I’ll freely admit- I rarely give my Mom the credit she richly deserves.

Like many mother-daughter relationships, we are simultaneously too different, and too much alike. She can push my buttons like no one else on earth (except, of course, for my daughter). And I hers, I imagine. I have sometimes doubted that she liked me- but never that she loved me.

Sometimes, I just have to step back and give that lady her due. It’s “Christmas List” time- she keeps the list, distributes ideas among her children, and generally makes sure that everybody has something to be happy about under the tree.

This is her list for Christmas 2009:

Dear [Eldest], [Middle], and [Youngest],

I have sent some clothes to Valu Village and still have three closets more,
So I need no others, nor do I seek furnishings or decor,
I have all I want and all I need, so making this list is hard,
but lucky for you it is easy to fill, quite simple in that regard;
Remember the needs in Africa, and the Stephen Lewis Foundation,
Or buy a chicken through World Vision, or books for education,
Think of the wildlife that are perishing, that your grandchildren may never see
And give to World Wildlife Federation; do these in the name of me.
As for something to open on Christmas Day, tho’ you are busy husbands and wives
I’d enjoy some actual photos of families, living their busy lives.
In a book, with labels, and in tangible form, pictures are always great,
[Surname]s* and [Surname]s* and [Surname]s* galore, their houses, their garden gate,
Their workplaces, play places, family time, when energized or tired,
So I can look and see what your lives are like, any old time I’m inspired.
This is my list, for Christmas ‘09, you need not spend time in the stores,
Stay away from the ‘flu; I’ve sent my list to you, now please send me yours!

A blessed Advent to all!

All my love,
M.

So I’m just gonna take some time this morning to appreciate the generous, doggerel-writing awesomeness that is my mom. Over here on my anonymous blog where there is no danger of her ever finding out that I think she is (at times) very very cool.

*True thing- All these Surnames are the same. I don’t know which is more statistically unlikely: that three sisters would all meet and fall in love with guys with the same (granted, quite common) last name? That three sisters would all take their husband’s name after marriage? Or that two of those sisters would stay happily married for over a decade until the third found her soulmate?

I keep having these days where I realize how completely not ready I am to be the mother of a curious almost-4-year-old.

At bedtime, we have this litany of all the blankets on her bed, and where they came from. They include one I made for her, and one made by a friend. We say, “and this blanket is from Mary. (She made it for me) She made it for you. Do you know why? (Because she loved me even before I was born) Because she loved you. Even before you were born.”

Except that my friend Mary, who was a constant presence in my life in the years before Ruth’s arrival, had moved away. And Ruth hadn’t seen her since her first birthday party. And Mary stopped by while she was in town last week.

So, at bedtime, the conversation changed.

And this blanket is from Mary.
(Mary is that tall boy)
my internal dialogue will be represented in italics. What? Mary is a… tall, skinny woman. Okay. Um.
Mary is not a boy. Mary is a woman.
(Mary is a boy. Why do you say Mary is a woman?)
Uhhh. There was a time when this would’ve been an easier question for me to answer…
Because Mary says that Mary is a woman. And, Baby, you don’t get to decide for anyone else if they are a boy or a girl. That is for them to decide. What if I decided you were a boy?
(But I’m not a boy, I’m a girl.)
But what if I decided that you are a boy. Because I say so.
(But I’m not a boy! I’m NOT A BOY, MAMA).
No. You are not a boy. And you get to decide for you. But Mary gets to decide for Mary. And I get to decide for me. You don’t get to decide for anybody else if they are a boy or a girl.
oh dear God, what am I doing here? Whatever. In for a penny, in for a pound…
Most people decide to be what their bodies are. But some people with boy bodies decide to be girls. And some people with girl bodies decide to be boys. And nobody else gets to decide for them.
(I have a girl body. And I decide to be a girl)
Me too, Baby. Goodnight, Baby.
(Blankets, Mama)
Ok, [continuing where we left off] and this one is from Mary. She loved you even before you were born.
(SHE loved me, Mama. Because she’s a girl)
Yes, Baby. And this used to be my crayon blanket. But now it is your crayon blanket, to keep you cosy and warm. I love you Baby. Goodnight.
(I love you, Mama).

I don’t really know how to talk about any of this with my kids. I suspect “decide” is the wrong word. I suspect we’ll be back over this ground again. I suspect this is more than she wanted to know. Next time I’ll have to ask her what she thinks makes someone a boy. (And then not laugh at her answer, because she can’t tell delight from derision). I suspect that if I continue with this tack, some day I will cringe mightily as she asks someone who eschews traditional gender markers if they have chosen to be a boy or a girl. (Cringe, and hope that the question is less irritating from a child than from an adult, or that the language of choice makes a difference.)

I’m on uneven and changing ground here. How do I teach her that bodies are all different? Lives are all different? Families are all different? That diversity is a good thing- we are stronger and better with more voices at the table. That other people’s identities are their own to name. And, more importantly, that her identity is hers to name.

Whoever she grows up to be. Even if she changes her mind about the whole ‘being a girl’ thing.

I was talking with some of my colleagues this morning, and some of them were lamenting that they have people who, when they come for a meeting, bring coffee and Timbits. My boss, on the topic: “That’s just not good”.

me: “What’s not good?”
him: “All those Timbits”
me: “Timbits are morally neutral”
him: “And so are guns, but I know to stay away from them. Sure, morally neutral until they are used. The atomic bomb is morally neutral, I suppose.”
me: (after picking up jaw from floor) “You really need to come to the Lenten Study I’m working on”.

First of all- the sudden descent from donuts to weapons? Really?

And also- they really perceive people bringing them food as an aggressive act? Priests? Anglican Priests, for whom the sharing of the Eucharistic meal forms a central act of our faith? For whom presiding over that sacramental sharing-of-food is a central part of our role? Really? People who want to frame a meeting with us in the context of them sharing food with us is somehow a surprise to them? Somehow a problem?

By the end of the day, I wanted to say this to my colleagues*. And maybe I’ve been reading FA blogs too long, because this seems eminently sane to me, but I’m not sure it would have been heard that way.

Do not receive the blessing of abundance as a curse.
If you eat that for which you have no hunger, if you do not eat that for which you do have hunger– do not blame the food for being available. That is too much weight for a little donut to bear.

*and yet, I doubt I’ll be sending a link to my blog out on the Clericus email list.

A few weeks ago my Parish Council went on a day-long retreat together. It was pretty awesome. In outlining the agenda for the day, the retreat leader made reference to “that activity that lies at the heart of the Kingdom of God: eating together”. I had my little “Ah-HA” moment. It connected with some stuff A Sarah said a while back about the Christian Narrative, and its relation to hunger/satisfaction longing/fulfillment.

I have asked this wise woman to work with me to develop a Lenten bible study, in which we will connect HAES concepts with scriptural stories. It isn’t fully fleshed out yet.

But there’s something there about hunger/thirst/longing being a vehicle that leads us to God, and that when we are culturally conditioned to see hunger as the enemy we lose access to a means of finding God. I’m not sure we can keep denying physical hungers without losing the capacity to know and honour and satisfy spiritual hungers.

And there’s something there about knowing yourself- a connection between self-knowledge and self-acceptance and self-love- something that points back to the title of this Blog, and a celebration of the many, many different images of God in which a community of people are created. The Lenten season is so often devoted to making us aware of how wretched we are. And, I’m not denying that we have the capacity for incredible wretchedness. But we’re not all wretchedness and ick. There is beauty in us, too. Cherishing the beauty that is within us, that God sees in us, seems like a worthwhile Lenten task, too.

This is still in the half-formed thought phase. I’m mostly posting about it to capture some of this before it dissipates from my head altogether. And now my kid is declaring that it is time to go to the Y. So the rest will just have to dissipate. Presumably, if it’s worth remembering it’ll come back on its own eventually.

It has been a year now since Grace and I took Mom and Baby Yoga together. And now she’s too old, and I’m back at work, and I miss it.

So, I took one of the only free nights of my week and signed up for an Ashtanga class from the same instructor – this time, without the 40minute drive to another town. Yay.

By the end of the first night, I knew I’d made a good choice for me. Again, I was struck by the overwhelming impression from this instructor of comfort in her own body. She’s a tall woman – and every movement and motion seems to sing, “this is the space I occupy, and I fill it with beauty and light”. I want that for myself- that refusal to give in to the pressure to apologize for the volume of space I occupy.

And, bless her, she talks about opening and strengthening and flexibility and stretching and has never once said anything to suggest that there was any need to make a body (any body) less of anything- except less closed, or less tense, or (when demonstrating easier variations on a pose) less stressed or pained.

Tonight was the third night. I was not, at 6:15, convinced that my 7pm yoga class was a good idea. I was coughing. I was sore. I was dizzy. I was tired. I went upstairs to change out of work clothes and contemplated just crawling into bed and staying there. But I managed to convince myself that it was worth it, and besides, missing a class I’d paid for was wasting money. (gasp!)

So I went, and saluted the sun, and all the achy tension in my back dissipated, and I felt so much better. And our focus this evening was on balance, and sun and moon energy, and a slow, warm, controlled way of breathing.

(And if I sent my instructor this link I hope she’s duly impressed that my google-fu is so strong that I figured out how to spell that, considering that I left the place with totally not that word in my head.)

So- the whole time that I was aware of this Ujjayi breath, there was none of the spasmic breathing that I’ve been doing all day. And then, as soon as we relaxed a bit, and returned to ‘normal’ breath, I burst out coughing. Telling, no?

Usually, at the first sign of a cold, I go running for the Contac-C. I’m a big fan of medication. (I was looking for the Epidural shunt about a week before my due date). The effect of cough meds on me is often not so much to decrease the symptoms of a cold, but to disconnect me enough from my body that I don’t care so much about the coughing and the aches and the pain. Tonight was an amazing chance to intentionally connect to a visibly broken version of myself, to appreciate the not-coughing, not-aching version of me, to honour that this, now, is the state of my body in this moment. And that life is dynamic and ever-changing.

I also really enjoy the opportunity to listen to a spiritual teacher from a different tradition teach and practice. As she spoke about the balance of sun and moon energy- the stillness that frees the heart and the movement that quiets the mind, I started wondering (evidently, I suck at quieting the mind) if there are any parallels in the Christian tradition. And got thinking about various monastic orders, and the balance between labour and prayer, action and meditation. I want to explore that further, I think. Listening to Caroline talk about the yoga sutras makes me keenly aware that for a faith that has Incarnation at its very centre, Christianity doesn’t have much to say about the body. I blame Paul and his greek-influenced dualism. This will be food for thought for me for a while.

Also? I got way further into pigeon pose than I thought I was going to be able to, when she was demonstrating. So that was a pretty great way to end the night. That and stopping at the video store on my way home for my brand spanking new copy of Here Comes Science.

In honour of finding balance between sun energy and moon energy, of growth and expanding knowledge, of openness to more complete truth, I leave you with the answers to two questions.

Why does the sun shine?
And Why does the sun REALLY shine?

When we bought our house, things were very different. We were different: we had no small children of our own, but two older foster kids. And the place was different: the adjacent property was empty scrub.

5 Years later, things have changed. We have a 1 and 3 year old who want to play outside all the time. And the empty lots have been turned almost overnight into “Adult Lifestyle Condominiums”.

Things that suck about living next to a new development of Adult Lifestyle Condominiums:

• Gorgeous quiet residential cul-de-sacs, and no kids to play in them.
• A small number of neighbours who bought here to get away from neighbours with children.
• A view of roofs, where there used to be small trees, long grass, and wild flowers.
• a park with paths and grass and trees but no play structure.
• feeling guilty about the bit of lawn we don’t maintain, which looks much worse when it is no longer next to small trees, long grass, and wild flowers.
• having the phone line cut as a weekly occurrence during construction.

Things that don’t suck about living next to a new development of Adult Lifestyle Condominiums:

• beautifully paved walkways, built for people who may have or develop mobility issues, but also wonderful for strollers, that connects our street to the nearby grocery store and Zellers, with minimal time spent walking along the 4-lane arterial roads- by way of a small treed park, and quaint little footbridge.
• people doing Tai Chi in the park, triggering conversations about different ways to move that feel good, and about how if you aren’t good at something right away, you should keep practicing  (yeah, if you watch Ni Hao Kai Lan, you know why.  If you don’t, I cannot explain it).
• A lovely flat paved circle in the park, just waiting for a girl to get her first two-wheeler.
• Many neighbours who are happy to wave back to a smiling 1-year old, or wait for the “walking man” when they see you teaching a 3 year old about traffic safety.

My love for my house, its tiny kitchen, fenceless yard, and busy thoroughfare waxes and wanes.  But the fact that we can now embark on an “adventure” that can include waving at puppies, visiting the pet store, whooping it up at McPlayland, buying diapers, choosing potty-chart stickers from the dollar store, and bringing home milk- all without having to use the car, or to stroll with two kids along several blocks of pedestrian un-friendly arterial road?  I’m not about to send love-letters to the developer.

But I might start to mow the lawn.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of ritual in my life.

Part of what got this thinky-ball rolling was reading the MFA thesis of a relative-in-law. I am fascinated by this project, and the exploration of the self-defining role of ritual in the every-day living of life. “You are what you eat” has kinda made it as an idiom- but “you are what you do” is probably closer to the truth. Especially “you are what you do over and over and over, such that the doing of it is no longer conscious or intentional”.

That’s… wow, that’s a whole lot to digest, right there. And, as someone who deals in formal ritual fairly regularly, its… wow.

So I’ve been thinking a lot about what I do, over and over, especially the things I just do without thinking.

Oddly, with the things I do around child-care I’m pretty comfortable about the person who is defined and created by the repetition of those acts. I’m particularly fond of some of our bed-time rituals. Partly, I think, because I made some intentional choices about how I wanted to parent. I was forced to articulate those choices and values and underlying assumptions to this other human being who is also their parent.

There are a lot of small rituals / patterns / routines / habits in my life that I don’t really like where they’re headed, if I really think about the person they both reveal and create. Its some serious work to examine those un-examined corners, and I’m putting it off as long as I can.

And I wonder if this is part of the appeal of starting a new diet lifestyle change way of approaching food, for a lot of people. All the unthinking rituals and habits around food get re-scripted and made intentional for a while. Add to that all the external validation of someone telling you that the person who is revealed-and-created by following this new ritual of calorie counting, or food journalling, or point tracking, or WHATEVER is a superior person to whoever you were before. That’s a heady mixture.

I’m not really sure what to do with this, yet.
Except to say that you should all go to Jodi’s Etsy Shop and buy lots of her awesome stuff. Because she’s made of win.

So, this week has seen an occurrence which happens once every 5 years in my household– and once every 10 years to me. The 60-month loan on our “new” car was retired in July- leaving room to replace my “old” car. My ‘97 Escort wagon was purchased (used) during a drought in the Family Station Wagon market. I never loved it, and liked it less as one by one various systems crapped out on it: a/c, power locks, power windows… I’ll miss it so. (That said, it has always been a reliable was to get from here to there- in the market for a $300 working vehicle with significant cosmetic issues? call me!)

But then there was a glorious few months of “car shopping” on long car trips- seeing what else is on the highway. Everybody in the WORLD is driving a Matrix now, it seems like. I guess the wagon market has revived (even if that’s not what they’re calling it these days).

Then there was some research online, narrowing down my options. Then there was the glorious morning of being sucked up to by car salespeople. Whee! Shopping alone meant I didn’t have to get pissed off about how they dealt with me vs. my husband. Sweet.

I was reasonably convinced that either of my two choices would perform acceptably as vehicles. They would go forward or back, turn to the left, or to the right, speed up or slow down as the appropriate pedals were engaged. So by the time I was test-driving, it was all about the look and feel.

First stop was to check out the Mazda5. (Zoom zoom). It was a beautiful ride. Powerful, sexy, packed with desirable features. Amazing visibility for the size of the vehicle. Tilt and telescoping steering wheel- I would have LOVED that when I was pregnant. I knew on paper that, of the two, it had less leg and shoulder room. What I didn’t know was how that felt. The driver’s seat was narrowed with sides that come forward- I suppose to offer ‘back support’. The effect for me was that my arms felt smooshed in, making my grip on the steering wheel feel forced. I could feel the seat closing in on me on both sides. I fit- but “this fat and no fatter” is a strange enough head-game to play with myself, without my CAR weighing in on the issue. A great car. Just not the right one for me.

So when I got to the Kia dealer to sit in a Rondo, I was predisposed to love it. And I did. And call me crazy- but the seat belt fit. I’ve never had a seat belt fit. They’re long enough, but… the lap belt actually going across my lap, and the shoulder belt cutting BETWEEN my breasts, and chafing neither my ear nor my shoulder. The lower anchor points were just a little bit forward, and the higher anchor point was just a little bit lower. Sweet. SOLD! Oh yeah, and it also had great visibility and handling and stuff.

Yay.

The week didn’t start with car shopping, though. It started with a road trip (in the ‘new’ car, which on Monday will become the ‘old’ car) to visit the woman who, 20 years ago, was granted the title “my mostest bestest friend” and although we’ve drifted over the years, she retains the title. We played in the park- 4 parents and 4 kids. All the kids were adorable in the blonde-and-blue-eyed style of adorable. The two eldest were both articulate, both active, both curious, both madly in love with their baby sisters.

LittleE is 4. He’s deeply into taxonomy- the fundamental question with which he approaches the world is “what is it? what is it called?”. He can name dinosaurs and other prehistoric life like nobody’s business. He knows the difference between dinosaurs and other prehistoric life. He’s awesome. Ruth is 3. She’s into origins- the fundamental question with which she approaches the world is “where did it come from?”. She can name the person who gave her each of her favourite toys. She’s awesome.

These two kids, who looked enough alike to be cousins (or brother and sister, if you squint and look sideways, and ignore their actual sisters, who look far more like their respective siblings) were so incredibly different. E was into roaring and chasing. Ruth was into screaming and running away. Good times.

Such a powerful reminder that people are, you know, different. And that absolutely awesome comes in a lot of different styles. Each in the image of God. Ad imaginem Dei

Ever since Ruth decided that she was too grown-up for Max and Ruby, and preferred Bo on the Go, I’ve added a new element to my morning.

(Yes, I’m one of those moms that lets the TV occupy my kids and serve as timekeeper while I get ready to go in the morning. If you want to judge me, do it on your own blog).

Every morning, just before Bo begins, MIGHTY MAMMA! saves breakfast.
Mighty Mamma- who in other segments is Mamma Yamma. That’s right- a giant talking sweet potato.

Check her out here (She’s at the bottom of the second page)

She runs a little restaurant with a sign out front proclaiming “Good Food Served Here”

And I love her.

I mean, sure, the segment is indeed sponsored by Kellogg’s, and they seem to eat a lot of toaster waffles. But so do we, frankly. And that was long before we started watching Kids CBC in the mornings.

I had trouble finding a Mighty Mamma segment to share- but where there’s a will, there’s a proud parent with a TV and a video camera!

As Ruth approaches school age, I don’t know what’ll happen when she gets to “health and nutrition” curriculum, if someone will teach her that calories are bad, and a measure of how much unpleasant exercise she’ll have to do to burn off her food. But for now, Mamma Yamma and I are singing from the same hymn book.

Playing is fun!
Food is good!
Food you eat gives you energy to play!
Lots of different kinds of food help you grow!

Seriously, is that so hard?

I’ve been having these painful conversations with my mother about Mother of the Bride dresses*.
(She is, just by the way, going to look stunning for my sister’s wedding in September.)

But she’s all upset, because she has three daughters and wore a 12 for my wedding, and a 14 for wedding #2. She’ll allow how maybe she could wear a 16 for #3, but an 18 is just a bridge to far. I tell her that I think she should wear a dress that fits, that she can dance in, that she can think about how happy she is for her beautiful daughter and her wonderful new Son-in-law instead of thinking about sucking in her tummy. She nods, and then says she likes such-and-such a dressmaker because the 16 fits, and the other she’d have to go up a size. But whatever.

“It’s just a number”. I tell her. “It doesn’t mean anything”. Labels are just labels.
If you found this post via that fatosphere feed, I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, here.

So…

Here’s what I learned this week.

One might think, given that the mild injury that I’ve finally committed to treating with proper TLC for healing is, according to my doc, all because of the fatz, that there would be an over-abundance of products out there to help the many, many injured fatties of the world treat our poor, overworked joints with the love and respect they deserve.

Not so much.

In the mainline pharmacy, products capped out about three inches shy of my leg circumference, leaving me two choices: a pre-made knee support that rolls, or a badly-wrapped tensor bandage (that might stay put, if I were better at wrapping. But I’m not).

The smaller pharmacy, with the yellow pages ad that emphasized orthopedic braces & supports, carried a brand that, for some items, went up to an XXXL- though not every item. Not the item, for example, I was shopping for. But kudos to them for making products available to a wider (har) range of customers. I’ll definitely be going back there when I need pharmacy items.

A clerk worked with me to find something that would fit properly. Of the products in stock, none of the affordable, low-medium supports for knees was right for me. I could take the giant leap to a higher support, higher cost product. Or…

… a tiny little step to the right, and the next section of the display wall.

I’m now sitting pretty in my new, comfortably fitting thigh knee support. HelpfulClerk assured me that it is indeed doing what I need it to do, to encourage healing. And even had some suggestions for preventing further injury when I get riding again.

Labels?
Are just labels.

And I’m so glad I know that. Because a few years ago, before I found FA, buying a thigh sleeve for my knee would have been simply devastating. Today, it was just a relief. Now can this knee just heal, already- so I can get back on my bike before the snow flies.

*and seriously, what is WITH this catalogue? If you’re going to market your designs AS MOTB dresses, how ’bout using a model who looks old enough to be the Mother of the Baptismal Candidate, let alone the Bride.