Second Honeymoon

Celebrating 10 years of love, sovereignty and togetherness! Photo taken by a kind stranger south of Yachats, Oregon. A good trip that keeps getting better.

Food for Thought

I guess it's an absolute truth that if you want something done properly you must do it yourself.  I suppose it also rings true that we are what we eat. Criticize a persons food and you might as well criticize them directly. It is also true that not everything should be taken personally. I read that in a book called The Four Agreements. It made sense to me.

In my starring role as mother to my 15 yr old daughter, my main objective is to teach her how to eat. My mother taught me and when I no longer lived with her my stepmother picked up where she left off. They were housewives, mothers of 4 and 5 and they had both been a part of the Diet for a Small Planet movement. They had also been through a war, this effects, probably more than any thing ones relationship to food. They knew about vegetables and whole grains. They baked their own bread and cooked all of our meals. We ate seasonally, my stepmother had her own butcher who she had a really tight relationship with. She cared about the quality of what we ate. As an adult when I visited my mother she still made me all the things I loved, again, it was homemade, seasoned with love and rich in wholesome comfort. Of the 8 living children these two women raised, no one was fat and we are all good cooks.

When my daughter was learning to eat whole food as a baby I remember her hugging me at the dinner table. I would give her a little bite, she would eat it up and then she would hug me. And so, a strong bond was created around nourishment. When she has been away, I tend to want to feed her up when she gets back, to get her back on track. Food is not folly, it is healthy, whole, fresh, and satisfying, designed to build her up. I can't rely on anyone else to do this for her, it is my responsibility alone, it is not a burden, it is my job and I do it willingly with love, good humor and sometimes flair.

Covering my mouth

There's a message here but you'll have to figure it out for yourselves. The new proper water colors I bought are challenging and I seem to lean toward brown and black, too much color is difficult so I am sticking to just tones and shades. The paint is vibrant and a little goes a long way. My week is busy, meetings, work, commitments. Things are changing again in our domestic realm which seems appropriate as it is spring. I missed my mothers death anniversary this year but I did have a great dream about her now that I think about it and it was nice to see her. I worked outside all day yesterday so the yard looks a little better which makes it easier for me to work indoors all day, and as usual those closest to me continue to nourish and ground me.

Farewell

As much as I would like to write a tidy little recap of this year that we are about to exit I can't. No one sentiment sums it up but I suppose that is the nature of a year lived one day at a time, to it's fullest. We did live it fully. We are all in a slightly different place from where we were when we first entered this year, we have naturally moved along on our collective developmental paths. Our families are well and healthier than earlier in the year and we have achieved greater understanding of and compassion for our dearest ones. I find myself almost overwhelmed by the love that surrounds me and my little family. Looking ahead to 2010 I see so much promise and opportunity. Beyond the physical plans and desires we have that will eventually populate all the days of the coming year as they did in the past year I want to continue to enjoy every moment of this fine life we have. What else is there to do?

Goodbye 2009 and thank you. Hello 2010, come on in we've been looking forward to your arrival.

Grounded

Was feeling pretty good. Took Pearl for her first hike up at Mt Baker with friends. It was the last major thing on my list of things to do this summer. I even finished sewing the dress I started and have been wearing it, in public. Like I said I was feeling good and then I learned of the death, from cancer, of woman in my circle of dear female friends from my time in Los Angeles. She was a woman who I used to show my portfolio to periodically. I can't even recall if I ever did any work for her but I do recall that she really encouraged me. She was warm and real, a rarity in LA in the music business. I was lucky somehow and most of the people I knew were authentic, generous folk.

So once again I was faced with that feeling of "there but for the grace of god go I". I couldn't sleep, feeling broken hearted for this life cut short and for all her dear friends feeling such deep loss. What can we do except keep going, keep our feet on the ground, hang on and stay here. After my mother died I took a job in Vancouver. I needed to go somewhere and have work handed to me, I could not seek it for myself, I had no energy. I was physically a wreck. The muscles down my back were so tight that when I walked I couldn't feel the ground and my feet ticked. I used to walk from the building where my office was to the train and I had to remind myself to breathe in such a way that I forced my feet onto the sidewalk. After weeks of doing this I started feeling more in touch with the ground. I was so sad that I felt I could have drifted away.

I heard two stories recently, one was about the deep salt mines in Michigan and the other was about the space shuttle. On this upside of my general depression I see how comforted I am to just be on the ground. I don't like flying, I see it as a necessary evil. When I hear stories about colonies on Mars I feel sick. I don't want to go into caves or mines either, I want to enjoy the earth from the ground. Walking toward the mountain on Tuesday I was so happy. Sharing the experience with dear friends and Pearl left me feeling deeply satisfied, so when I learned of Melanie Penny's passing late on Wednesday I could hold her memory in my heart, standing on terra-firma wishing her godspeed to wherever she is off to next. Afterall what do we have except this moment and the spot where we are standing.

My Awesome Dad

The crash site

Dad is 3rd from the left, floating the wing across the lake.

My dad is awesome. I got an email from him tonight letting me know he was sending me some money for Pearl's education fund. He will never know how much I appreciate this. He paid for my college education which was unbelievably generous of him. I worked hard and I use my education daily just to show him how much I appreciated it. He instilled in me the idea of loving what you do. And I do. He gave me some money for Pearl a few years ago and with Mark's help we started an investment fund for her. I was putting money away every month and when the economy slowed down I eased up a bit but never stopped putting the money away even though it presented a small hardship. I see it as an invaluable investment in her future.

My dad is 82 now and he still works a few days a week. I am including some pictures here of him with his glider after he crash landed it in a lake near Pemberton BC in May. He was unhurt and the glider is getting fixed. He was excited about the whole experience, not deterred or frightened. I strive to be like him, excited by all aspects of life, open to experiences, willing to work hard for what you want and believe in. Anything less is just a waste of time.

I am one lucky girl to have someone like this in my life.

This One's For Syd

This entry is for my friend Syd in her recent post she mentioned making a list of traits she was looking for in a partner but wasn't sure she was ready to do it. Above is just such a list, made by me in 2001. I don't know how or why love works but somehow writing these words on those bits of paper so long ago helped me to get clear about what I had been lacking and what I wanted in a partner. Mark is all these things and more, he's a perfect fit for me and I think I am a pretty good match for him. I used to think I had conjured Mark up, created him from wishes. I see now that getting what we need is possible in all aspects of our lives. We can choose what we want and we can make it happen but the first step is being able to visualize it in concrete terms. Make the list Syd, take the first step. A good relationship of your own creation is just down the road.

Big Baby

Yesterday Pearl had her 5th grade Moving On Ceremony. It was really touching. We are lucky to have been with such a nice group of kids. Today was my last school drop-off of the year and the last one at this school. Pearl wrote thank-you notes to all her teachers and some of the school staff and we went in a bit early and handed them out. I found myself getting emotional as she handed her letter off to her 2nd grade teacher, I had felt relieved when her kindergarten teacher was not in her classroom. That one we left on the desk. We made our way down the hall to the library and then onto her 4th grade classrooms. When we got into her classroom after giving a letter to her art teacher who we encountered in the hallway (a woman who has done an exceptional job and has been let go due to budget cuts), I found I could barely watch as Pearl's 5th grade teacher read the letter and gave her a little hug. I was tearing up, I had been since the second grade class. I really wanted to hug that woman but I did not want to get all emotional and messy so I fled. I fled past the receptionists who have met us every morning with warm enthusiastic smiles and drove home. I cried all the way. I am going to miss them and this part of Pearl's childhood.

Home

Araya, Becky and Pearl

Just back from our trip to Eugene to visit Pearl's new baby birth-sister. It was good to see Becky in her now role as active momma. She is a bit nervous but totally doting and attentive to her little bundle. The baby is sweet and content to sleep under many watchful eyes. On Sunday after a busy family dinner Mark sat for about an hour just stroking the little angel and she seemed to enjoy the constant attention, cooing in her sleep and making little faces. It was a quick trip, a whirlwind really and we were back on the road in 24 hrs heading north again, hurtling home. Somewhere south of Seattle Pearl had a little meltdown as she often does after these visits. How strange it must be to visit this perfectly good home and family who clearly cherishes you only to leave them over and over again. I can't fix how she feels I just have to let her know that the sadness she feels in the transition between homes is natural and nothing to be ashamed of. I try not to over talk the experience, I don't want to minimize or maximize her experience. I do want to know the specifics of it, but for that I will have to wait until she is a bit older and has more perspective on her reality. When we got back home Pearl seemed more herself and while we waited for Mark to set up the TV to watch the video of the experience we had just had Pearl played in her room. I went in at one point and she was playing with her Polly Pockets dolls, she said Jasmine, (a mini Bratz doll) is trying to move in with the Polly Pockets and they are not being very nice to her. I kept moving and when it was time to watch the video she came out and said that everyone was all moved in and they were all getting along just fine. We snuggled on the couch to watch the video, me on her right, Mark on her left and when it was time for bed she said how good it felt to be back home in her own bed.

How to Get what we Need

Many years back when my first marriage was falling apart I found myself at home alone cleaning out my shed. My mother had been dead for about 5 years and I still had many of her things stored there. Amazingly while moving one of those basket type carry bags which contained some miscellaneous weaving and spinning tools I came across a small spiral bound notebook. It surprised me that I had never seen it before and that it seemed to be in such an obvious open place, not tucked away in the least. I took this as a sign that perhaps my mothers ghost had placed it there so I would see it. It was the type of notebook you would find in a University Bookstore, it was stamped "University of Edinburgh" which is where both my parents went. It was not dogeared in the least in fact it was well preserved considering the dates indicated she had used it during the mid 1950's. I found it in 2001, 45 or so years later.

She and my dad had made notes about their wedding, who was present and the gifts they had received. They had a pretty simple wedding but people sent them some nice things. I even have a bit of their Edinburgh Crystal left, when Madge and I are good we drink our Gins out of them.

Beyond all the wedding details my mother had written down her feelings about being married and this is what really rocked my world. She and my dad had a pretty good marriage, at least on the outside it looked good. I realize now that she really suffered in the confines of the role. She wrote at one point that she questioned her entire existence when Denis (my dad) was not there. Somehow her job was to wait to live until he got home from the office. I found this symbolic at the time but now looking back at it I wish there had been a way for us to have a dialogue about it when she was living. I got two letters back from her college roommate at Christmas and in those she also questions the whole institution of marriage. The idea that one woman and one man bound together could get everything they need from each other seemed to her neither realistic nor desirable. It was such a gift to read that from her because I believe that she must have imprinted some of it on me and Madge, we both have pretty unconventional marriages.

I have been married to my husband Mark for 5 years now and we have never lived together. It's a novel situation that will one day change when Mark's dad Eddy leaves this mortal coil. I do look forward to living with Mark because I'm mad about him but in the meantime having this space is really pretty wonderful. I have a lot of time when I am on my own which suits me, Mark is very self possessed and is happy on his own as well. There is no jealousy, guilt, or resentment. I do my work, Mark does his, we keep in touch by email semi-constantly, we talk on the phone a bit. I love my place and Mark has done a ton of work there to make it more comfortable and to look better. I do little here at his place except cook occasionally and clean sometimes but even then Mark takes care of most everything, shopping, cooking, decorating. It's his domain and I respect and value that. He makes improvements here based on my suggestions and his own desires. We have two very comfortable homes to spend time together and apart in.

This marriage is such a gift to me. I get what I need from my partner, unconditional love and support, endless respect and admiration. I also have a ton of freedom to feed myself, to fill the gaps that a husband can't fill and because Mark is smart and secure, he understands that when I am happily doing my own thing—hiking with friends, going on art dates, spending time with my sister, being alone because that's what I need—when we get back together he cherishes his happy whole wife who is present and loving. I am really proud of this marriage not for the mere fact of it but because of the substance of it. I am quite sure my mother feels proud of how I have redefined this marriage to suit better who I am and what I need. I know Mark's mom is awfully proud of him. And most of all I hope that when Pearl grows up she has some good tools to help her pick a mate and create a partnership/marriage that nurtures her. I just hope she waits until she's at least 35 to do it.

This Day In History

Historic photo from 2004

1506

Christopher Columbus died in Spain.

1861

North Carolina voted to secede from the Union.

1927

Charles Lindbergh began the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight, departing from Long Island aboard the Spirit of Saint Louis.

1932

Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.

1978

Mavis Hutchinson, 53, became the first woman to run across America. The 3,000-mile trek took her 69 days. She ran an average of 45 miles each day.

2002

I met Mark Seifred for coffee in Vancouver, my life hasn't been the same since.

Corny I know, but true.

A New Chapter

Here she is! The newest member to our crazy quilt of a family. She is the still unnamed daughter of Becky and Tom, Pearl's lovely birthmomma and her partner. We will make the the trip to see her in a few weeks and introduce her to her fabulous older sister Pearl. Can't help wondering what these two will talk about long after we are gone, what a life they will have together. What joy to have a sister.

Remembrance

My mother on castle rock in Edinburgh Scotland in her 20's, circa 1950

Today marks the 12th anniversary of my moms death. It's a day of remembrance and reflection. It's easy to elevate the dead, to canonize them to the level of sainthood. She was not a saint of course but she was a really good mother. The thing I am most grateful to her for is that she was always herself, fiercely so. When I was a kid, parents didn't bend over backwards the way they do today to entertain their kids or offer them greater opportunities than they had themselves. I didn't have swimming lessons, I wasn't a Brownie, I never learned to play the piano.

I am the youngest of 4 children and when I was small before I went to school I just hung out with her as she went about her life. Lucky for me she was a really interesting person. She gardened, and painted, she sewed and skied. She went to Keep Fit class and she was a member of a weavers guild. I went everywhere with her and I saw her as a person, not just my mother. I knew her wittiness, her sadness, and her wickedness. She was strong and fit and beautiful and she protected me. She was a lioness, a goddess, she was vulnerable and unapologetic.

I have modeled myself after her in many ways particularly in my parenting style. I am a no-nonsense mom, firm but fair, I want to share my love for the world with Pearl. I also want her to know me, the good and the bad, the contradictions and the convictions. I want Pearl to know that my love is unconditional and immense but I also want her to understand my limits and my weaknesses. My greatest regret about losing my mom so early is that she did not get to see me be a mother, and that she never got to meet Pearl. I could cry for a week about that. Mostly though, I just feel lucky that I had her in my world for as long as I did and for all the gifts she gave me, the greatest being the purity of her love for me.

A Good Marriage

I got married for the first time when I was 23. It was a novel concept and being an adventurous sort I went for it. I was very proud of my marriage in those early days, proud of the idea that I had become married. It was not a state I had aspired to, growing up I never actually imagined myself married. I had never given much thought to what made a marriage work or what I even wanted from a marriage but I forged ahead within this cage of normalcy. Being married gave me some credibility I thought, street cred. How bad could I be, I was after all married. Of course when you are married you become well acquainted with the person you are married to and over time people change and grow and as I got older my attitude about the whole thing evolved. I was less proud of the marriage and more hampered by it, I found it confining. The sameness, the expectation, the unchangeable roles of husband and wife. After 15 years I got out.

During the period that I was single I had a lot of time to think. What I realized during that time was that I really enjoyed the companionship of men, I did not want to be alone but I was not in a big hurry to get married again either. When I met Mark I made a conscious effort to just simply be with him and have no expectations of what was supposed to happen. I watched as he showed up regularly in my world, we had a great time together and I felt strongly that I could spend a lot of time with him without any trouble. He felt the same way and after about 18 months he proposed marriage. I accepted but I felt nervous too, was I committing myself to this confinement again. We talked a lot about what we both wanted from marriage and came up with the idea that we were like 2 sovereign nations. We were both independent, self supporting, self actualized nations coming together in a spirit of cooperation. Neither nation needing the other for survival but rather identifying the benefits and comforts of certain combined efforts. I liked this, having just regained my independence and sense of self I wanted a union that would support and enhance my freedom not dismantle it over time. Mark was away in the South Pacific during this time and did not return home for 6 months after his proposal to me. It was a hard and sad winter, but I got through it and we got married about 2 months after he returned home, 2 years after we initially met.

In the early months of the marriage I suffered a little. Feeling lost again in this idea of marriage, thinking I needed to assume a different role from that of girlfriend or independent island state. I talked to Mark about it and of course he was fine with the idea that I preferred the girlfriend concept over the wife concept. And so we continue as married people (for almost 5 years now) who are wholly committed to one another but with a level of separation that suits both of us. If I had to make a visual for the relationship it would be of two overlapping circles and where the circles overlap there is a lot of vibrant color and activity and where the overlap ends there is still a lot of vibrancy, just in different hues.

Reflection

Pearl swims at Alouette Lake, Summer 2008

The best Christmas gift I got this year was wholly unexpected. I received as I often have, a card from one of my mothers friends or relatives from the UK. Brown envelopes with handwritten addresses, modern die-cut cards with minimal snowflake designs. This year one such envelope appeared from my mothers college roommate Eiona Connacher. She enclosed with her cheerful note two letters she had recieved from my mother many years earlier. One was from 1966 and one from 1975. Eiona, a retired doctor, noted that she had come across the letters on her desk which begs the question "How often does one clear off ones desk?".

I am offering here, a passage from the letter dated May of 1975, the year my parents separated. We had taken a trip to the UK a few years earlier and my mother describes part of our experience;

" We put up our three little red nylon tents by the river at Coupal Bridge in Glencoe {Scotland} one fine evening in June and then bathed in the river which was warm as milk after running over the sunwarmed rocks. The kids all suddenly decided to get rid of their bathing suits and swam naked in that wonderful dark amber water. Do you remember doing the same once? I sat and watched their pink and white bodies as they splashed and dived, and it came to me that the cycle was complete here in Glencoe. Later I tried to make a poem about it, but I've never got it to my complete satisfaction."

Of course the letters are deeply moving and I am so pleased to have them in my possession, to get a glimpse into her inner world and to see how similar it is to my own.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Holiday Aftermath

Christmas has now come to a close. We have stopped the early drinking, waiting instead until 5. I got Marks awful cold but it came after all the guests left so total collapse was a viable option. We ended up snowed in and it was lovely. I woke up on December 24th in my bed with Mark at my side, and with all the guest beds filled with their guests. There was nothing to do but enjoy the company, play in the snow and cook, and shovel, everyone shoveled paths all over the property.

Eddy was quiet this year, he had the cold too and was rendered speechless and sniffly. Yesterday he perked up but he is troubled somewhat. He is one of those phases where he recognizes what he has lost, not just memory but strength and action. He feels concerned about his health of course but does not relate it to the cold, instead he conjures up thoughts of more severe illness, surgery and mystery pain that must be attended too. His entire family around him was not enough to distract him into levity.

Pearl played in the snow everyday, several times, suiting up and then taking it all back off, hanging her wet stuff above the fireplace. On Christmas morning, because it is a mostly adult crowd we get a late start and so rather than wait around for us slackers she went out and played in the snow before opening presents. I was shocked and pleased. I have raised a northern gal.

I missed my family this year due to weather and complexity. I will see them this week briefly. I wish my sister had been able to join us here but it just wasn't possible. Soon.

So we are inbetween the holidays, it's raining and dreary. Christmas is a blur of wrapping paper and salty dips and New Years Eve is as yet unformed. I feel a compulsion to go out and do some dancing, kick up my heels a little to welcome in the New Year, I wonder what's happening at the Legion? Polka anyone?

Death in the Family

Some of the cousins, circa 1973. Anne is seated in front of my mother. My dad is not pictured, but Jim is. We are the children.

Am back home after 4 days at Mark's place. I dropped Pearl at school and now I am trying to warm up the house and office. It's always a bit lonely and dark when I first get back home. Today is a little worse as I am reflecting on the recent death of Anne Ironside. Thoughts of death and loss abound. I'm tripping on them.

She is not technically my aunt. One of our long-running family exchanges featured this discussion about how we called them Uncle Jim and Aunt Anne for convenience and we would lapse into the discussion of the second cousins once removed thing which was the accurate description of our familial relationship. Jim is my dad's first cousin and I think their relationship was more brotherly, they have always stayed connected, their mothers were sisters. They both went to the University of Edinburgh. Jim was a surgeon, my dad went into Anesthesia. Jim married Anne after he moved to Vancouver in the 60's and she is the mother of my two girl second cousins, Andrea and Cybele. Andrea is my age and I have always known her. So Anne was my second cousins wife and she died on Saturday of complications associated with liver disease, many sad complications. She was 72.

Today I am wading around in this knowledge that she is gone and now Andrea is just like me, motherless. It was hard to call her to offer consolation because really there is nothing that can console this particular loss. You feel it in your body, in your DNA, in your womb, your bloodstream, around our brains, and in our lungs. It's so deep and feels so endless and enormous. A big empty hole blasted through your whole being.

Gently, somewhere in the journey of this horrendous realization, the pain steps away and in it's place is love and deep human connection. It hurts so much and is simultaneously so beautiful.

Shout out to my Man

On this day 6 years ago I drove to Vancouver to meet Mark for the very first time in person (we met via the miracle of the internets). Something in the universe shifted and I knew that on that day my life would be forever changed, and it has been. I now know the true meaning of the word partner.

Thanks Mar, you are the best.

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