Renovating your Reality

It’s been a long, cold, ugly winter out there. Mountains of shoveled snow line the driveways and intersections; streets become frozen lakes when the water mains freeze and burst open throwing their pressurized contents upwards and into the frozen ice-world above like some Disney movie heroine struggling to find her identity; and as the season progresses the streets crumble and give way from below - the gaping potholes lie in wait to damage tires and rims and turn the daily commute into a trek across some Arctic minefield.

We've had enough.

That temptress Spring returned briefly last week, showing just enough leg and bare concrete to entice the winter-weary, stirring forgotten passions and lustful yearnings for garden centers and potting soils and just as quickly as she turned our heads she disappeared, taking with her our last, dying hope of getting through March unscathed.

The winter carnivals are over and gone, Spring break is on the horizon, and if you believe the calendar the new Season has officially arrived, but we know better, and we aren’t fooled, though we want to be.  The high school does its best to lift ailing hearts with Spirit Week and the annual career symposium, but we all know we’re stuck in that dreary in-between world, not quite where we want to be, and not quite free from the holds of our pasts, prisoners of time and place.  Cold and flu season adds insult to injury, robbing us of what little energy and motivation we have left, mopping running noses and soothing sore throats and coughs, mired in medications that dull the aches and pains.

And so we wait again.

The renovations are in full swing and progress has been plenty on all fronts – though this past week saw nothing moving forward until around Friday morning, thanks to a sinus infection that had me praying for a simple migraine to ease my suffering, but illness-induced rest and plenty of fluids and I’m almost feeling human again – enough to begin planning the upcoming week’s schedule and thinking about where I’d like to see this project in a week’s time.  The structure has been removed and replaced with engineered lintels to carry the roof loads as planned and we’re enjoying the increased space and abundance of natural light that had been trapped and blocked by the original house design. 

We’ve become accustomed to the chaos and upheaval that is construction – the missing areas of finished floor, the dangled wires and exposed framing, the relocated services and storage and the dance to find the things we need that are no longer where they once were.  And more than once each of us has turned the old direction to head downstairs and found ourselves standing in the middle of the kitchen like an Alzheimer’s patient searching for the unseen.  But we catch ourselves and turn the right way, the new way, and continue on, adapting to the new route and reinforcing the muscle and mental memory of how to navigate our own home.

Change is a grand thing if you can survive the transition period.  It has taken me a long time but I think I’ve finally begun to understand that critical life lesson.  While we are naturally resistant to it we crave it just the same and somewhere along that spectrum of same-different new-unknown, we each find our level of comfort and freedom to be who we are meant to be.  Understanding that each of us has varying levels of change tolerance is critical too for we can’t force others to accept change at more than their comfortable pace – though we can all grow and tolerate more change if we take our time and move forward slowly together.  It helps if everyone involved is on the same page and has the same vision of the future – but that relies on shared communication and mutual interests and we know how difficult it can be to get a group (never mind family) consensus on anything.

In the case of a renovation good plans and shared design sense are key to a harmonious transition from the old to the new and improved, else one of you is going to get what they want and have in mind and the other is just going to get what they get – now depending on which one of you ‘cares’ most about the outcome and whose level of unhappiness with the current state of affairs is greatest might dictate the direction and degree of change involved. There’s nothing worse than an apathetic stakeholder in the change process however – they’ll maintain and swear they really don’t care about the details along the way – despite repeated queries and assurances, but you know they’ll be the first to voice displeasure with the final outcome for any of a number of possible reasons: emotional inaccessibility, passive-aggressive tendencies, lack of commitment to the planned changes or pure bull-head stubbornness. 

Open, honest, shared communication is key. 

And really when you boil it all down, that’s true no matter what the nature of the change.  We know at our very basic core that we must change and grow in order to survive – that’s just the reality of being human – and accepting that fact can be scary and unsettling and it might bring out fears and emotional scars of past changes that didn’t work well or didn’t provide obvious improvements – but we can not stay where we are for any length of time without dying and withering in some way.  Preparation is key – we need to have a general understanding of where we want to get to before we begin or we won’t have any idea how to get there, or when we’ve arrived.

Funny how some of us forget that, and blindly dive into changing things around us for the sake of change; for the thrill and uncertainty of making things new and different around us, to live on the edge and push the envelop of safety and security we normally operate inside.  A new paint colour, new hair style, new relationship – you know who you are – anything to feel different than how we do presently, but without really digging deeper into understanding what it is about the current reality that has us feeling trapped or fearful or unhappy and in search of change.  Without knowing why you want change, and moving toward a vague, undefined goal, you are apt to find yourself in exactly the same mental and emotional state you left – just surrounded with new things and places and people.  And soon you’ll be looking to make another change…

Some of us are quite content to exist like dust in the wind, happily being thrown along life’s path, tossed and turned this way and that as situations and opportunities change and fluctuate around them, easily able to adapt to the new and unknown and seemingly able to thrive no matter where they end up.  Others prefer to live like rocks, anchored and stable and content to be just as they are currently, seeing no need for new and improved when the tried and true have been just fine, thank you very much, fighting even the most basic changes around them, clinging to the familiar.  Most however are somewhere between the two extremes, holding on here and letting go there, shifting from being in control of the change process to being changed by the process no matter how hard they fight it, struggling to exist between the two and make it work along the way.  We’re blind to it and don’t understand why we feel the stress we do, ignorant of the battle that rages around us constantly, not becoming an active partner in the process that will ultimately determine who we become and where we end up.

And so we curse our current situations and long for new and better and explain away our limitations to chance or location or outside influence instead of owning up to what we’ve done to get us to where we are today.

It will be a few more months until we can say we’ve entered the home stretch in these renovations; until we will be able to truly see the end in sight and begin to get excited about the future way we’ll exist inside the re-created and expanded spaces.  For now we’re content to see the progress in little stages bit by bit, knowing we’re heading toward something better and more able to suit the way we live in this house; something that will give us more room to be who we are and who we are becoming.

But just to be human, we’ll still find it easier to stand and look out the front window complaining that the temptress Spring hasn’t returned than to accept and embrace the cold reality of winter, shoveling be damned.

Renewal and Change: Time to tackle the crap

Somehow it became June.  Not that middle of June with the beginning intensity of summer that lasts until late September; this year early June is more like late May with fruit trees still in bloom, flowers finally daring to stand proudly in the gardens and the true feeling of the change of season turning the corner at last.

The greenhouses are doing brisk business these days as the winter-dwellers emerge to rediscover the outdoors and attempt to reclaim their mastery over the landscape. Trucks are busy delivering yards of black earth and soil and decorative bark and stone as yards begin their yearly transformation and the streets are lined on garbage day with paper bags full of the trimmings and prunings and remains of last year ready to be composted into next year.

The ceremony of renewal and change has begun.

It’s June and up here that means the final days of school are underway, exams and graduations and the cleaning up of another school year before the halls fall silent for a few months.  Stressful times for some – those ending this particular chapter of their lives and embarking on the next – and less so for others – those who have a few more years to go until they too wear the cap and gown and pretend they’re ready to take on the challenges of Life, though these years of high school present enough opportunities for drama and intrigue to fill an entire season of Hallmark after school specials.

We should know, but that’s a story (or a book) for another time…

Somehow April and May got away from us, well that’s not entirely true – it’s just that they were filled with circumstances and events that caused time and place to shift as required in order to achieve some semblance of balance and order – but now suddenly time has passed and we stand looking back as we catch our breath and realize nothing stands still ‘out there’ regardless of what’s happening ‘in here.’

I’ve been busy the last few days cleaning out the old garage and establishing a plan for the new one – figuring out where everything will go and how it needs to look in order to provide us with optimal storage and functionality going forward.  This has been in the works since the new addition was constructed and closed in – but it isn’t a process that can be rushed or quickly designed – at least not for me – there is an organic, natural way I inhabit a space that takes time to fully appreciate and understand exactly how I interact with it and how it needs to be for me to feel centered and at home in the space.  I require time to use it in its barest sense to get comfortable and familiar before making lasting change.  I suspect we all have this trait though many are more able to adapt freely to their environments than I, or they don’t have the luxury of time to sort such things out. 

The old garage has been my space since we moved in here back in ’95 and it has grown and changed in nature and purpose to suit our needs and my needs as I have changed and demanded more or less from it in exchange.  From simple storage and basic, crude workshop space with a handful of simple, cheap tools that managed to turn out the early storage cabinetry and carpentry skills for a young married couple finding their way as homeowners; to a more finely tuned and focused workspace with specialized, professional tools that allowed a business to grow and provide for a young family; and then to an injured, quieter, shadow of its former self, at the ready should it be called into service, but slowly hidden behind a veneer of bigger more pressing projects and demands, and requiring dedicated time and motivation to return it to a state of workability.

As I sifted through the shelves and cupboards and laid the contents out in the bigger, newer confines, I felt an inner rawness that comes with taking stock of what you have and really looking at it to assess its value and appropriateness for you and whether it will serve you moving forward, deciding if it should stay or if it’s time to say goodbye.

Stuff accumulates and gets piled up in corners and behind things without you realizing it, even though you see it every day.  Easier to keep it just because, than to have to take the time to really decide what it is and why you have it and what to do with whatever-it-is.  Easier to stay with the tried and true than the new and unknown.

But we need to make room for the new and improved while still carrying the old and trusted with us, though it requires patience and dedication to the task, and a careful, honest eye to accurately measure the needs and wants and balance them with the available size and space and time and energy.  You can’t do this for someone else – you can guide him or her and assist them and lend a hand, but they have to do the heavy lifting themselves.  They have to own the stuff in question or the real decisions can’t be made about what it means and what to do with it.  That can be a painful process.  Layers of dust and time settle on our stuff and our attachment to things can become tied to feelings over time instead of the concrete objectivity that once existed.

Ignoring the stuff might be easier in the short term – it doesn’t hurt if you don’t have to dig in and take stock, right?

Maybe.  For a little while, sure.  But not in the long term.  In order to free yourself from the disquieting chaos you’ve ignored in there over time, you have to finally decide to wade in and get real about things.  And that means you are going to get dusty and dirty and you will have to fully commit to creating a new dynamic with yourself.  You can’t just pull out all the stuff you have in that old garage and blow the dust off and tidy up the piles and set everything back up on shiny new shelves and trick yourself into feeling good about the exercise.  You haven’t really accomplished anything at that point – not if you are being honest with yourself. 

You’ve just rearranged your crap.

We all know what we need for our ‘crap.’ This isn’t news: a place for everything and everything in its place.  Pretty simple huh?  Yeah, but not so easy though, is it?  If you’re anything like me you have a decent sized pile of stuff laying around – stuff that still has value and is needed and used but that probably isn’t where it needs to be in order for you to feel productive and efficient with it.  Problem is you have to decide at some point what your stuff is and whether you really need it, and if you do, where to put it and how so you will know it’s there when you need it later.

And you probably don’t have places for all the stuff you think you want or need.

So you need to drag it all out, piece by piece, collect it all together so you can really see what you have.  You might be surprised what you’ve been collecting over the years and why. 

Why did I keep that old Planter’s Peanuts tin of used, bent nails that has always sat ontop of the tool cupboard in the corner behind the door?  Sure I appreciate the antique, blue tin, but why keep the useless nails inside it?  And what about the boxes of old light switches and receptacles from when we upgraded the electrical almost 20 years ago?  A broken drill?  Instructions and manuals for tools I’ve since replaced twice now?  And automotive light bulbs from which car now?  You don’t even remember what some of this stuff is or why you still have it…

So it’s time to move on.  Acknowledge it, appreciate that at one time you had need for it but now it doesn’t suit who you are and where you are going or what you are presently doing, and then let it go.  Garbage what needs throwing out, recycle what can be reused or repurposed – whatever you need to do to feel okay with getting rid of that past.

What you are left with after going through all your crap is what you really need and what really means something to you.  (Not what you thought you had or what you remembered you had.)  That in itself can be freeing.  We can attach some pretty deep emotions to our stuff – and it can prevent us from getting real about what things truly are and why we have them.  Yes, this old hand saw was my grandfather’s – they don’t make them like this anymore, and yes it is a connection to the past – but is it something I need in my life? Is the idea of the connection to the past what is important about this old rusty saw with its weathered wooden handle? Or is it an appreciation of the craftsmanship of the tool itself coupled with the connection to the past that keeps it on the pegboard along side newer models that I actually use? Occasionally use.  Okay, seldom use.

So it stays – but it doesn’t need to be easily accessible or take up valuable real estate in the new garage – it can be appreciated from a distance. Done. Next!

Now you need to figure out how to store it so you will see it and know what it is when you need it (if you need it but can’t find it, it doesn’t really help does it?)  I’ve purchased some wire racking that hangs from the ceiling above the overhead door – using those awkward, usually inaccessible spaces for your once-a-while stuff (like Christmas tree boxes and ornaments and lights etc) helps make the most of out whatever limited amount of space you have to store your stuff.  Oddly enough I had stacks of plywood and off-cut lengths of boards in the garage that could be repurposed as shelves and supports and bracing for shelves and supports.  You might need to go buy some – it’s worth your time to get exactly what you need and have it fit your space and your stuff.  Trust me.  There is nothing worse than a bastardized storage system that doesn’t really fit anything you own.  You’ll curse and swear at it every time you try to get something off the shelves or out of the too-small space or worse if you have to separate things to make them fit…

Plus it can be unsafe.

I relocated cupboards and custom built storage shelving from the old space into the new, needing to modify some to fit the new locations in order to allow the cars to fit in the garage alongside the ‘stuff’ and I took the time to paint the lower sections of shelving and cabinetry white to make it brighter and more easy to see where everything is.  Again, your stuff needs to be accessible to you when you need it.  Then I began the process of collecting the related items and putting them away in their places.  Trying my best to order and group them as I went along.

I’m guessing by now you can see why this process takes time, but also why you keep putting off doing it.  It isn’t easy.  I didn’t say it was.  It is necessary though if you want to get a handle on your crap; your stuff; your belongings and your ties to all of it. It’s an investment in you.  And that is important.

I’m not finished out there yet.  I don’t know if I will ever truly be finished organizing and storing my belongings to get them the way they need to be for me to feel like everything is finally in its place.

I think that’s the story of my life.  Probably of your life too if you stop and really think about it.  There are too few places where we feel like we belong in this world.  Where we know with absolute certainty that we are where we are supposed to be and doing what is really meaningful and important – to us and to those around us.  When you find one of those places, you need to stop and stay there awhile; take a good look around and touch the ground, the sky, the walls – feel it, know it, live it.  Become a part of that place, and make it yours.  Take it with you and keep it with you so you can fully be wherever it is you find yourself, knowing you are able to leave your mark along the way as you move through.  Even if its just for short periods of your spare time.

Maybe it’s your new garage – or your current one.  It might be your basement, or closet, or your desk or filing cabinet.  Pretty sure it’s your garden and flowerbeds and the front lawn.  And if you’re really being honest about it, it’s your life in general and the people you invite in and keep with you and those that somehow seem to find a way to stay in your life even though you know they shouldn’t be…

Chances are you have your share of pruning and weeding and cleaning up and dusting off to do too.  And you’ll soon have bags of last year’s debris on your curb, making room for next year’s too.  Renewal and change.

If you’ll excuse me, I know where I need to be right now.  You?

Uncertain Skies

Up until last week Spring didn’t seem to exist, but she was there in the shadows of the cool mornings and hidden within the flakes of snow and up in the grey clouds.  We get so used to seeing Spring being the outgoing, flamboyant, carefree spirit she usually is that when she arrives sullen and quiet and dressed in muted colours that it catches us by surprise and we stop for awhile concerned, wondering if she needs a moment or a shoulder or whether we should just let her figure things out on her own.

We’re learning that she can be like that.  Raised to be independent, she can handle herself, though she has her tender emotional side that she will let you see in rare glimpses if you are paying attention on those early mornings, the dew a reminder of how much she cares for all these things in the garden.  But she is a child of change and has been given the unenviable role of cleaning up Winter’s messes and bringing order to the chaos he left behind, a job she does with grace and beauty, usually, but this year she has been troubled and is struggling to find herself and dealing with emotions and feeling that she hasn’t had to face in some time.

She can be violent and it surprises all but those who know her closely – storms can rage behind her eyes so quickly and with such ferocity that you have only your instincts left to save you, automatic reactions of survival.  Then just as quickly calmness and serenity return with the certainty of songbird voices in the treetops.  We can be fooled by her fragility if we are not careful, and so we learn to watch her closely and softly prepare for any kind of weather, hoping for the bright sunny days and wrapping warmth that will usher us through to summer, but carrying a light jacket just in case.

No one said this season would be easy or simple or even pleasurable – the human need for labels and clear-cut angularity is not a natural requirement – balance? Yes, complete order and fairness? Not so much.  The best we can do is stand by and respond when called to act.  Take those clear blue, wonderful days and use them to our mutual advantage, planting seeds to reap later; taking the time to tidy up the fringes and edges that will always get ragged and uneven with normal wear and tear; touching up the paint and protecting those things we want to last.

And when she turns and suffers through her anger and rage, lashing out at those who love her, threatening harm and plowing destruction across her path we must stand firm in our resolve, knowing a kind heart and loving hand still exist under the dark, tumultuous skies; that behind eyes flashing with pure intensity and under booming baritone voice she is in there still, the gentle soul and laughing child who longs to be of service; the small, innocent wonder we remember.

And so we wait out the storms.

As I sit and wait for Spring

“How can we live without our lives?  How will we know it’s us without our past?”

John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

The snow is still deep in these parts this week, another 6 inches fell last week, but the spring sunshine is trying its best to generate the warmth to melt the banks and piles of white, and they are receding, and slowly is fine – no one wants a flood this year – too much drama and too much excitement when all we want is Spring.

We are tired of heavy clothes and warm boots, we long for sandals and bare skin, and we know if we are patient we will get our wishes, but we don’t know how long we’ll have to wait, or when we’ll finally know it has arrived.  So we wait and hope for something better.

You only get a week like mine once in your life – the passing of your mother and the ritual that brings with it – and I think that’s a good thing.  Even if you think you’re ready for the end, the actual reality of looking over and down that steep edge can change you, startle you, confuse you at times, while you comfort and console and try and make sense out of the most natural of consequences.

Society doesn’t prepare it’s citizens for this.  The subject is taboo in most circles and certainly the schools aren’t discussing the inevitable with young minds – that’s the Church’s job they’ll say – but with the dwindling numbers in the pews each week, there aren’t as many young minds pondering the fates as maybe there should be. 

Death and Life are joined ends of the same fragile thread, you can’t have one without the other, and depending on your beliefs, one leads to the other, mere reflections across a moment of silence. Understanding and comprehending the end of a life is not a simple thing, and it requires care and delicacy and honesty and room for thought and questions – it’s the perfect subject for a family talk – if only every family could be open and quiet and understanding when they needed to be and expressive and supportive and patient and kind as the members of the collective worked it out for themselves.

It will always be a mystery, until such time as one of us returns to tell about the experience – but I haven’t met anyone yet who’s had that journey – so a mystery it shall remain I suppose.  Though we can get, if we try and if we honestly want to, a better understanding of the reality of the end of a life by looking at those left behind, and by examining the process through which they attempt to accept the finality.

We each grieve differently and for different ends – some to finally remove the denial, others to allow the departed to go freely in peace, and some to prove to themselves that they really are living.  Some cry and are overcome by emotion, comforted by those around them; others mourn in silence and in quiet contemplation, watching and waiting for the lessons to be absorbed, and others rail at the thought of change and of new beginnings, just wanting one more day.

The rituals serve to allow those near to comfort each other and spend time remembering, looking back, reliving the life that was, while surrounded by the larger community that offers its support and love through accepted ways – food, drink, an offer of help in whatever way needed, flowers, cards, and warm embraces.  Slowly the outside world is allowed in.  The planning and necessary preparations for the ceremony and service are rooted in tradition but fluid enough to allow modern speed and convenience with the details, and those details help with the acceptance a little more each day.

Until finally the time arrives and collectively family, friends, community come together again in celebration and in mourning; in remembrance and in contemplation, all seeking redemption and understanding and peace.  The body is laid to rest and the soul is set free, the ultimate liberation for the departed.

Steinbeck asked “How can we live without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past?”  The question posed at the thought of leaving everything behind to start again, bringing only the most necessary of possessions on the journey to a new life.  How does one live without those things, those tangible memories of who we once were and what we once had?  Can we ever really move on from our past?  Is it not deeply woven into the fabric of our souls?

I wondered about all this while looking at old pictures in dad’s house, assembling the slideshow for mom’s funeral, the family gathered together to share the task and talk and reminisce about her life and our memories of her – and photographs instantly take you back to different times, and they unleash a flood of memories.

There I am a boy of maybe 3, standing outside the passenger-side door of the old blue Pontiac, my hair a golden blonde lit by the afternoon sun at my grandpa and grandma’s, my teddy bear tucked under my arm – my constant companion – though here he looks like I never knew him, newer and plumper and still has both eyes intact – and that’s my dad’s cousin Craig standing beside me, red-headed boy about my age – the youngest cousin by far of that generation, and we’re both dressed in button-down shirts and dress pants – must have just returned from church and hadn’t changed…

Here I am now on the kitchen table of the old house, 70’s paisley wall-paper behind me, I’m about 5, school-aged and hair now more dusty than golden and I’m wearing pajamas – looks like mom made this pair – super heroes on a white background, navy blue elasticized cuffs, and I’m sitting on the table looking tired and worn at the camera, my face and body covered from head to toe in measles – the story gets repeated often – so often I know the words before I see the whole image – “…couldn’t place a dime anywhere without touching or covering a bump…”

Here’s one of all of us – looks like Christmas at someone’s house – a gathering of family and we’re scrunched together on the sofa – all six of us – 4 kids in the middle, mom and dad smiling happy smiles at either end, and we look ragged and happy too and God I remember that sweater Roger is wearing…

You can become defined by your past if you let it, or you can let it be what it was – a moment in time – and you can leave it there and move forward without being trapped by the situations and awkward decisions and horrible fashions.  You can take the important parts with you and leave the rest behind – you can if you want, and most of us should.  Steinbeck need not fear – we will know who we are without it all as long as we have each other – that’s all that matters.

It’s not what we have that defines us, it’s how we live and how we treat each other that reveals our true nature and our character.  The memories and objects of our past helped create the circumstances that tested us and moved us, and made us react – they helped us grow – but we needn’t carry them forward along with us – we already have them where they matter most.  It’s what’s inside that counts and what you show outside that makes a life.  It’s the people you allow in and keep there; it’s the ways in which you do the things only you can do, that’s your life, that’s where you live it – not in some grand outward example for everyone else to see – no, that’s the shallow trappings of ego and vanity needing to be fulfilled – not the true, natural essence of who you are…

And so patiently we wait. 

For Spring and for warmer days ahead, waiting but not knowing how or when it will arrive, but ready for when it most certainly does.  And we will live while we wait and one day we will leave the memories and photographs behind for others to hold and examine to wonder and ponder who we were and what it all means, and if we’ve done it right they will know – we will have told them, showed them, taught them who we were and how we lived and they will be comforted in that knowledge, and we can take that next step across knowing we’ve done our part.

Spring Storms

Stormy

Not once have I ever said I hate rain, even if it ruined plans, stopped a picnic, or just going to the playground to fool around. The way it's hits your window pane, the amazing feeling as it rushes down your face, or just the way it dances as it hits the ground. The way you can look up at the sky and see a million raindrops coming down. You can see the beautiful flashes of lightning and hear the huge bang of the thunder, you just stand there at the window as you count how long it takes for the second flash of light to come or skipping a heartbeat listening to the thunder shake you from under your feet. Everyone talks about dancing in the rain but no one truly does it. As I'm outside enjoying the whole experience of the peaceful silence, and finally letting all my thoughts run through my mind and singing my heart out because no one cares to listen, I look out at the street full of cars because people are so busy with their lives to remember to enjoy those little moments that make a life time worth living. As you sit there in your house warm and dry, I'll be outside letting my imagination explore and my heart flow and everything In between. Have fun for that little moment, I’ll let my hair down as it’s soaking wet, let my make up run down my cheeks and becoming so heavy I can barley move. I'll be in my flip flops and my blue shorts with the same old ripped up sweater from all the other times I decided to jump into deep puddles and become muddy because nothing else mattered at that moment. As you enjoy your life the way you want to through a window, I will enjoy mine through those hard, tough storms!

- Paige

A springtime Sunday morning, the house quiet and still again, Mother Nature brought back some cooler weather these last few days, reminding us that She really does have a sense of humour; those summer-like temps we had at the beginning of the week were a tease, the kind you pulled on the little brown-haired girl who sat in front of you in grade three because you knew you kinda liked her, and you waited for that eventual tease in return, a cat and mouse game children understand and naturally take to with ease.  Mother Nature is still a child at heart – she has to be – it’s 23 degrees out this morning and the furnace is quietly churning out comfort and heat, when the other day we considered turning on the air conditioning, and Tuesday evening we had a lovely, rare March thunderstorm, the kind normally reserved for summer, with purple clouds and bright streaks of yellow lightning and rolling thunder, the kind that makes you stop what you are doing and open the doors and head outside to experience it all firsthand.

You might have noticed the poetic musings of Paige at the top of today’s post, writing inspired by that same thunderstorm, her viewpoint coming from the heart of a 14 year old girl also making sense of her world these days.  I’ve been fortunate this week to have a number of conversations with her, in person and via text and email about life and beliefs and spirituality and everything that runs through our heads as we try to find where we fit into this constantly changing world.  And I’ve learned as much or more than I’ve taught and shared, the benefit of being a good listener and approaching any exchange of ideas with an open mind and an appetite for another perspective. 

Our children know far more than we give them credit for, and they understand things much more complex than we realize, some of it matter-of-factly in the way only children can, gleaning the true essence of concepts without the baggage of a lifetime’s worth of cluttered ideas and cynical jading.  True, context and application of concepts is required to move closer to actual understanding and mastery of ideas, but we shouldn’t be surprised that our kids have been paying attention and asking questions of their world, much like we did and still do.

Paige has the gift of insight already, and she’s able to communicate her ideas and her impressions of the world in a way that caught me off guard; unexpected to say the least, proud and extremely happy for her at the same time.  I coached her in hockey a few years ago and we had a connection – as a coach you try to reach every child to understand how to best provide them with the information they need to learn to play the game.  Some kids are eager students, some will only listen to their own mom or dad, and some take a while to warm up to your style and personality.  That’s just life. Paige and I clicked and bonded to the point where for the next few years when our hockey paths diverged and Riley played on different teams than her, if she saw me at the rink she’d run through and over people to come and give me a huge hug. We’d sit together at the games and catch up. She's a great kid and a good influence on me! 

She's had some troubles at school, bullies, mean girls, the whole teenage drama - she's a bit of a tomboy (hello? She plays boys hockey and loves to hit!) and so the girls had turned on her, and some of her guy friends had too - she's shared some of her experiences and feelings with me, and I've talked with her mom about the two of us keeping an open dialogue so she can express herself when she feels no one else is listening. She's turning a corner and finding her way back to who she used to be.

As parents we too often forget that our children are growing up everyday, changing and becoming who they will be, influenced by everything around them including us, and we may neglect to nurture that bond as closely as we once did, forgetting they still need that love and support in the most obvious ways, and that they need our ears much more now than ever before, but also our trust and compassion maybe even more.  But we know, as do they, that it’s a two way street, that we need their trust and compassion to do what we think is right and best in their interests as we make decisions that seem harsh and unfair, though guided by experience and wisdom – although we all know that will get called into question regardless. 

Will they make mistakes? Absolutely! That’s how they will learn the valuable life lessons – we can teach and preach and lecture as much as we want, and they may listen and hear and understand what we’re saying, but they will still need to experience it firsthand (sometimes more than once, sadly) in order to learn the lessons. That’s where their personal wisdom will come from.

Will we make mistakes as parents? You bet! We’re not perfect either, and that’s how we will learn, and how we will be able to become better parents as we grow and progress together with our children.  It takes strength and courage on both sides to get through the teenaged years without one or the other threatening to move out or be thrown out – that’s the way love goes – emotions, any emotions, are a sign of human connection with another, and a sign of the love we all share.

Be honest with your kids, let them see that you’re human, allow them into your world when they are ready and able to understand how and why you do what you do for them – they are likely figuring this out without your input right now – better you give them some of your own insight to guide their understanding, lest they write you off as being one dimensional and not engaged or interested in their problems and concerns. The sooner the better.  Worst case, they get distracted by the shiny objects while you’re talking with them, best case? You each learn a little more about each other.

Don’t watch your children’s lives from behind the glass, get out there with them in those puddles, splash around and let your guard down, enjoy who they are becoming and help them figure out the pieces and give them the space and time to get wet and dry off again.

A little rain never hurt anyone…

     *     *     *

Could you do me a favor?  Could you leave me your feedback on Paige’s writing?

I’d like to pass it on to her, to let her know your thoughts.  It would mean a lot to me, and be invaluable to her.  Thanks!