive system’?”

“I do,” piped up Rob.

“Oh really? That’s great. Can you tell the boys a bit about it?”

“Well, I know what it is, but….but…it’s kinda hard to explain.”

“Yes, you’re right. It is kinda hard to explain, isn't it? Well then, why don’t I explain it? Basically, what we’re going to talk about is the ways that boys and girls are different from each other, and also the changes that happen in your body as you grow from being a boy to a man, and we’re also going to talk about how babies are made.”

I pause and look at each of them for a reaction. All three seem to be doing their very best to avoid eye contact with me. Ryan, of course, is snickering away, his natural reaction to an unfamiliar situation.

I continue. “So the question is: do we want to learn about all of this stuff together with the rest of the class or do we want to learn about it alone in our own small group? What do you think?”

Silence. They look at each other, then at me, then at each other. They do almost everything together and seemed to be waiting for one of their crew to speak up first and take the lead.

“How about we try and see how it goes with the rest of the class, and if you’re feeling uncomfortable at any time, we can always change it up and talk about this stuff on our own. How does that sound? Do you think we can all agree to that?”

Again, they’re looking at each other, then at me, then each other, and then slowly but surely, they each nod in agreement.

Phew.

So, the first class comes and goes. There’s talk of progesterone, estrogen, testosterone, but no anatomical pictures have been put on display, and the p-word and v-word have not yet been uttered. All is good, the boys are totally fine, and we finish that first class without any issues whatsoever.

Again, phew.

Well, the next day I arrive at work and walk into the common room our program shares, only to find Jesse rocking back and forth on the couch, weeping so hard that snot and drool and tears are streaming down his face and soaking his shirt. He is inconsolable.

“What is going on?” I ask.

A colleague shakes her head in confusion. “I don’t know," she says. "We’ve tried to get him to talk, but he won’t. He has only said that it has something to do with what you guys are talking about in Science class.”

“What???” I am completely confused.

I mean, we’ve barely started and there’s been absolutely no talk yet of penises or vaginas or any of that other stuff that tends to make kids uncomfortable.

I sit down beside Jesse with a big box of tissues, and try to first clean him up a little and then to figure out what on earth is going on.

“Jesse, sweetie,” I start ever so gingerly, “You’re so upset. What’s going on?”

My question is met with another bout of wailing.

“I am told it has something to do with Science class. Did something in yesterday’s class upset you?”

Another full-throttle wail.

“Did it remind you of something?”

Now, he nods his head vigorously and starts almost hyperventilating, and then another round of crying begins.

Oh no. My first thought frightened me. I couldn’t help but think of the unfortunate truth that these kids we work with are far more vulnerable to sexual abuse. I was scared to death that Jesse’s reaction was stirred up by a dreadful secret, rooted in some kind of horrible, abusive experience in his past. He was so so so upset.

I try to get more details by asking some simple yes/no questions.

“Does it remind you of something that happened to you?”

He shakes his head “No” and I heave a great big sigh of relief that no matter what it is, it can’t be as bad as my initial fear.

“Does it remind you of something that happened to someone you know?”

Through stuttering breaths comes his “Y-y-y-y-es-s-s-s.”

“Okay, so it reminds you of something that happened to someone you know?”

He closes his eyes and nods his head.

“Um, okay. Do you want to tell me about it? Maybe I can help.”

“We-see-um-no-n-n-n-n-no” He can’t get his words out. He can’t catch his breath. I’ve never seen him so upset.

“Why don’t you take some time to catch your breath and settle down a bit, and when you feel ready, then we can talk about it, okay?”

Again, he nods his head, and whimpers and hiccups and sobs some more.

As the day passes, I keep my eye on Jesse, and watch to see if he has calmed down. He is quiet and withdrawn for most of the morning, and then by lunch, he seems to have returned to his usual, jovial self. Finally, mid-afternoon, he comes to me and says, “I think I’m ready to talk.”

Excellent. I take him aside and start with the same question we ended with earlier this morning.

“Jesse, you said this morning that what we’re talking about in Science reminds you of something that has happened to someone you know. Right?”

He puts on his serious face, sighs deeply, and nods his head.

“Is that person a friend of yours?”

“No.”

“Is it someone in your family?”

“Yes.”

“Your sister?”

“No.”

“A cousin?”

“No.”

“Hmm, well then, who?”

 The stuttering breath and tears start again. Through sobs and whimpers, he cries,“My gr-gr-grandpa.”

“Your grandpa?” I can’t help but sound confused.

“Yes,” he shrieks.

“Well, what happened exactly to your grandpa?”

In a voice so loud, it can be heard by everyone in the room, he cries out, “It reminds me of when my grandpa had to go to the hospital because he had a low white blood cell count.” And then he returns again to the hysterical, inconsolable, full body weeping.

“It reminds you of your grandpa and his low white blood cell count? Is that what you said?”

“Y-y-y-yesss.”

Oh my. I sit there for a moment, trying desperately to make the link between progesterone & estrogen and Jesse’s grandpa’s white blood cell count. My forehead wrinkles in a little confusion and I have to bite my lips together to stop them from forming into a bit of a confused, concerned, but inevitably relieved smile. The poor kid has been distraught the whole day, and has spent so much energy on all this sadness and stress. A beloved grandpa in the hospital is enough to make anyone upset- that's for sure; but he maybe needs a little clarification, all the same.

“But Jesse," I exclaim, "that has absolutely nothing to do with what we’re talking about!”

Jesse stops, as if a switch has been turned from on to off. He stops shaking, stops sobbing, then sniffs a little, and looks up.

“It doesn’t?” He is surprised, terribly confused, but also, it seems, relieved.

“No, nothing at all.”

“Really?”

“Really.”
"Really?"
"Really."

“Well,” he pauses for a minute and then turns to me and whispers, “but…but…I…well…I don’t want to talk about all that stuff with the rest of the class. I just don’t want to.”
“That’s okay," I whisper back. "Then we’ll just do our own mini-class together. Does that sound like a plan?”

He nods in agreement, and just then, Rob and Ryan, who have been hovering around throughout the entire conversation, join us.

Ryan snickers, of course, and says, “Me neither. I don’t really want to talk about it with the whole class.”

And then Rob pokes his head in and offers up his two cents. “You know when you asked us a few days ago if we were okay with staying with the class for all this reprowhatever stuff? Well, when I said ‘yes’, I had my fingers crossed. On both my hands.”

Fingers crossed, huh? On both hands? Well then, I guess that settles that now, doesn’t it?!