Category Archives: Essential Journey

Heroes in our midst

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I had planned on writing about heroes I’ve met or heard about or seen this week. Because today is Saturday and Saturday is my day to celebrate heroes in our midst.

And there are lots. Like the father who stopped to let his little girl watch a worm crawl across the sidewalk in the rain, or the young man who gave a woman his seat on the train in from the airport, and the cashier who threw in the final 33 cents for a coffee for the man who was short of change.

And there was the police man giving directions to a couple whose English was as scant as his of theirs (something Slavic I think but I didn’t know what). He patiently traced their route on a google map on their phone as I stood beside them waiting for a light to change. They smiled and nodded their heads and he smiled and nodded his and spoke in a loud voice, slowly articulating each syllable of the words he spoke that they could not understand. Didn’t matter. They were all happy to be connected.

There was also the young girl who stopped to help a man with a walker navigate a sidewalk after she’d helped him pick up some oranges that had fallen out of his basket. And a balcony festooned with balloons and banners wishing someone a Happy Birthday. I laughed when I saw all the balloons blowing above and hoped they were the biodegradable kind — but then, this is Vancouver where environmental awareness is second place only to how their beloved Canucks are doing in the shortened hockey season. (Last I heard there was a lot of noise about bad plays and worse goal-keeping — but that’s the lot of hockey fanatics. Their team is only as good as their last win.)

But I’m not going to write of those everyday heroes — they are all around you though so don’t forget to watch for them, to see them and to celebrate their brilliance. And while you’re at it, don’t forget to celebrate the hero in you! Because, no matter how you look at it, the hero in you is dancing around, opening doors for strangers, wiping up spilt milk and taking out the garbage.

The heroes I want to write about this morning though are my daughters. Two incredible young women who have never ceased to amaze me and awe me with their hearts and beautiful spirits shining.

Once upon a time I promised to love my daughters with all my heart, and then I fell. My heart broke and I lay shattered upon the ground. It was my daughters’ love that brought me back to life. My daughters’ forgiveness that lead me back into the light.

I am blessed. So incredibly blessed. And grateful. And humbled.

By love’s majesty. By love’s capacity to heal in the broken places and lead us back to the hearts and hearths where we belong.

Once upon a time, I disappeared without a word from my daughters’ lives. It was a man. Albeit a ‘bad man’, but I disappeared none-the-less, without a word, a note, a sign that I’d be back.

Four months later, I was given the miracle of my life when he was arrested and I was set free.

Almost ten years later, I continue to live and cherish the miracle of my life today. The love and joy, the gratitude and abundance for all that I have, I am and know in this world today.

I am celebrating my daughters today. No, it’s not “Happy Daughters Day” or even their birthday, (though the youngest turns 25 in less than 2 weeks). Nope. I’m celebrating my daughters today because…. I can. I am here. Alive and loving. Alive and feeling. Alive and knowing, I am so blessed.

And because…. I read my daughter, Alexis’ blog todayAlexi’s blog today, and my heart broke open again. Just as it breaks open every day immersed in the love that we share.

I am celebrating my daughters today.

Why not celebrate the one’s you love today, just because you can. Just because you’re here and living and they are the gift that expands in love everyday.

With All My Heart

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There is a civility to life here on the west coast. A politeness that superimposes itself on everyday living, infusing each breath with ease.

Unless you’re a driver, or pedestrian or anywhere near a thoroughfare — but that’s a whole other story.

Heck, even the buses are polite in Vancouver. When out of service their electronic banner doesn’t just read “Out of Service”. The story of their status begins with “Sorry”

See what I mean. Polite.

And see, there it is again. Story.

Story is everywhere. I’m writing a story right here, right now. Sharing with you the story of my life, of where I’m at in this moment, how my story is unfolding for me right now.

Perhaps you can see the chips in the wood of the round table I’m sitting at in the coffee shop down the street from my daughter’s apartment. Can you hear the music? A blend of Indie and folk? Pleasant. A slice of thought-provoking lyrics, just not too harsh for awakening minds to hear on this cloudy west coast morning. Can you see the two men chatting at the table by the window. Grey-haired salt and pepper man standing beside bald man in black. I wonder if salt and pepper regrets his decision to step over and say hello. He keeps trying to interject some positivity into the story of woe the man in black is telling him about how ‘bad it can be’. I hear them both. I know there are multiple sides to every story. Many dimensions to the same situation. And in the end, they are just stories we tell ourselves and each other.

Story.

Those two men are wrapped up in theirs. Each with a different perspective. Each with their own POV of how life is meant to be, really is and can be, or can’t possibly become depending upon the ground on which they stand.

Yesterday, as I walked back from the SeaWall a man approached me. Toothless grin. Orange hair rising in messy spikes from above a furrowed brow. He was dressed in a long down coat, clean, no tears. It was the shoes that gave him away. Tattered runners, the logo long since worn away. The laces long since disappeared.

“Oh thank you for stopping,” he said as he stood in front of me.

I hadn’t really had a choice. He had planted himself directly in my path on a narrow part of the pathway.

And he went on to tell me his story of arriving in from Australia in the early hours of the morning. Of sleeping in the lobby of a posh hotel as they searched for his luggage, his lost passport, missing wallet.

He showed me the tattoo on his arm. A kangaroo with the words, “Down Under Is Tops”, printed in black.

He told me how I reminded him of his mom. Kind eyes with a koala bear in their light. That one confused me but I wasn’t about to ask for clarification. He shook and jittered as he talked. His hands flying around his head as if shooing away pesky Australian flies.

I don’t shake because I’m a junkie, he said. I’ve got MS. And he told me how he needed to get out of town. How he couldn’t take it anymore. Tears welled up in his eyes. Rolled down his cheeks.

Please help me, he pleaded.

I offered to take him somewhere he could get help. (a shelter, a drop in centre where he could get help. Maybe even a place to clean up and… change his story.)

He shook his head vehemently.

No. No. No.

I need $48.00 to get out of town.

I sighed and gave him a gentle smile and shook my head. I can’t do that. Give you money.

There’s a bank machine downstairs in the building, over there. And he pointed to the left of where we stood.

I’m not prepared to do that.

And his shoulders slumped as he realized I wasn’t buying his story.

Story. It is everywhere.

A man at the Art Gallery tells me how he doesn’t take phone calls anymore. Text me. Email me. But please don’t phone me. I wonder what’s his story.

I walk past the Coal Harbour Community Centre and watch a group of mostly women bend and stretch and lean into downward dogs and stand up to welcome in the sun (it didn’t work — it rained most of the day) and I pass people walking dogs and riding bicycles and hear the flap flap flap of joggers shoes running past me on the wet pavement. Carrying their stories with them. Bending them. Shifting them. MOving them along.

I sit and sip a Chai Latte in a coffee shop overlooking the harbour and hear the metal on metal chatter of boats bobbing, a float plane’s engine revving up in the distance. I walk past a public garden space and hear the sound of a shovel as a man tenderly prepares the earth for spring flowers. I walk along and overhear a woman on her cell phone laughing as she tells her listener, “He wants a divorce he can have one. But if he’s driving away in a Porsche so am I.”

I listen to my daughter share her story of dreaming and waking up and seeing life in a whole new perspective as I sit over lunch with her sharing a glass of wine and an assortment of Greek dips. Later, we sit in an oyster bar and laugh and chat and share another glass of wine (Prosecco this time) and chat with our waiter who is from Saskatoon. He’s an actor here, but somewhere within him that prairie boy still yearns for the wide open spaces and clear blue skies of his home, that place where his mom and dad still live. And as we leave, we fall into the lyrical notes of the voice of the man giving us directions and sigh deeply into the sensual textures of his words. His Irish accent lures me into remembering the stories of a distant green island where my roots run deep into the earth of my father’s Irish ancestors.

An then, we join 30,000 people, mostly women, to hear a woman share the stories of her journey out of the poverty of rural Mississippi onto a global stage where her story of the redemptive power of forgiveness and gratitude reigns supreme.

Oprah rocked the house last night. She moved about the stage, sharing stories, sharing laughs, connecting. The dots and so much more. Connecting hearts and igniting minds to the majesty, the wonder, the amazing grace of being alive.

Who are you? she asked and my answer was right there. I’ve known it for some time now. I’ve felt its call rising within me, stirring me up, igniting my passion to be present, alive and inspired in this moment right now.

I am the divine expression of God’s amazing grace.

And in that answer I will do as Oprah suggests. I will live my truth with every breath, with every act, word, thought. I will be who I am with all my heart.

Namaste

Notes to my self

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I am sitting in the airport waiting for my flight to be called. It is early. 6am kind of early and I am on my first latte of the day. I think of how I’ll treat myself to a second when I arrive at my destination. How I’ll walk along the sea wall, soaking in the moist ocean air, smelling the foliage, hearing the sounds.

I’ll walk and then stop at that cute little caffe in English Bay, the one where that man kept staring at me one day only to inform me, “You remind me of Madeline Albright”

Excuse me? Madeline Albright? Ummm. She’s …. How do I say this? Old? Matronly? Brilliant! Yes. That’s it. Brilliant.

It was a first. I’ve been told I look like Lisa Minnelli. Bonnie Bedalia. Catherine McKeen. (the wife of a former Canadian prime minister). But never Madeline Albright.

I wondered if it was a new kind of pick up line for the over 50 set. Didn’t matter whose name you used. It started a conversation, and wasn’t that the point of trying to pick someone up?

That day I smiled and grabbed my latte and C.Cs Americano, thanked my unknown ‘admirer’ and joined my beloved.

Today, I’m looking forward to time alone. Time to people watch. Cloud gaze. Breathe into this space of where I am.

It’s not my way. To drink more than one latte a day and usually it is consumed in the warmth and familiarity of my home. But today is special. Today, I am off to Vancouver to spend some time with my eldest daughter and have the luxury of unscheduled time until I meet up with her later in the afternoon.

I’m excited.

C.C, my beloved, gave me this gift for Christmas. A trip to Vancouver and tickets to see Oprah!

Alexis is over the moon. Not only is she going to Oprah, we’re going together.

The airport is busy already. The waiting area for Gate 42 filling up with travelers eager to be on their way, going home, going places, going away. No matter the direction, I am surrounded by people going places this morning.

And I wonder, where am I going? Not the ‘this is my destination I’ll know when I get there’ kind of going. No, this is more the ‘where is my spirit calling me and am I listening’ kind of going.

This place I’m headed isn’t so much ‘out there’. It’s not a physical place that once arrived at will entrance me with its sights and sounds and new people to meet and new things to do.

This place I’m going is less physical, more ethereal. It’s that place within me that says, “Yes! I’m here and there’s no where else I’d rather be, no one else I’d rather know than me. I’m okay, just the way I am. In fact, I’m beyond ok. I’m magnificent and in my magnificence I see and experience your magnificence and together we create a world of wonder all around.”

Yeah. That’s where I’m going and some days, I know I’m in that zone. I can feel it, breathe it, live it and feel completely, absolutely at ease.

And then, there are those other days. Those moments, those broad sweeps of time when I’m not really feeling it, not really living from deep within my essential self or even that I’m out of the zone. It’s on those days I need to stop, take a breath and feel my way back into being present, aware and alive. Fully conscious of the air against my skin, the light shining all around.

It’s on those days I need to examine my story and ask, “whose story am I living now?”

In his book The Power of Story, Jim Loehr writes, “Our destinies follow our stories. It’s imperative we do everything in our power to get our stories right. For most of us, that means some serious editing.”

I’ve yet to write an article, report, blog, story, poem, anything that doesn’t require editing, that doesn’t deserve or need a second read.

I’ve yet to live a day that doesn’t deserve a shift in direction, a change of perspective, a second glance, another look, a different take on how I’m doing, being, loving life.

And while I’m not about to edit my life to look like Madeline Albright’s, I can take a page from her book and use it to inspire mine. She’s a feisty woman, self confident and self-expressed. She had a clear vision of what she was doing to change the world and she lived it to her best ability.

I could learn a lot from Ms Albright’s story. And on those days when I’m not feelin’ it, I can choose to change my state. I can kick up my heels and jazz it up a la Liza!

And maybe, I could even find a stranger to pick me up and swirl me around and make me laugh at the sheer outlandishness of the notion I could be anyone else than me!

And a quick update. I’m on my second latte, sitting in a cafe overlooking the Harbour. Life is so sweet!

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The everyday poem is posted on A Poetry Affair

What’s It Gonna’ Take?

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I got inspired yesterday. Really inspired.

I went with a couple of friends to  Onalea Gilbertson’s one woman play, Blanche: The bittersweet life of a wild prairie dame. Blanche is a one hour play Onalea wrote and produced as a tribute to her grandmother, Blanche Gilbertson who passed away shortly after Onalea completed her first draft. Performing Blanche as part of this year’s High Performance Rodeo (HPR)  is a dream come true for Onalea. In the five year’s I’ve known her, she’s always dreamt of bringing Blanche to the HPR stage. And now, after much hard work, commitment and perseverance, she’s done it. She’s shared the story of her grandmother here in her hometown. Through original songs she wrote, recordings of her interviews with Blanche, photos and video footage from her grandmother’s attic, Blanche came to life on the Rodeo stage. It was inspiring, entertaining and heart-warming.

And it was a reminder — That’s how dreams come true.

I first met Onalea when I worked at the Calgary Drop-In & Rehab Centre. I’d started an art program and we were partnering with the City of Calgary in the This Is My City project. Onalea walked into my office one day and said, “I want to start a singing group.” It seemed reasonable. There’s a lot of unsung talent at a homeless shelter. Many clients play instruments, write music, sing. Creating space for music to happen was another opportunity to connect people to their creative core. And Onalea’s resume as an actor, singer, performer, writer, poet, unsung hero is pretty vast. Why not do whatever possible to help make it happen?

And happen it did. Over the next year, Onalea’s regular Monday night appearances would become the highlight of many people’s weeks. In the end, The DI Singers would become a weekly staple at the shelter. A place where anyone, from clients, staff and people from the community could come to sing and share in their love of music. Eventually, after a lot of hard work, organizing, begging, borrowing and pleading for the resources to make it all happen, Onalea and the DI Singers would perform the world premiere of   Two Bit Oper Eh! Shun as part of This Is My City and HPR 2010.

Two years later, after more hard work, commitment, perseverance and a whole lot of numbers juggling to make the finances work, Onalea would remount Two Bit as, Requiem for a Lost Girl at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in July 2012. Two clients from the DI would fly to New York along with other performers from the original production to be part of the off-broadway debut of the play.

That’s how dreams come true.

Yesterday, as I sat over a late lunch with Onalea after the performance, I was once again reminded of how special this one woman force of nature is. Beautiful. Talented. Heartfelt and heart-driven, Onalea does not give up. From scrambling to make ends meet on a show by show basis, to work-shopping every line and note of music, to making sure every performer on stage with her is paid fairly, Onalea never gives up on her dream of creating music, being a performer and igniting the imaginations of everyone she comes in contact with. It doesn’t matter how high the obstacle, how wide the gap, Onalea will do whatever it takes to get her over the next hurdle, get herself across the divide that separates her from her dream.

Because, that’s how dreams come true.

They don’t just appear, fully formed, all coloured in and ready to roll out upon the stage of life. Dreams are breathed into existence, moment by moment, step by step. They take care, nurturing, effort, blood, sweat and tears. They take vision and commitment, determination and perseverance. Making dreams come true takes heart.

And Onalea is a woman of great heart.

I was blessed yesterday. I got to see and hear and witness the story of Onalea’s 93 year-old grandmother told through the eyes of her granddaughter who loved her dearly. I got to hear the voice of Blanche recall tales of her life. I got to hear her laugh, see the photos and watch the home movies she’d taken long ago when she was young and life was an adventure waiting to unfold. Because of Onalea’s dream, I got to meet a woman I’ve never met, who, like her granddaughter was filled with a love of life bigger than a prairie sky.

And I got to be part of witnessing Onalea’s dream come true.

What a gift.

And in that gift is the reminder of what it takes to live the life of my dreams. It isn’t about wishin’ and hopin’. It’s all about living large, about taking risks, putting myself out there and living it up for all I’m worth.

I’ve got a dream. Do you? What’s it gonna take to make your dream come true?

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For Ticket Information on Blanche: The bittersweet life of a wild prairie dame please click HERE. Blanche runs until February 26 at the Lunchbox Theatre in Calgary.

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Today’s everyday poem is posted over at A Poetry Affair. Do drop in for a visit!  I’d love to see you there.

Imagine what can be!

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Someone asked me recently why it was I didn’t seem to get too flustered, upset or angry by ‘things’. Things being the inequities in the world, the suffering of others, the crisis that happen every day when working in the poverty/homeless sector.

See, I’m back in the sector that inspired the start of this blog. Not working for a front line agency this time, but for the Calgary Homeless Foundation. And I love it.

I’m on a three-day a week contract with the Foundation, and my heart isn’t heavy. It’s happy.

Go figure.

I missed the work. Which sounds somewhat bizarre — how can I miss working with those who have nothing?

Mostly, as I told the person who asked the question, because I don’t see ‘the nothing’. I see the amazing power of the human spirit, its will to survive, to wake up every morning and take a step and another, and another, no matter what.

We are born to live.

And in this sector, you see it everyday. No matter the circumstances of their lives, people will do whatever it takes to live.

It’s inspiring.

My work with CHF is primarily around community engagement. Connecting emergency responders, community associations, and agencies contracted by the Foundation to facilitate good relationship.

It’s work I love. It’s work I believe is vital in our quest to ‘end homelessness’, to change the direction of people streaming to the streets back home, to affect change in policy and discourse around this ‘thing’ few understand but have many opinions about why it should be kept in someone else’s neighbourhood.

Calgary has a 10 year plan to end homelessness. And yes, the ideal of ‘no more people being homeless on our streets’ is lofty. And yes, the likelihood of it happening is slim. In fact, since the first days of the plan where the vision painted was our streets free of those who had no place to call home, the goal has shifted to recognize that while we can’t prevent everyone from falling on the streets, we can ensure they don’t stay there too long. We can ensure we have the facilities and the resources to provide them a path back home — quickly — before the inequities and despair of being homeless settle into someone’s soul and tear away all hope of ever finding their way back home.

Because that’s the thing about homelessness. Just as the police can’t stop every crime from happening, before it happens, or accidents on our roadways from occurring, before they occur, they can put safeguards in to help prevent crime and accidents. And, should something go wrong, they can get to the scene quickly and ensure life flows onwards again without too much mayhem or angst ensuing from the events that occurred.

In homelessness, we can put safeguards in to plug people into the right resources and opportunities to prevent homelessness, but we can’t always stop their fall. And yet, should they fall, we need to get them out of shelters as quickly as we can.

Shelter life is hard. It’s not about ‘the shelter’. It’s about the life. it’s about the tearing away of your sense of worth, value, pride. It’s about losing your autonomy, independence, personal space.

Living in a community of impoverished people, no matter how nice the shelter is, drains you of your sense of understanding of who you are. We all want to believe we’re doing our best, and if our best has lead us to a shelter door, than really, what else can we do?

And so, we give up hope to find our balance in the crazy-upside down world called ‘homelessness’.

I’m back working in the sector I love. I am grateful.

Grateful there are so many people in this city committed to making a difference to ensure every Calgarian has the opportunity to plug into the resources they need, no matter where they’re at, to find their direction home.

I am grateful.

As I told the person who asked me why I didn’t seem to get upset,I like to focus on creating more of what I want in my life, more of what I want to see in the world. I want to live in a world of compassion and kindness. Getting upset by what is prevents me from seeing what can be when I let go of my judgements around why it is the way it is and breathe into the possibilities of what can be.

I believe miracles happen, everywhere, everyday. To create lasting change in the world, I must begin with with me, with changing my attitude, my judgements, criticisms and beliefs around what is ‘impossible’ to the limitless possibilities of what can be in this world when I become the change I want to see in the world.

Namaste.

The Energy of Money

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At the end of her blog today about how her shopping vice is not unlike a smoker’s addiction, Alexis, my eldest daughter asks, “I haven’t yet figured out the root of my misguided desires, but as this year unfolds before me, I vow to look within my heart (and my closets) to find out.”

And I want to add… You might want to look into your family of origin too honey!

I come from a long line of acquisition soothers. A family of people who used buying things to soothe ruffled feathers, disturbed emotions and uncomfortable feelings. To stuff what we didn’t want to feel, we bought what we didn’t need.

As a child, I remember my parents arguing, a lot, about money. The lack of its greenery cast a dark shadow on every family affair. My father was a spendthrift. A poor money manager, he truly did believe in the philosophy, if there are cheques in my cheque book, there’s money in my account.

My mother was more practical, more concerned about holding to account our spending.

My father’s voice was louder. My mother eventually lost her voice.

Growing up, whenever there was discord, my father bought us something to soothe it over. We didn’t talk about hurt feelings, or familial upsets. We bought our way into forgetting.

Those are the memories of my childhood. And in their shadow, the adage, “Money is the root of all evil,” became the belief, “Talking, thinking, doing anything around money (and anything else that upset me) is unsafe. It will only cause distress and discord.”

So, I never talked about money. Nor did I really think about what I was doing with it. And to stuff down my feelings of discomfort, I spent whatever money I had to avoid the  distress having to think about it created.

When I was in that abusive relationship that almost killed me, money was how he eventually came to control me. He started with giving me gifts. Lots of them. And then, it was money. And then, once I became accustomed to his largesse, he took it all away. I became ‘the burden’ and money became the issue. To ease the burden, I gave him whatever I had, whatever I could. I didn’t care about ‘the money’, I cared more about stopping his anger, his yelling, his blaming of me as the cause of his distress. I wanted the prince charming I’d met to replace the prince of darkness raging before me.

“Look at all I’ve given you,” he’d scream. I couldn’t stand his rage  so I gave in, continuously, until I no longer had anything to give. I’m simplifying, it was more complicated and darker than that, but money definitely was a point of attack for him to access my psyche. And because I had such poor boundaries around the issue, I was an easy target.

The irony? It was eventually a cancelled cheque that lead the police to arresting him. In the final four months, he was attempting to escape the country and took me with him when he fled the city. He had promised that a) he had money in the states and would ‘make it all right’ once he was out of the country; and b) he’d let me go once he got out of the country and could make it ‘all right’.  Ahh, the lies we believe when first we set out to give into deceit…

In those dark and final months of that living hell, money was tight and one day, I found a cheque at the bottom of my purse a girlfriend had written to pay me back for something I’d bought for her. Not willing to do anything without his approval, I gave him the cheque. He cashed it. Because we were hiding out in a small town west of Vancouver, it was easy for the police to track him once my girlfriend gave the police the cancelled cheque  with the bank’s stamp on it.

At the time, I did not have the mental capacity to think through the ripple of that cheque, beyond the message I hoped she’d get — I was alive. Just barely. But I was alive.

I was blessed. My girlfriend and another angel had not given up on finding me and here I am today. Free. Loving my life and living in the rapture of now.

But there are still residual issues that linger — issues that are embedded deeper into my psyche than the almost 5 years of that relationship.

And they stem back to my own family of origin beliefs about  money. And they reach forward to my daughter’s family of origin learnings about… money.

In her excellent book, “The Energy of Money: A Spiritual Guide to Financial and Spiritual Fulfillment” author, Maria Nemeth, PhD asks, “Does [how you use money] bring lasting satisfaction, or are you using it for instant gratification because your life is off-kilter? These are the questions that bring clarity to your hero’s journey.”

I like clarity on my hero’s journey.

I like being true to me, myself and I.

Time to go back to The Energy of Money and redo the work of ensuring I am using money and other forms of energy to intentionally express myself with love and joy in this world of wonder.

Namaste.

 

The Value of Vulnerability — Guest blog

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The first time I watched Brene Brown’s Ted Talk on Vulnerability was shortly after it appeared in 2010. I was hooked. Gave the link to my daughter. Shared it with everyone I know. Read, The Gift of Imperfection and recommended it with everyone I know.

Today, guest blogger, Ian Munro. shares the value of vulnerability in our lives — not only will it help lower stress, you’ll love yourself and your life a whole lot more!

Thanks Ian for sharing your light so graciously. Thanks for being so vulnerable!

 

The Value of Vulnerability

By Ian Munro

The holiday season is behind us and we are back to our normal work routine. It gave me pause to reflect back on the past several weeks. This year I worked through the break, having taken my vacation earlier in the year. Normally I would find working through the holidays somewhat burdensome but this year was totally different. I found myself using this slower time of the year to have some slow, meaningful conversations with people. With both time and some solitude as the office wasn’t very busy, these conversations often penetrated through a few layers of the normal office shields we wear to protect our essential selves. They were great connections, and I look at them now and see how uncommon it is for us to reveal the true nature of ourselves to each other, especially within a work environment.  To read the rest of Ian’s fabulous article, click here!

It’s never too late.

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Mom-engagement_1943

My mother 1943

There is always something I can learn from my daughters. Which often surprises me because I always thought as their mother it was my job to teach them. But, as life has taught me time and time again, being their mother has been my greatest teacher. And yesterday I learned a big lesson about Love.

Yesterday, my daughter, Alexis, wrote about my mother on her blog, The Wunder Year. I read Alexis’ account of her memories of being with my mother, of my mother sharing her stories of India and life in a place that she thought of as Shangri-la, and I wondered, ‘why do I not see my mother this way?’

And that inner voice of knowing replied, “Because you are holding onto how you want to see her so that you can keep blaming her for anything that has gone wrong, or will go wrong in your life.”

“Pshaw!” my rational voice (or was that my lesser/smaller self) replied. “That’s not true.”

And the voice of knowing looked at me with her all-seeing eyes and I knew what she was thinking. ‘Who are you trying to fool?’

Sigh. I took a breath.

It’s true. I am holding onto seeing my mother through the filter of my memory because… it’s easier. To let go means to make room for change to happen. And change means I have to shift my perceptions. And shifting my perceptions means everything shifts.

What if the world falls off its axis if I shift? What if my shift creates havoc on earth?

Oh my. Aren’t I just the powerful one?

But all kidding aside (I know I’m not that powerful), I was holding on and holding on was not serving me. Time to open my perceptions and rejoice in this place of being free to experience my mother in a way that creates more of what I want in my life.

Time to surrender and fall into love.

It was about then in my thinking that the tears began to flow. Oh, nothing too pathetic or anything. I mean, it wasn’t a river of tears, more just a gentle spring misting of my eyes. A fogging up of memory to allow me to see clearly what is now, right here.

And now, right here is… Love.

My mother and I have never had a strong relationship. I always felt like I wasn’t accepted, that there was no room in her mind for me to be me. Not that I knew who I was. Just more a case of knowing — well I don’t want to be like her.

And so, I spent my growing years being everything I deemed my mother wasn’t. In the process, I became a lot like her. In good ways and not so good. I never really stopped to think about how much we were alike until this Christmas when I sat at the dinner table I had decorated with such care and shared in a meal I’d prepared with such love. My mother always did that. Set a beautiful table. Entertained with ease. Served her guests first and always went out of her way to make everyone feel welcome and special.

Sure, there are characteristics of my mother I don’t possess. I mean, I did have a father who taught me a thing or two about life. But in believing in kindness, in the goodness of my fellow human being, in always looking for wonder and awe, in seeing the beauty all around, I share those things with  my mother.

And still, I held my distance. It’s safer this way, I told myself.

Until yesterday morning that is when I read my daughters blog and saw a woman I’d missed knowing. A woman whose gentle heart I kept piercing with my sharp words throughout my growing years and who kept loving me in spite of myself.

Yes, there are some mistakes my mother made that cost me dearly in my growing years. But they were never done with malicious intent or out of a desire to hurt me. Most often, they were enacted out of fear, and possibly a desire to protect me, or herself, from having to face life’s harsh realities.

Isn’t it time I let go of holding on to the stories I tell about ‘what happened then’ and simply give into rejoicing in the fact, I am alive, right now, living a life I love, surrounded by people I love and who love me. Isn’t it time?

Hell ya!

I saw my mother through my daughter’s eyes yesterday and learned an important lesson.

It’s never too late to quit being the brat. And it’s never too soon to surrender fear and anger and regret and whatever else is holding me back from living completely in the rapture of now.

It’s never too late to fall into Love.

Shared time, together time, makes a difference

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I stayed in my pajamas all day yesterday. Did not change until I went to bed when I put on fresh ones.

What a gift.

To spend the day relaxing. Reading. Napping. Chatting. Playing crib. Spider Solitaire. Sure, we cleaned the kitchen, did the dishes, put away the clutter from Christmas Day dinner. Made turkey soup, fed the animals, but other than to go to the fridge in the garage to get the turkey carcass or to take out the recycling, neither C.C. nor I ventured outside. Ellie had to settle for brief forays into the backyard — it was so cold I doubt she’d have lasted long on a walk anyway!

Sometimes, the only way to make a difference in my own life is to simply checkout of the ‘big life’ out there. To step back from doing and simply be present to the ‘undoing’ of the moment. To relax into the space I’m in and feel my way through time, moment by moment.

It was refreshing. Invigorating. Enlivening.

And today is a brand new day. A new space and time to create, to live, to experience. A new moment to unfold.

In this space, I am exploring what to do with this blog come January 1, 2013. The intent of A Year of Making a Difference was to write about making a difference every day for a year. As 2012 draws to a close, I wonder… is there more?

And I know there is. There is always time and space and room, as well as the need, to make a difference. To reach out and be of service to the world, to others, to each other. There is always space for difference making.

The question is, how will it unfold in this space? What will A Year of Making a Difference 2013 look like?

As someone who has written a daily blog every morning for almost 6 years, (Recover Your Joy) I am kind of addicted to the habit! But, as someone with a book waiting to be finished, and several projects on the go, is daily blogging the answer?

I’ve got a few days to think about it. To ponder my path. To sit in the presence of the answer unfolding as I let go of ‘making it happen’ and make way for it (whatever the ‘it’ is) to happen. I know the ‘what’ of what I want to do. It’s the how I need to allow room to appear.

In the meantime, I’ve got a structure free day to explore. Coffee with a friend, perhaps a nap. Some writing and some cleaning-up (I didn’t ask for clutter for Christmas but I sure did seem to get a lot! Where does it all come from? Where will it all go? 🙂 ) And later, C.C. and I are going on a date. Dinner. A movie. Some delightful shared time together.

It is in the shared time, the together time, the just ‘you and me babe’ time that the difference in our relationship is known and made and felt.

I am so blessed.

Hope your day unfolds in joy and wonder. Hope you know the blessing you are in the world is a gift to be treasured and celebrated.

Namaste.

 

 

Choose Love over Fear — it makes a difference

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IMG_2993As I left my house yesterday morning, I glanced into the sky and gasped. It was so beautiful. Pink and red and golden hues streaked across the blue. The trees were covered in hoar-frost, their branches laden in white.

I stopped and took a photo and gave thanks for the beauty of the morning.

I drove downtown to a coffee shop for a meet-up with a young man whose gift of song and heart is changing the world. I first met Jesse-James Cameron when he volunteered as one of the musicians in the recording of Stand by Me that I helped produce at the homeless shelter where I used to work. His enthusiasm, willingness to be present, voice and heart made a difference. We’ve stayed in contact since then, me inspired by his commitment to living his best life yet and to sharing his gifts, he inspired by my commitment to live my best life yet and to share my gifts — it’s the best of reciprocity! I’ve gone to several of his concerts when he’s performed here in Calgary and always, Jesse-James has lifted me up, moved my spirit and set my heart soaring.

As we chatted yesterday Jesse shared some of his growth along life’s journey. Once a forgotten kid, his mother addicted, father in jail, Jesse roamed the streets of his Montreal, looking, as he calls it, for a fight. Anything. Anyone.

He didn’t like what he was doing, didn’t like his life but he didn’t know another way to get what he wanted in life.

Today, Jesse can’t imagine doing some of the things he did in the not so distant past. At 28, he is on fire. He is filled with a desire to spread his music, share his gifts, share his love of life and people, compassion, and joy.

I’ve simplified my life down to one simple equation, he told me. I always choose, Love over Fear.

So simple. So powerful.

Choose — Love over fear.

And he’s doing it. His song, One Love, is a reminder to all of us to focus on that which makes life possible, on that which makes our hearts open, our spirits soar, our lives complete. One Love.

While filming the documentary of the making of Stand by Me, we interviewed the musicians and technicians who volunteered to make Stand by Me possible.  In his interview, Jesse shared two memorable moments that changed his life. One, the gift of a guitar from his grandmother when he was 13 and two, a chance encounter with a homeless man in Montreal. Jesse stopped one day to chat, sat down next to him and the man spent a couple of hours telling him wild stories of his life. When Jesse went to give him the $10 dollars in his pocket, the man refused it — telling him that he was grateful for the fact Jesse had taken the time to listen. “A story is non-rhetorical,” says Jesse. “It’s not looking for an answer. It’s just looking to be spread.”

A story is non-rhetorical.

Life is made up of the stories we tell. Life is not looking for an answer. It’s looking to be spread. Let’s make sure we spread the story of our life we want to tell. Let’s make sure we share the story of how we loved, life.

As you journey through your day today, spread the story you want repeated. Tell the story you want others to spread.

And in the telling, in the sharing, feel the world around you transforming. Feel the ripple as you move through your day creating waves of that which is worth sharing — Love. Hope. Peace and Joy.

Share the story of how you choose Love over fear — and let Love be the light you shine where ever you go.

Namaste.

And to guide you in your journey, take a few moments to step into the invitation Jesse shares as he sings with his band Makeshift Innocence —  One Love.