Easter dinner and folks

So it has been a productive day til now and I am fading fast. Had a headache all day. This is the kind of stuff you love to read, right? So what will I write about. Hmmmm.

Let me tell you about Easter Sunday dinner at a family home in Lexington. Honestly, it was the healthiest group of people - all ages, all generations, gentle with each other. The food didn't matter, but it was good.

I loved watching grandpa sit and watch his grandsons with utter warmth on his face. I loved the corn hole games and ordinary talk about nothing much, and the peace.

Not every family has this. Let me tell you. Hardly any families have this. I felt like I was in a huge beautiful Easter card. So at home.

And can I tell you that I profoundly missed my kids this Easter. I had a great sense of loss for the many thousands of ordinary moments I miss because no one lives near us. I miss the family bursting in the door and robbing my fridge and scandalizing Walter. I miss nothing bigger than ordinary stuff - the best stuff.

But sitting in a chair with nothing to do but be with good folks on Sunday was a very beautiful salve to my missing.

puberty and the sequel, puberty two

So I was thinking... people have written books for girls in grade three and four that talk about their body. "Things are going to change" the book reads. And page by page it outlines what to expect and how to handle this new body that is emerging. New products are introduced. "Girls, you will want to buy deodorant. Keep your body clean and fresh."

But where is the training book for a woman who is in her second puberty? A book that says, "You will wake up tomorrow and not know who you are! Don't be afraid. This is normal. Remember when your mother started acting crazy and began eating her hair? She went through this stage too!" And the book could have pictures of bodily changes. "Hair will start growing in strange places. Don't be alarmed. Men will notice but since no one is lusting after you they likely won't pay any attention to it" and "if you've had children you are likely to begin to lose bladder control in certain situations. The key is to never ever under any circumstances join your grandkids on the trampoline. Ridiculously loud laughter might create this problem too but we do not recommend allowing a slightly damp situation keeping you from laughing your head off as it offsets your probable growing depression."

Actually - I am being silly but this season is about rediscovering a whole lot of new truth. Truth about beauty and comfortability in one's own skin. Truth about rhythms and practices of life that are not so jarring. Truth about how to understand others and engage them in ways that are not self referenced. Learning what peace means to one's own self, and pursuing it.

I find that I cannot live the life other's want me to live. I cannot be who others want me to be. If ever there was a season for a woman to know herself and be that person as fully and openly as possible, it is this season of puberty two.

But the up side (and it is big) is that there is less to compete about. Fewer people really care how I wear my hair or if my choices are eccentric. I think it was Elizabeth Taylor who said that fifty was glorious because one became invisible and could live life much more freely. (Obviously it didn't work that way for her, but for us plebes I think there is something in this.)

So women, we must stand up for each other's need to express our lives freely and with strength in very uniquely personal ways. Let's be the ones who say loud 'yes' to each other, and celebrate each one's choices and eccentricities and forget about competing, comparing, status and pecking orders. Who cares if the towels match? In this season become the artists, writers, dancers and lion tamers we were created to be.

sista

I just read in the Oprah magazine, which I got for $2.99 at Home Goods (where I was DRAGGED by Bobbe Underwood) that men raised with a sister had more happiness in adult life - and it had reasons - all tied to what women do for each other ... no I am not going to tell you - go get your own Oprah magazine (at Home Goods where there is all kinds of good stuff for cheap.)

Anyway, I digress. So Bobbe and I spend the day together looking for an Easter outfit for her, trying on clothes, sharing a Chipotle Burrito Bol, laughing at ourselves, helping each other make good decisions that aren't based on obligation and expectation but on what makes our hearts sing.

For instance, Bobbe does not garden. Not in the sense that I garden. I garden like some people eat chocolate. Bobbe sighs and picks out a few obnoxious weeds and tries to remember to water her potted plants. I read to my plants. Name them. Give them treats.

Bobbe was feeling a sense of "I need to plant pansies." Of course, all good homeowners plant pansies this time of year. But you know what? It is ridiculous for Bobbe to plant pansies when planting pansies is work and not pleasure. Her yard is beautiful and has enough green... so I helped set her free. We decided together that Bobbe should get a couple lovely potted flowers and put them on her deck where she sits.

The wisdom is this: don't let other people download their causes or their pleasures on you. Listen for sure. But appraise and be honest. CSLewis says that each person's life can only contain so many themes. Do you know what your themes are? I do. But I have had to listen to my life to know. The joys of listening to our own life is not only knowing what we can say no to, but we know how to live our own life beautifully.

the Rachel Whisperer

Talking to Rachel today. She was feeling a bit intense. I suggested she needed a "Rachel Whisperer." I wondered aloud if that was Curtis in her life. She said "No, It is Vincent. In two sentences he can reframe all I am thinking and even make me laugh."

Can I say that as a mom I love that my son Vincent is his sister's Whisperer?

safe blogging

So I just read my friend's blog and she had this picture on it. I love this picture, for some reason. It makes me laugh - so I stole it and posted it here... to make you laugh. Isn't this what we would all like to do with our enemies? The sunflower is a nice touch.

And I put this picture on because I had one more thing to say about health care and I was afraid. (Picture my face in terror.) Because if I didn't offend you before I am going to now.

I just wanted to say that it seems to me that if you are pro life, it would be immoral not to be pro health care. We cannot fight for the baby before she is born and let her languish after. Pro life has to be pro LIFE. The whole long life. And maybe a life that is, and I put it in quotes, 'a burden to society.' Not all, but many women aborting babies have very limited resources.

I wasn't actually going to say this but on Friday I watched Precious, and it has been haunting me.

If this is over the top, just go back and look at the picture and read the first half of this blog.

hair here, hair there, growing, flowing, long as I can grow it, my hair! (can you hear the music?)

I stand at the sink in my bathroom preparing to leave for the day. I hold a pair of tweezers and peer seriously into my magnifying mirror attached to the wall. I am wondering if I should have bought that cream at the salon that promises my brows would thicken and curl if I used it regularly. I am on a seek and destroy mission for eyebrow stragglers, independent aggressive blonds bursting forth from various moles, dark mustache hairs (a recent addition to my garden of hair anomalies.) I have one charming hair that grows out of a follicle two inches below my (first) chin (hah!) and can actually be an inch long when I find it. I swear that hair grows half an inch a night.

I do this every morning. Even one day without vigilance poses the possibility of a Trojan horse take over. So I gaze into my mirror and seek out the interlopers like a sniper with a cause.

This after I have shaved my legs and creamed them carefully.

Now I pick up my whirling wind machine and attack the hair on my head. Much rides on this task. Will this be a good hair day? A good hair day means a spring in my step, a sense of bliss oozing in joyful confidence, possibly a compliment or flirtatious greeting on the greens. Maybe a promotion. A bad hair day means avoiding chapel, missing meetings, failing to complete assignments and possibly being called in the principle's office to hear about a wage reduction. SIGH

I cannot help but ponder the importance of hair to our well being, self esteem, beauty and status in the culture. I bet 80% of our grooming (more?) is about hair. Taking it off, coloring and styling it, trying to get it to grow or trying to make it disappear. Hair it seems, is powerful. It makes us who we are. It determines where we are in the pecking order of life.

And yet - there is a variety of person who intentionally removes their hair, and it is a sign of strength. Maybe these men look strong to us because they can live above our hair slavery, and simply check out of the game.


And perhaps similarly, this is why the man with the notorious comb over is so easily mocked. Perhaps a comb over is the ultimate slavery to hair addiction and the reason they are viewed as being somehow weak.

My conclusion is this. All we are, really, is a canvas for hair. What we are depends on how we manage that hair. Like a cosmic test ... will you trim it? curl it? bail it? remove it? All this says so much about who you are. And whether we should love you. I understand so much more now.

Ladies, start your tweezers!

Health Care... just saying

Okay. I have tried hard to NOT be political on my blog. That is why I sometimes talk about birds, or flowers. I know there are all kinds of SERIOUS opinions on politics, and not being an American I know I am not invested in a party or an ideology like some who read this. So I will try to be tender. I will try to just say what I see.

First of all, health care is not a sign of end times. It horrifies me to hear the kind of rhetoric being used to damn and condemn people and plans. Even leaders who have the ear of people are being unwise - Sarah Palin's blog - "time to reload" ...with gun site points on a map of America pointing out those who should be targeted.

Canada has had a socialist approach to health care for all of my life and we are not tipping into apocalypse. I know many people disparage health care in Canada, telling horror stories about waits and poor treatment. Those are the exception. Granted, our doctors don't have unlimited ability to inflate their incomes. Some go to the States because the income is more lucrative. I am not judging that - just saying I know it is a factor.

The reality is that universal health care (which the US is still FAR from having) gives us this:
- Every pregnant woman has the chance to have doctor's care
- No one is forced to suffer with a treatable disease
- A sick kid can be taken to a doctor without hesitation
- An injury does not need to go untreated
- The poorest sickest least contributing member of our society is treated with dignity and care equal to the most important person
- no Canadian has gone into bankruptcy because someone in their family became ill
- There is no such thing as 'previously diagnosed illness' preventing treatment

You might want to note that while American citizens are spitting at each other over providing some level of care to everyone, the biggest debate in Canada is over relaxing the laws that prohibit private health care that enables a rich person to 'buy' better more privileged health care. The prime minister uses the same health care as the unemployed farmer who lost his farm in the recession.

Here are my questions:
?Why do arguments about health care involve God? I understand health care as a public humanity concern - not a religious one.
?Why is it that people who share (relatively) similar views as mine on faith are some of the meanest, vilest, most fearful participants in this argument?
?Why do the Republicans and Democrats not both work together for the country they say they love? It seems to me that both parties would rather see the country die than lose their position of pride. Just saying.
?Why is it that some of the most vocal opponents of health care are the poor who need it? Who is feeding them such fear - lots of it is religious I hate to say - and making them the spokespersons for those who are protecting wealth and privilege? This is confusing to me.

We are haters. Very big haters. I am just saying what I see.

One more thing. I am the daughter of a steel worker. We lived in a three bedroom house, all eight of us, with one small bathroom. Not unlike other families in our city, we ate porridge at the end of the week, recycled clothes and shared one bike between six kids. But we went to the doctor when we were sick. And we were born in a hospital.

I remember every month a dental clinic that was set up about ten blocks from our home. Street urchins (like me) took a quarter with the face of the queen on it (yes, .25 cents) and stood in line, waiting to see the dentist. One by one we would hand over the sweaty quarter and climb into the chair to have the dentist peer into our little mouths and fix cavities.

Thank God for Tommy Douglas (a Canadian Ted Kennedy type) and one of the greatest Canadian Prime Ministers, Lester Pearson, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, who brought in health care. Just saying.