Daniela Ginta, Freelance Writer

Gratitude makes the journey better. Kindness, too.

Tag: gratefulness

This Is Also Part Of Life

By

On April 24, 2014

In Armchair Mayor Column, Life Stories, Self-improvement

(Originally published as a column in the AM News on Friday, April 18, 2014.)

Passing...It is the part of life that many of us only whisper about and parents often try to keep children protected from. Mine did. Because it hurts. But hurt is also part of life. Better processed when you’re not trying to make sense of it on your own as a kid, or dragging its shadows into adulthood.

I was six years old when my beloved maternal grandmother died suddenly. Something went wrong during a routine surgical operation that was meant to be just a couple-of-days-in-the-hospital procedure. I never got to say goodbye and no one else did because no one knew of what was to come.

When I was nine, my paternal grandfather passed away. I loved him dearly and had no clue about the long illness he was battling or about his impending death. I never got a chance to say goodbye.

As taxing as that would have been, it could’ve provided the kind of closure we need in order to process such events with grace.

My paternal grandparents died a few years later, and goodbyes were not said that time either.

My mom passed away suddenly eight years ago and though there was no typical goodbye, there was a premonitory conversation that included a farewell that had both closure of some sort and a good lesson in it.

My dad has been chronically ill for many years now and I have been given enough time to say some of the things people should say.

I had time to think of life as it slips away and appreciate its richness, its bittersweet flavor and its colorful shreds as I am trying to put them together to make sense of the tapestry we keep on weaving with every day that passes.

With my sons, I choose to celebrate both life and death. Choking on some words as they try to build themselves into sentences that describe life, understanding that they are becoming the very foundation we have to build today and all the tomorrows on, but most of all learning that appreciation of every day and of people we have around us can only be tangible if we are aware of both life and death as we go.

Withholding the reality of death from children is like not telling them of night because it brings darkness.

Giving ourselves and our children a chance to understand death and accept it helps us all appreciate life and better our ways as we go. It’s when we forget about the finality of it all that we can take it for granted.

My sons often play the game of ‘If you could have three magic powers, what would they be?’ and the one power I keep on pushing away from is to be immortal. It would make everything less worthwhile, I tell them.

They are puzzled every time. But think of all the things you get to do and never be afraid it all ending, they try to convince me.

But fear is, for once, an element that adds to life, I tell them.

If we choose to acknowledge it, it can guide us towards being grateful for every day as it comes and goes, and for people as they adjust their steps to match ours or walk in that tap-tapping cadence we share as we go through life, for as long as we do.

Awareness of an impending finality is what makes life precious. No season that lasts forever can bring the kind of joy that seasons as we know them do. Or sunsets. Or watching a child grow or sharing precious times with our loved ones.

We are strong in how we carry ourselves through life, in how we overcome challenges and in how we face new ones.

Knowing that everything ends somewhere adds the kind of humbleness that makes the journey worthwhile.

In building farewells as we go, we embrace time and people with all the gusto one can have knowing that we only have a limited time to make it happen. To make it last long after we’re gone. Because it will, as the ones we leave behind will carry it forward and make the best of it. Life, that is.

Why Be Mindful, Starting Today

By

On December 10, 2013

In Life Stories, Self-improvement

It is early morning, the house is dark and quiet and there is no better time to be aware of where I am.

I pull the curtains because it snowed overnight and whiteness makes me feel safe and cozy.

I open the door, breathe in the cold and look at the sleepiness around. Across the street, smoke raises from a smokestack, pointing straight to a sky that’s so clear it squeaks when you look at it. No more snow. I know that from my dad, about the smoke going straight up.

This is the time to be where I am and nowhere else. No planning the day, no urgent this or that, no deadlines.

This is the time to stop.

So much is happening every day, even on those days that seem slow and dull. They are not. They are life. And we barely acknowledge it, even on the good days.

Why so hurried? Because it’s what we do. Life hurries and we hurry with it. Hurrying is a choice; but you knew that. Or not. Is it really? (yes)

Like heading straight down a wild river that we know for a fact ends up in a waterfall, we ride a raft we barely hang onto. White knuckles scream desperation and a need to stop, a need to readjust here and there and take a look around. We’re moving too fast, we know that much.

Speed enables us to persist in thinking we’re doing it right. And speed even more.

Everywhere we look, white knuckles are interpreted not as a sign of desperation but as an acknowledgement of being on this wild river. It’s what everyone does, right? Very few of us will say otherwise and the ones who do, are on the shores, looking around and telling us to slow down. Can they be believed? How would they know? Why are they there to begin with?

The answer is as simple as it is troubling: Because they know that knuckles are connected to the heart and the mind. Not when they’re white and cold though. They only get warm when we stop. But that’s slowing down, isn’t it? That means losing something? More? Less? Enough? At all?

Where’s the truth? Who has it?

Somehow slowing down does not appeal enough to our competitive nature. Slowing down is a right we don’t want to make much use of. We take odd comfort in saying “But I am not the only one.” And oddly enough, that truly is the weakest argument of them all. It really will not matter who was with you and why when you reach the waterfall. You’ll reach it by yourself. As it’s always been.

Gravity evens things out for us all. Which is why it’s so important to mind things along the way, to stop your raft by shores you deem necessary to see, or to simply stop to see. To listen, to breathe and know of yourself. To make sense of why you’re on that wild river to begin with.

To be grateful.

White knuckles will not let any feelings sink in deep enough for you to feel that. Perhaps that’s the best reason why stopping every now and then makes sense.

Quiet after all...Also because when you stop, you learn how to. And you’ll know how to do it next time. And next. And you’ll be ready for everything that comes. Or for most of the things.

You’ll have made time along the way to know faces, not just see them in that mad dash down a river that was never intended for us ride so recklessly and white-knuckled but we do it because everyone does.

Which is never a good argument to begin with. So learn to stop. Today.

So You Can Breathe. Be Grateful

By

On October 2, 2013

In Life Stories

Reminder...As I write this a fire truck makes its hasty way in the distance. I know it is hasty because the sirens are wailing, cutting long and sharp shards of worry in the night. I know, because they came to our doorstep a couple of days ago and painted the pavement a temporary flickering red.

There’s no beast wilder than fear for your child’s life. It tears you to pieces in a matter of seconds and you have almost nothing to fight back with but your bare soul, already shredded by thoughts you don’t want to decipher, pretending you don’t understand them. Like walking on a tight rope with nothingness underneath, you have to look at the rope to keep going, not at the seemingly empty space below.

Don’t lose hope, they say and you try hard not to. But just like driving in thick fast-plopping rain with tired, broken wipers, you can barely see ahead and you keep driving because you can’t stop. But how keep going, since you cannot see much. Hoping you will not lose control, hoping you can make it is all you have; that’s how.

It’s like that. Having a sick child that struggles for his every breath, taking but shallow labored ones as if there is a shortage of air around him, it’s a ride so draining that nothing comes close to it.

Sasha’s recent asthma attack marked me in many ways. I am grateful to have him back, I am grateful to see him laugh, raspy voice and all, but most of all, I am aware that seeing him breathe keeps my breathing steady.

Spending the night in the hospital, monitoring screens with lines and numbers and feeling my heart sink every time numbers dropped too low because Sasha’s tired body could not breathe the oxygen in, it all drove home the simple truth we proclaim often but forget almost every time: Live every day, live it fully as if it’s your last.

We are fragile and strong at the same time, we ask for help and pray that living nightmares end and ask others to pray for us too, we break down in tears when it is all over because now we are taught to fear more than before and the taste of fear takes longer to dissipate. Yet a gift is a gift, and so was Sasha’s ability to hold his breathing steady after hours of struggle. It’s when you can forget the pain to make room for gratefulness.

You have at least one reason to be grateful at this very moment. I hope that you do. You can breathe, no struggle, no gasping, no panic. Be grateful. The world becomes a better place when we remember the often forgotten yet vital things. Gifts. Like breathing… If you can, say a prayer for those who can’t. It will reach them. I know it will because a couple of days ago we had many coming our way…

You Have Choices. Always. Unless…

By

On July 12, 2013

In Self-improvement

The paintbrush ...Unless you are somebody’s slave – slavery has yet to be abolished, unfortunately – you are where you are now because of the choices you made yesterday and continue to make today.

You have choices. Always.

The day turns to night and you have no choice to make daylight longer or brighter, nor do you have the option to stop the rain or bring one around if it gets too dry. But you have the choice to wake up and make every minute count.

You have the choice to make the best use of daylight to see people’s faces, to do the next thing you have to do; to build, to read, to write, to move on. You can choose. Unless your spirit and or body are confined by someone or something, you have choices.

You meet people; some will add sunshine and joy to your life, others will suck yours out. You have choices. It is an honest thing to exercise your choices, respectful too, towards yourself and others. You can choose to love, forgive, hug, or let go. You have choices: To be at peace or not.

You can smile or frown, believe in yourself or choose defeat, you can pity yourself or tell yourself you can do whatever you put your mind and heart to.

With everything you do, with the choices you make, you make a statement about yourself and life, every day. Whether you choose to exercise your right to make choices, you are still making choices, but are they the right ones?

You have the choice to make every day count. If I would ask you to give up the last 3650 days of your life, would you do that? That’s ten years. If you wouldn’t, then why would you give away a day like today?

You have the choice to make today count. You have choices. Always. Unless… You choose not to. Also a choice. Yours.

You paint tomorrow using the colors you choose today…

Know What Fear Tastes Like, Know That You Are Not It

By

On August 13, 2012

This mosquito would not give up. When mosquitoes were invented they were given one quality: relentlessness. It’s worked for them since. But it’s 3am and if I don’t make it go away I will be spending the rest of the night swatting at an insect that’s minuscule in size and gargantuan in its capacity to affect the quality of my life. Go figure. A good time to think until the next raid.

There were clouds of mosquitoes on Black Tusk. That’s a mountain that could be defined as a magnificent pile of rocks, as accurately summed up by a friend. Edgy, if you will. You’d be right. Every rock on it is like that. After the 9km hike to Garibaldi Lake, you cross the alpine meadows and sincerely wonder why no one thinks of conditional hard-to-get passes for stepping foot through such pristinely perfect spaces. You keep walking, jumping over streams, stop for a sip of water and a cloud of mosquitoes surrounds your head like an ungodly scarf that makes you wonder if this is after all the price you need to pay for such beauty. Be as it may, it’s well worth it.

Stop by the crystalline stream, it’s so loud you can barely hear your thoughts but you only have one, you’re grateful beyond words for seeing all of this, for touching the water, for knowing that you can forgo the purifying drops because it’s so clean and for the simple fact that all your senses are perked up and hungry and they’ll be round-bellied by the time you reach the top of Black Tusk.  The sign that says no trail beyond this point due to falling and unsteady rocky terrain, climb at your own risk does not deter you at all. The carpet of snow is steep and white and surreal. Two people climb ahead and they appear as tiny as mosquitoes. You know it’ll be good. The 30 pound pack makes you slightly unsteady but that’s part of the fun. You’ll do it, you’ll do it. You know you can and you know you won’t give up until you’re up when up is no more. Save for the blue sky but legs alone can’t get you there anyway. For now.

Snow jumping, sliding, crawling, trekking. Sun and snow play tug-of-war with your body, and you love being the center of that kind of attention. Higher up there’s the rock pile. You learn the meaning of immense and you go oh, now I get it. About time, right? Take two steps up and slide down one and a half. Ha, like the mosquitoes tethered you so they can have you for dinner, how else can you explain the sliding down part? Oh, the silliness of such thoughts. But that’s one of the spoiled benefits of mountaineering: You get to be silly in your head, you can be silly outside of it too and your body says yeah, yeah, do it, because you’ve quite earned the right.

You keep going up, no breaks until you get there because you want to get there, you do and you do. Time is of a different texture, the air is too, you are getting so close to yourself it almost makes you feel crowded. It’s good.

 

 

The last part is called the chimney. It’s a half-funnel made of crumbly rocks. The kicker is that some are set in place and some are not. You find the non-budging ones and climb. Avoid the falling ones or you’ll fall with them. No ropes. But you’re good at this, you’ve climbed enough times to say it with confidence. So you climb. Halfway up at an overhang you stop and look for the best way up. The thought slides down the awareness path before you can say stop, no, you have no right to be there. You hate climbing down. Fragmented memories of your childhood attempts of climbing down steep unsafe ladders, doing it because you did not want anyone to make fun of you, to call you scaredy cat or think that you’re not tough enough. Fragments of nightmares of you climbing a ladder, so high up that the sky is a spit away, and the ladder falling backwards. The innards are sucked in a tunnel of fear in both memories and dreams and right now you’re stuck to a crumbling mountain that laughs at you through all its straight and obtuse angles but you can’t move up. Or down. Innards are missing. You’re the shell of yourself and you hate your fear. It can’t be. You’re not a scaredy cat, you’re tough, you are. If you’d have a free hand you’d pat yourself softly and encouragingly on the shoulder. But you don’t. Sigh. Breathe, make acquaintance with the only fear that could paralyze you like that, a demon in its insidious ways of showing up when you’re having an up day. Getting so close to yourself makes you feel crowded but also lighter. You get off the rock wall, you breathe, cry because you feel defeated but smile ever so lightly because now you know you’ve faced your fear. You’ve never been tougher, you are told, you’ve never been braver than today when you listened to your body saying no, not yet. A mountain so majestic you can yield to if you’re not ready and that’s ok. The downpour of paralyzing fearful thoughts that trapped you on the crumbly wall becomes your liberation from your fear. You know where to start.

You find shelter at the bottom of the tusk, camping on the snowy ridge, the sun licks the peaks around all orange and pink and the moon zips you up in silver untroubled silence. Until 6am or so when the sun pulls at your hair, you silly sleepy head come out and see how good I made the world look today. You’re a speck, the luckiest speck of all nestled at the foot at the tusk that both humbled you and taught you the way.

On your way down you read about the tusk and how it used to be a mountain once. You turn and stare at it, you say thank you and hug the big pile of rocks with your eyes. The sky is so blue it makes your heart flutter. You walk through the snow to the alpine meadows with its armies of mosquitoes, drink cowboy coffee by the stream because you wanted one last hug from this place and then keep descending towards Garibaldi Lake. You’ve been very good about not leaving a trace, you packed all the garbage but you know that part of you will stay there. The fear, that integral part of you that stopped you from reaching the highest part of the tusk, you left it there, a tribute to the mountain. You’ll be back, you know that, and you’ll go all the way. By then, your fear will be all but crumbled down with the thousand rocks that do so every day and night. They’ve been doing it for thousands of years. Your fear stands no chance.

As you dry up after a dip in the turquoise waters of Garibaldi Lake, you look up towards the tusk. You can swear you see it wink. But that’s crazy, how can that be? Oh, it’d be, because that’s one of the spoiled benefits of mountaineering: You get to be silly in your head, you can be silly outside of it too and your body says yeah, yeah, do it, because you’ve quite earned the right.

If you’d say that fear tastes crunchy, I’d say yeah, it does. Edgy, too. A friend asked “But why did you go there if it’s like that?” and I could only be a humble reciter of the quote that means so much and I barely got to understand an inch of it: “Because it’s there.” But George Mallory was meters taller than I’ll ever be. Gracefully humbled. But you see, there was more there than the mountain I could see. The abyss I could not see or did not know how to see. I had to see it. Because it was there.

The Kind Of Snake I’d Like to Be When I’m Not a Mammoth

By

On October 6, 2011

In Armchair Mayor Column

It’s after school. We’re driving to the big library downtown. In the back, the boys are reading (Tony) and munching on the rest of his lunch sandwich (Sasha). It is one of those picture perfect end-of-September afternoons. The air is still crisp yet at this hour one could say that it was softened into submission by the sun.

We park by the big round building with the appearance of a coliseum that has “Please come in” written all over it. If you haven’t seen this landmark building in Vancouver (and if of course you’re not on the other side of the planet at the moment, not that that would be necessarily be a hindrance, stranger things have happened) you have to make your way there. It’s a good place to be.

There is a piazza, you see, covered and abounding with coffee shops and eateries, and not the fast, pack-an-artery/have-a-sugar-crash-shortly type. People are reading, staring, eating, chillin’… We walk in and go straight to the kids’ section. Sasha’s interest these days revolves around reptiles and prehistoric life. Tony wanders and finds treasures to feed his newly discovered Harry Potter passion.

We then go on an escalator joyride (is where you go up and down just because and then you do it again, despite people staring at you). A by-passer throws me a “You know that can get you all nauseous?”. Nah, I shrug, thinking he should’ve seen the Budapest subway escalator plunging all the way to the centre of the Earth and back up again.

An armful of books later we wade through the river of people and drive back across the bridge to the laid-back life on the other side. Traffic wraps around us like caramel. The boys look through an oversized book of snakes they got from the library.
“If you were a snake what kind of snake would you be, Mom?” There’s not an ounce of jest in Sasha’s voice. He means it. Well, a yellow one, I say. “I’d be a black and red one,” he says. Tony picks black, red, yellow and blue. We talk about camouflage and poisonous snakes. They’re good with being poisonous as snakes. I settle for a mellow corn snake. I think of snakes driving a car and the idea slithers into my head for a future project, pun intended, of course.

“Can we stop at the beach?” Can’t pass by the beach without stopping, and today’s dry sand and sunny skies make it an obligation. We go to the beach. We eat dates and play Cro-Magnon. I’m a mammoth. Tony’s a saber-tooth tiger but he takes too long to succumb to the hands of Cro-Magnon Sasha and the little Cro-Magnon has a fit.

There’s fighting, laughing and crying hanging like little bats onto the boys, there’s tears and screaming, and then, there’s me. Just sitting in the golden-glowing sand of Jericho beach at dusk and thinking that hungry kids and Cro-Magnon games just don’t mix well. We head home to have dinner and bedtime finds us reading more about… well, Cro-Magnons. We look through the snake book because there is this black snake I am told I have to see. Tomorrow I’ll look for the yellow one.

Later on after bedtime hugs and kisses Tony whispers “You’re so precious, Mom.” I am ready to say “Oh, no, you see, I am not perfect…” but I bite my tongue. He did not say that I am perfect, he really did not mean it that way. The way I see it, perfect means fault-free. Well, I’m far from that.

Precious means real and it means loved. Faults and all. I hug him tight and then my teary eyes and I tippy toe out the door. The house is quiet and dark. It’s my quiet writing time, so I make tea and write and I can almost hear my heart sigh a sleepy happy sigh as it cuddles up with two sleepy boys. If I were to paint it using just one color, I would not use perfect but precious. Just like sunlight, the latter has the whole spectrum.

Wednesday Mornings, Itty Bitty Spiders and Random Hugs

By

On May 19, 2011

In Life Stories, Motherhood

I am walking home with Sasha from Tony’s school. It is 9am and the morning is a big sparkling diamond. “Let’s walk home this way, Mom.” Sasha points to a street with a tree that looks like a red shredded umbrella with pink flowers all over. He loves that tree. He loves flowers and leaves and twigs. Every day I get them as gifts.

When we don’t have to hurry Sasha discovers an entire world of wonders. We walk up the street, pass the red umbrella tree and stop in front of a carpet of big leaves. They have dew on them, perfect little clear spheres of liquid life. Sasha is mesmerized by them, and I am mesmerized by him. I wish he’ll never lose that sense of wonder. He doesn’t touch the dew, too precious.

A few seconds later he makes the cutest little sound while crouching to see something under a leaf. “Mom, this is the tiniest I’ve ever seen.” It most likely is. A spider. So very small. Yet still, it has its own web. So delicate. Sasha’s eyes are big and round and happy. No gift in the world can replace this.

Time to wonder. Time to be silent and happy. Time to have Mom and that diamond of a morning all to himself.

His little hand slips into mine and we walk uphill. We talk about spider webs and questions are bubbling up so quick he’s almost short of breath. I pick him up. His arms wrap around my neck and his head rests on my shoulder. A big smile inundates his face. “You just picked me up randomly, Mom, I love that.” He’s learned quite a few big words from books and stories on tape lately, randomly is one of them.
There is nothing in the world to replace this. Time to hug my growing baby. Time to feel his head on my shoulder and his breath on my neck like the warm flutter of an invisible butterfly. A random butterfly hug that fills my eyes with tiny spheres of liquid happiness.
The sun envies the warmth of our hug. I would too.

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