Daniela Ginta, Freelance Writer

Gratitude makes the journey better. Kindness, too.

Category: Life Stories Page 44 of 46

Heart Strings And Daisies

By

On November 14, 2013

In Life Stories, Motherhood

This morning has been no better or worse than others. In fact, slightly worse because an overnight rain soaked my shoes, which I had forgotten on the porch, yet again. First world problems as I call them.

The boys are cheery and gabby and we manage to leave the house on time with no altercations and no delays that make us run and jump over sidewalks like a group of sun-scared bats on the way to the first deep dark cave (no negative reference to school or maybe just a small one?…)

So we walk. There’s chatter and silliness and loud “No, no, I’ll say it. Mom, listen to this…” and some of last night’s toilet jokes on replay. Some are that good, according to 11-year-olds and under.

Hold hands, small hugging palms hiding in mine and if I hold stronger than I should is because I know the jumpy nature of such holds. They go poof before you realize it. So hold on while they last.

A sparrow hops from between some cigarette butts on one side of a chicken-wire fence to wet sand on the other. She’s round and fluffy and the hopping is exquisite. Elegant and light and we’re spellbound.

Toilet jokes are forgotten. We stare. She stares back. Hops. Stares. A hand squeeze but this time it is not me. It’s the small hand making me heed the bird and its exquisite tiny feet. “Mom, isn’t she cute?”

I am struck again by how we attach ourselves to memories of no particular day or place. Muck, sand, a brownish bird and five more minutes until school starts. All wrapped up in a forgetfulness-proof mental package that will never be stamped with the awkward “when was that again?”

The day rolls into a big fat cinnamon-tinted cocoon of a sunset with a glued-on ghost-white moon and when night comes I know of the one thing I learned about today. “No special day” memories, or no-planning-to-acquire-memories-but-did-it-anyway kind of day.

Heart stringsAnd I know of two things that will never leave my prized possessions box (not that I have one, but I will think of one) and those are: a string of no particular glamour that Sasha has loved and played with since the dollopy days of toddlerhood and he still holds dear, and a pressed little daisy which Tony gave me one day at a park that has long disappeared off the Vancouver map. It was drizzly and cold and ten years ago and a late daisy made it from his tiny fingers into my heart and journal. Just like today, we were half-way into winter, which is why heart strings feel warmer than ever.

DaisyToday I learned that heart strings are not negotiable. They just are. They appear out of nowhere and they will stick forever. It takes one to learn to spot one when it happens.

Heart strings are never planned for, so don’t start trying. That’s the magic of it all. They happen with no warning and often you realize what happened way after they’re gone. But they’ll be there when you least expect it. Magic.

It Happened To Santa Too

By

On November 3, 2013

In Life Stories, Motherhood

Santa's steps?This time it wasn’t my fault. More so, I had no idea that it will happen today. There was no warning.

The day started with laziness in bed, snuggles and a big pile of pancakes. A pot of steaming strawberry sauce… memories of summer mornings drowned in fragrant berry smells and perky leaves holding sun and dew in green curled bellies.

Mouthfuls, butter melting, dripping sauce and sweetness, boys joking about all the inappropriate things again and again. This morning will hang in a corner of my soul, for no particular reason, but for the sweetness, the innocence and the roundness of it all.

The hills around have white dusted tops and countless thin trees, black and sleepy and fog-wrapped. Coffee on the porch, soft whispers to go with small sips. Find a place to take the boys. Where to, where to? A snowy lake? Is it snowy? Let’s try.

We drive the licked-clean road through snowy meadows and patches of trees… Do you hear the lone woodpecker? The sky is draping low and white. We park, boys roll out of the car in snow and make us promise snowball fights.

PathThin ice grows from the shores on the black surface of the lake. The path along the shores is padded with fresh-fallen snow and walking on it sounds like stepping on buried drums… muffled thick noises, branches droopy with snow, voices of boys running ahead and the distinct drum-roll of another lone woodpecker.

We walk around the lake, bumping chests halfway with the lake-dwelling dusk and making our way out of the woods as snow starts falling again.

A snowman perhaps? But the snow is powdery and stubborn, there’s no sticking. Snowman head and tummy crumble, we leave but two snow angels by the side of the road, taking our own with us. You need them when you drive through curtains of snowflakes, when you know you have to say thank you, again, for the simple beauty of new snow.

As snow-covered layers come off, Sasha’s big eyes turn and stare into mine.

Boy. Wonder“Mom, is Santa real?”

I stared back, I pondered, I listened to the voice that said “Be true” and pondered again. Will that take the magic away?

“What does your heart tell you?” This is how shy truth-teller me goes about it. I’m barely an inch tall.

“My heart says it’s not true.”

Truth-teller bows to child’s wisdom, eyelids drop in approval and then the promise snuggles in between our hearts “We can keep Santa with us though, magic and all…”

JoyYes we can. If new snow can sing to us every time, so will Santa and its wicked trail of make-believe. Truth and magic can live together if they’re done right.

So that’s how it all happened. Truth-teller honor.

 

I Killed The Tooth Fairy

By

On November 1, 2013

In Life Stories, Motherhood

ExchangeThat’s right. I did. It happened yesterday.  I have no remorse and at the risk of sounding cold and heartless, which I am not, I must say that it feels liberating.

I did not have a good relationship with her, you see. If I had to define our relationship I would say it was a case of forced labor. I had to become a tooth fairy and not by volition but because everyone did it. I was ushered into it even though I had no desire to perpetuate a concept I did not agree with.

The reasons I did not agree are as follows:

  1. The price per tooth varies with the household, which is puzzling for little people and downright annoying for big people who believe in fairness (it is almost ironic that the root of fairy and fairness is, well, fair, and the work of the said entity is anything but)
  2. If you, the designated fairy, happen to forget to operate before you go to bed, and on top of it happen to sleep in and hence do not manage to replace the fallen teeth with money by the time the child wakes up, well, you’ve got some explaining to do or you have to do the kind of sneaking you haven’t done since the days of high school…It is not pretty, or comfortable.
  3. A big one: why would a child get money for a tooth that falls out? There is no work involved, not the child’s anyway, and if anything, children may be driven face to face with a chilling concept (I will leave it to you to name it due to its potentially offensive nature.) I may be wrong, but somewhere out there a child must have wondered at some point “If my baby tooth is worth X dollars, then what is —- (fill in with random body part) worth?” Just sayin’…
  4. According to children, the tooth fairy does the following: she walks through the house in the middle of the night, reaches under the child’s pillow, takes the tooth (care to know what her house looks like?) and replaces it with money. Creepy by most people’s standards, you’d agree. After having our home broken into just a couple of weeks ago, the concept of strangers walking through the house is challenging. My boys are perceptive enough to ask point blank: How does she get in, mom? Then what? Asking the questions was only a matter of time.

So you see, for all the above reasons and more, I had to kill her.

The straw that broke the camel’s back (or the fairy’s spell in this case) was Sasha’s “fresh-from-school” question.

“Mom, is it true that the tooth fairy does not give money if the tooth has been pulled out by the dentist?”

That was it. I had no decent answer to it and the cheekiness of an imaginary creature can only go so far. It was me or her.

One had to go and it wasn’t going to be me. Without an ounce of hesitation I blurted out “There is something I have to tell you.”

Pitter-patter, wait for me hurried steps brought a wide-eyed Tony from the bedroom to the living room, which was now becoming the sacrificial tooth fairy arena. With a gaze that meant “I knew it” he gave me his vote of confidence in handling the situation. Talk about feeling like a grownup. Occasionally I act like one too.

“There is no tooth fairy, my love.”

Sasha’s eyes, wide and trustful, built a question mark right there and I could see it trying to stand on wobbly feet and I knew it did not mean “Really?” but rather “Now what?”

So he asked. “Then who is the tooth fairy? You?”

I nodded. Yep. Was he disappointed? Yes, no? A few seconds of no words and deep long gazes waded like fat ducks towards a lake that was to cover the pit of newly disclosed life truths. Not murky, but clear water. You see the bottom if you care to look. Kids do, because they appreciate the full depth of such truth. Mine do.

“I knew it!”

“I knew it too!” Tony peeped in.

Smiles. No disappointment. My explanation: I thought she was unfair. Some kids get paid five or ten dollars per tooth, others don’t have that much worth of food over the course of a day, or week. Here in Kamloops, and everywhere.

Bottom line: I couldn’t stand her ways. She had to go.

A few good pounds lighter, my whole being has been celebrating the event since it happened yesterday.

And if there’s a shadow of unpleasantness associated with this whole story, because there is one, it is this: I almost had my hands on Santa too, but I let him get away.

“Are you Santa too?”

Pause. “No.”

OK, don’t ask. And please don’t say “Oh, but you had it, right there!” It’s true, I did. But I am weak. Or just more attached to him than I was to the tooth fairy; sentimental value is hard to argue with. I need to think and assess. It’s not an easy job. Being a parent, I mean.

Thoughts to share? Please don’t be shy. I just showed you mine.

Disclaimer: I did not ask for the portrait. It was Sasha’s gift. And his way of making peace with it all. 

Bats, Ghosts and Pumpkins and Twice the Fringe. Costumes Ready.

By

On October 30, 2013

In Life Stories, Motherhood

GhostsIt’s the night before. You have postponed the sewing. The craziness of the day that should not be more than a day is consuming… Halloween, tomorrow. Costumes, masks, too much of this and that, stores engorged with hats and lace and inadequacy. Sigh. Tomorrow night will be owned by ghouls and shredded tempers and you can’t settle for it. Shudder. But the boys, they want the sweetness of it. Is there any?…

Time to sew. Tomorrow the costume parade and Halloween wickedness will unfold.

“Do you like Halloween, mama?” Not really. But I like it for you, if you like it. “We do, the costumes, but no creepy faces.” Costumes it is.

CowboyLet’s sit on the sofa; needle and thread, fringe waiting. Little boy reads from a book with little boys and big canoes and bears piling up in the canoe, eating the fish, splashing the boy, what silly-mannered furry sacks. Little boy reads, you sew fringe on the cowboy costume; one leg, then the other. Small pants still, knees left on hills of sun and rocks that had to be observed from up close, left on grass during tumbles with big boy. Pants with knees have no stories.

“Mama, they need to be dirty, can you?” You go outside, rub dirt from under the mint shrub, make them look tired and rugged. Small pants, fringe on both legs.  The tips of your fingers sting from the stubborn needle you had to push in.

Little boys reads “Spooky Old Tree” and laughs.

“Three little bears…

without a light,

without a stick,

without a rope.

And all with the shivers!”

Big boy comes by. Trying the coat on; a stitch here, one there, tuck the sleeves in, don’t cover the metal buttons, they should stay like that. How about coat tails? “Can you, mama?”

Big boy sinks in the orange blanket, pumpkin-colored sofa. Can I sit with you? Chat, read, wonder…

Gentleman“Is my gentleman suit ready? Can I try it on? Oh, it’s perfect!” Big boy, dark brown eyes and a smile reaching straight into your heart. Gratefulness, thoughts of goodness. You bask in it. Boy rhymes with joy and it’s a poem you’ve been writing for years, every day. Today it rhymes. No tears.

Little boy makes little friendly ghosts to hang around the house, and bats that are friendly, and silly pumpkins. “Wanna color with me?” Big boy shrugs; no. Mama says yes, don’t grow up too fast, your brother is holding the door open for you. Stay a kid, go color, cut, stick to the wall. He does.

Night tumbles into the room, draws yawns and hangs sleepy thoughts on tomorrow’s trees. Time for bed, silly boys. Costumes sit in piles on the orange blanket. Fringes, coats, tall hats and polished boots. 

“Not mine, I am a cowboy. They have to be rugged.” The boots, of course.

The kitchen smells of cookies, the crumbliest of all, soft and chewy, sweet-steamed dollops that fall apart when you hold them up. The boys want them so. Handfuls of crumbles, milk dripping on the table, that’s all there is to it. Sweet crumbles.

Halloween is still not your favorite. But the boys love dressing up, friendly little ghosts twirl with the lightest of touch and you think of the little hands that made them. They wanted to make peace with the spookiness of tomorrow. To make it right.

Face. SmileOn the porch there is a jack-o-lantern with thick orange cheeks and a wiggly tooth. Smiling.

“Do you like it, mama?”

 

Of Bees and Life. A Story of Boundaries

By

On October 23, 2013

In Life Stories, Self-improvement

GreyThe day starts foggy and grey. You don’t feel like stopping by the farmer’s market but how about the people selling goodness by the pound, or jar or bagful? They woke up to the same fog, the same heavy sky and they showed up. So you have no excuse.

Buy potatoes from the South American lady. She always smiles. Everything she sells, from eggs to potatoes to pies, has the same roundness as her words. Some accents are that mellow and warm on a day like today. Colorful beans, two-pound bag, too colorful to miss. Fall and earth colors. To eat.

Then parsley, both root and green bushy stalks. You shake hands with unknown gardens when you hold up a bunch. The lady says they’re good, you can make a parsley puff. How? Here’s how, she tells you. You say why not. Change is good. Challenge for little people’s taste buds.

Then the honey table. You have to buy a jar. Good, golden, thick, local. You must. The lady sells jars of golden and fragrant bee’s wax.

There’s someone else there, an elderly gentleman you’ve never met. You know, he says, we were just talking, the bees had it tough this year. The wasps were vicious, attacking bees, killing entire hives. You frown. How unfair. On top of everything else that tangles their invisible dance lines, you think.

It’s like that, the honey lady explains. A somewhat cyclic sorrowful bee event; the wasps sneak in and kill. Won’t waste a drop of golden honey ever, you promise yourself. Such hard work and danger. The bees who made this honey faced peril. They prevailed. Seven dollars a jar.

You buy a basket of tomatoes from the elderly Italian farmer you always buy from. “Last ones, eh…very sweet.” A thick bunch of chard on top, and not enough arms to hold them all. He laughs, you laugh. Like a good grandpa, he helps. He holds a big bag to fit them all in. “There you go, you cook a good dinner, eh?…” He chuckles, you smile. “See you on Saturday!” He’ll be there and you’ll buy tomatoes again, and eggs. They’re always fresh.

The afternoon passes with more grey to chew on, to walk on, to breathe in. You walk with the friend who challenges you to keep your voice above the humming of everyday life, to not give up. Walk under yellow-leaf trees, sit on pink benches, celebrate life once again. “Look, an ice cream sky!” Sunset sky, scoops of kindness. Being alive is never a lesson in grace, but you knew that.

Later, as you cook dinner, you think of the bees. The jar of golden on the counter, all that work… The bees had it tough this year... The wasps go inside the hive through the opening, you remember the lady saying. Hmm, just like words and facts of life you find aggressive and mean. Scary. They find openings, they get in. They hurt thoughts, hopes, they raise fear, trying to kill dreams… Life is full of analogies, you know that. You need boundaries to survive and to thrive. You find them, again.

Because not all the bees have to die, the lady told you today. You make the hive opening smaller, so it’s gets tricky for the wasps. Boundaries…

It’s no small feat, you know that. To set boundaries that is.

You’ll never be infallible but you’ll be better protected. Your thoughts, like bees, in their home of sweetness. Afraid at times, but alive. Daring again tomorrow. And then again. Alive is a gift. Days blossoming into joy, golden and ripe, reminders of past seasons, celebrating today’s bounty and the reality of all that we are: sweetness to taste, hard work, dancing over sunny fields, fear of dying, fear of all that could hurt, courage to go out and do it again. Daring, because of the sky, the fields, the swaying trees and all the rainbows you could never see unless you fly free.

Parsley puff for dinner. The kids have learned to say “not my favorite but I’ll eat some” when dinner has too many shades of green and earthy flavors. Dinner, laughing, some food-bursting-out-of-your-mouth toilet jokes (how rude and necessary!), day falling asleep on the table…

Bedtime soon. Be grateful. You’ve learned a lot today.

The Aftermath (Or Lessons From A Burglary)

By

On October 21, 2013

In Life Stories, Self-improvement

TodayImagine this for a second. You are swimming and someone just pushes your head underwater. Gurgles, water up your nose, that terrible pinch in your sinuses and when the bad feeling is gone you try to swim again. And after a while it happens again. Then again. Then you start being afraid. What if it keeps happening. The connection is real, you’re not just imagining.

Two weeks ago our house was broken into while we were camping at a lake . Four laptops were stolen and with them memories, unbacked work – my fault, I know – and the feeling of safety in our own home. Warmth; gone.

We fought hard to look beyond it, to move past. We did. The invaded rooms have been since cleaned up and rearranged. I wrote about the weekend we spent camping at Adams Lake and tried not to focus on the burglary. Unbeknownst to me the boys did the same at school, their teachers told me later. They talked about the magic weekend when they played with a baby snake and paddled to mysterious islands and then they mentioned that our house got broken into, casually so as if not to give the perpetrators too much power over us.

But the truth is, there is a feeling of fear and uncertainty circling overhead like an ugly bird, flapping its creepy wings over us every time we leave the house unattended. We try to think positive and say the feeling is not there; for the boys’ sake and for all of us.

For a few days I really thought I had it. Then Tony’s watch broke and I offered him mine until we could fix his. I could use my other watch I figured. Except that it was gone. Stolen when the laptops were stolen, I just realized. Bummer. The ugly bird flies low and cackles. Go away we say, again. And it does.

You swim, again, but someone pushes your head underwater… you struggle for breath, up again. Breathe…

I came to terms with the watch missing because what else can you do. I don’t believe in pricey possessions and the things that I have are mostly utilitarian, which is why I really miss them. What’s truly of value stays with us at all times, I tell the boys.

Then today’s afternoon rolled in sunny and plump and then an unwanted chill squirted down my spine, drowning joy and pushing me back into that cold evening… We realized one of our bikes was gone. The recently fixed mountain bike. Stolen.

We have been trying hard to get away from the memory of that evening. We set at building memories just like we have until now, the boys grin towards the camera and embrace my heart through the lens just like they’ve always done, and writing happens too, hiccups and all but that’s what writing is like sometimes. But it is unfair to hear the ugly bird cackling over our heads again. If we let it that is. Which we decided not to. Not anymore.

So we will keep swimming. And it will be a good one.

Lessons? A few.

Lesson 1. Attach yourself to what matters and if something matters a lot then make sure it’s safe wherever it is.

Lesson 2. The things that go missing are most likely gone forever and there’s little value in crying over spilled milk (by others, but spilled nonetheless)

Lesson 3. We have what we need to move on (in our case some leftover wheels, grouped in fours and twos, they serve the purpose)

Lesson 4. The ugly bird has to leave at some point. Or fall from the sky. Either way, it feeds on attention, so getting none means the end of it.

Lesson 5. The feeling of violation is real. Cry, kick, scream if you have to but don’t dwell on it for too long (note: easier said than done!) The feeling itself is a parasitic species you don’t want in your garden.

Lesson 6. (and pushing hard for a happy ending) My belief: There are plenty of good, kind people to make up for the ones with lost souls (temporarily or otherwise) who breed ugly birds and release them into other people’s worlds…

 

Stop, Drop, Roll. Repeat.

By

On October 18, 2013

In Life Stories

Sun splashedWe’re walking home from school. A day of “Mom, you know what happened today?” and everything is so important. They both want to talk. Simultaneously. Their words bubble like cute little mud volcanoes.
“Hey I was talking!”

“Mine is shorter to say! Mom, you know…”

Who was first? The forever conundrum.

Interrupted, again, little guy puffs and walks ahead. Whatever. You can’t win all of them. Big brother is excited. A new program at school involving babies. To elicit empathy… “but Mom, it seemed like we were observing an animal, that’s not right. It’s not good for the baby.”

Empathy springs from other existential corners, we both agree. My boys are learning life. Are they learning the right things? I teach them to question things, to think for themselves, how else will they know how to choose the right path? But right and wrong are not set in stone, I tell them. Think, don’t betray common sense,

BiteCommon sense. “We have that, Mom, don’t we?” Yes, heaps of it, sweet boys, except for the times when you’re so wild and chopping down all the wisdom, patience trees I’ve been planting since you came into my world. But those times, they are my trials, my getting lost as a mom and finding myself again. Better? Who knows. Willing, always. Yours truly.

I remember my boys as babies. Peeking at the world from their slings, infinite cuddles, nursing like koala bears and holding onto my shirts with tiny pudgy hands. Loving the night snuggles, quiet breathing and twitching of eyelids. The mystery of baby dreams… what do they see? 

The afternoon light is made of caramel and fine dust, and I coax them outside. They need no coaxing.

“Wanna play cowboys?” Tony’s favorite game these days.

Rolled...Leather holster, vests, cap guns that puff smoke and make clackety noises, hats that tilt backwards… “Mom can we get the Chilly hats?” It’s Tilley, I want to say, but I know better than to correct Sasha. He still speaks words that seem to have come from his baby dreams, a world that’s sweet and round like the fists that were holding on to the my shirt,

They drop, roll, yelp, climb and I succumb to being there.

Piled dishes can wait, wilted flowers can wilt no more until they are taken out, crumbs from breakfast that stick to socks, they can wait… this time will never come back.

Today this, tomorrow that, from one day to the next, we celebrate growth; I push them out of the nest gently “Come on, you can…” but then I pull them back in. Stay, wings need to grow.

I want to be with them when October afternoon sun bends over them in soft caramel arches, I want to see their sweaty faces and worry about them dropping too hard to the ground… “We’re boys, Mom…” Smile, laugh, I stand to catch bits of it and just like dandelion fluff, laughter scatters everywhere… To grow further, to become. Bright, golden. Stay, grow. Nothing stays the same.

“Mom, I want the holster now!”

“No! I didn’t have it enough. No!”

“Moom! He is not sharing!”

Wait, what? I lost track. Who has what? Does it matter? Sweetness whimpers, departs like a wounded animal. No, come back. It does. This time. Every time I fear that it won’t. It always does. What drama queen.

'Lion headIt’s true. Motherhood makes you dramatic, you have to know colors, be fair and remember how to catch smiles; you have to be there, soul done or undone but who cares. You have to teach little people how to take turns, to share… But you yourself never want to share them, the (dande)lion heads. You want the crowns, the fluff, the escaping fluff and the air around them. Shhh, don’t say it out loud. How wicked and childish, people will say. How aware of preciousness and its infuriating fleeting nature, you say. You know.

“That was a good game, Mom. Can you bake cookies tonight?”

Page 44 of 46

Previous

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén