Gratitude makes the journey better. Kindness, too.

Tag: parenting Page 7 of 14

The Day And All The Learning In It

20160301_110631On Tuesdays we take it to the hills. It is Forest School day for the little guy, and most days find us on one of the hills around Kamloops. Yesterday we were Kenna Cartwright. Snow was coming down hard in big clumps.

The rubber boots I was wearing (and I usually never wear outside rainy days) didn’t help much in reminding me to appreciate the moment, as my toes went from cold to very cold to painfully cold soon after we started on the trail. Having the privilege to be seeing beauty on an ordinary morning, yet being stopped short by cold feet. The irony! And yes, tunnel vision, behaviour if you will – we all experience it at times and it rarely makes us proud.

The thing is, if you stick with it and its aftertaste long enough, it brings enough humbleness to be able to say, if willing, that going down the narrow road of rejecting the magic of the big picture for the short-lived moment of expressing bitterness, is simply a price too high to pay. You’d have to pay it a couple of times in order to learn though. Moments of grace? Hardly.

So there was mine, yesterday. Missing. Trailing through snowy forests, surrounded by children, red-cheeked and snow-sprinkled all over, all of them walking with small steps careful to not lose balance, slipping anyway and falling at times, picking up handfuls of snow to taste and being so immersed in the fresh white… I was there to see it all but grumbling inside for reasons too small to matter, too hard to let go of though in the moment, missing so much of it.

Frozen toes and work-related urgency sliced up the time in the woods even more. Stripes of joy were painted over by the thick paint of mental mumbling and grumbling, panic too that I will not be able to do what I had to do. Didn’t I say there was nothing gracious about it? It’s the truth. Second thoughts and hindsight regarding work were all too ready to pluck off everything that was worth keeping.

The moment I was in and I could not see, the wealth that comes with the understanding that every moment is as rich as you allow it to be, which I was forgetting.

The forest was beautiful, the kids were present with jolliness, tears too, they were telling stories and jokes and eating some more snow still after the game of hide-and-seek was done with and we were heading back. The forest I was in was actually hard to see for the trees of worry and immediate discomfort.

Mindfulness is never to be taken for granted. When I do, it’s like it was yesterday. Few things are so dramatic and urgent that they should be allowed to be more than they are – dark clouds on the sky, but not the sky itself. In fact, worry and panic never solve anything anyway.

There’s nothing to gain and everything to win from making the time you’re in worthwhile. Cliché it is, but true. It took me a drive home, laughter in the car as both me and little guy dripped melted snow all over, and a few extra bumps throughout the day to long for the time I should’ve seen the forest and I didn’t.

20160301_122920The moral of the story is…? Graciousness is not my strongest attribute. Nor is remembering to be mindful of the flitting moments of magic. There is hope though. Coming around to the place of seeing it as it should’ve been… Being human, aches and pains and grumbling included, is inescapable. Remembering that we are, as humans, privy to magic, is too easy to forget at times… that is though, what makes it all that much more precious.

Tuesday was learning day indeed. That it is not about being graceful after all, but truthful and willing… The journey continues.

So… Kindness

‘Be the change you wish to see in the world.’ Mahatma Gandhi

Suns to giveThe boys and I used to play a game. If you could have one wish… Or three. What would you wish for? One of mine was always ‘that there is enough kindness in the world’. The boys would smile and tilt their heads.

Of all the things you could wish for, Mom? Of all. Of any. Just like that.

Kindness. It’s what we crave. Smiles and warmth; the touch of brightness that someone’s kindness brings forth and makes into a hug. The thing that’s often the hardest to give.

Not because we don’t want to, but because we’re often locked inside. Because somehow, somewhere, when we were just about opening our eyes to the world, we were met, every now and then, with a cold breeze rather than the warm one our hearts were primed for.

So we learned to hide the wish we wished for. Kindness. We learned to say ‘perhaps I am not worthy of it’… Then, an even colder breeze took ‘perhaps’ away and the certainty of unworthiness spread like an algae plume taking over a lake. Clear becomes opaque and troubled. We’ve all been there, we’ve all lingered a bit too long at times in that realm.

Kindness reverses it. It is always a few words away, a hug away, from wherever we are, whenever… It’s what we need the most of, it is what we often give or receive the least of.

I will always remember the last conversation I had with my Mom. It was kind and warm like an embrace. The last moments I had with my Dad were hugs and tears. Kindness and forgiveness became the ground for later understanding that without them every day is a burden. But each burden becomes a lesson. Each memory too.

I carry mine as you carry yours. We ought to remember the occasional unkindness too. Loud voices, storming away from people, seeking a refuge. Wanting to be at peace with the world and yourself, but running away from both. We all do it until we learn that until kindness comes from within, it can never happen for real…

The parting words to last us into the next hour, or the next day, or the rest of our life… are they going to just echoes of the stomping and the shadows of frowns?… The regret of having let go of kindness for a bit becomes a sharp bite and then a healing wound.

We learn kindness from understanding that we’re all fallible, all humbled by how easy it becomes to bring our hearts and minds to a new start. ‘Try again’ is a soft breeze that takes us sailing farther than anger and resentment ever could…

To be kind is a choice. One that has us open our eyes to a new day and say ‘I want to be kind’. One that has us look into ourselves and upon seeing all the broken bits, we take a deep breath and think that all that we are – broken bits included – deserves kindness. We walk on the path where others walked too, we see the wells of their steps filled by the same: joy and sadness, hope – lost and found again, will to live and love, desire to be listened to and understood, the need for kindness. We gain compassion for the other travelers when we stop to soothe our own aching feet.

To be kind is a choice that powers more than our face muscles to open into a smile. It is what makes us reach to those who need a word, a hug, or no sound at all, but a listening ear. It is what makes us forgive and ask for forgiveness. It is us be willing to show ourselves vulnerable. It is what makes us soar, tattered wings and all. It is what mends them…

To be kind is a choice that allows us to build instead of destroy and see instead of turning a blind eye. To be kind is to come to the realization that we are the measure of kindness and through what we give we can make someone’s world brighter. And just like that, kindness fills the heart of those who give it.

That’s why I wish for it when I’m asked. Not because I am always kind, but because I need to remember to be. Because I can choose.

Children Matter. Period.

Originally published as a column in NewsKamloops on Friday, February 19, 2016. 

momentsThere is nothing scarier or more upsetting for a parent than to feel helpless as he or she watch their child struggle with something they do not have the key to solve.

Last night found me wrestling thoughts of helplessness as I laid next to my youngest whose asthma flared up again a couple of days ago after a long dormancy. His breathing was my worry metronome.

Yes, for a while it did not bother him. As much as I would like to say that I almost forget it exists, that is not the case.

Whenever I pass by the hospital I think of it, whenever I see a cat I think of it (yes, it is cat-triggered yet ever new episode makes us wonder whether other allergens will become dreadful asthma triggers as well), and though I am not a pessimist by nature, the memory of his raspy breaths can easily demolish the earnest smile I could muster on a good day.

Something switches forever inside one’s heart when their child is born. You can’t quite identify it to put it in proper words but the short of it is ‘I’ll do anything to keep you alive and thriving’. And then, every now and then, we are put to test.

It’s humbling to realize how powerless we are when that happens. We turn to prayers and hope-building thoughts, we toss in our beds and renew the promise ‘whatever it takes’ and then we don’t let go, no matter what.

In my experience, the most important thing that happens when such occurrences bring us to our knees is to know that you are not alone. Many people are though and that is something no one should hide, but expose so it will not happen again.

As we went through a day of whizzing and monitoring the little guy, reaching for the puffer when needed, my thoughts traveled, as they often do, to all parents out there to struggle with not knowing what the future holds. We really are in this together.

There are degrees of uncertainty, as many as there are affections. There is though that common denominator that joins all parents: the worrying, the occasional relief just to get your strength back, the never-ending hope and the knowledge of how vital it is to not be alone as you face it all.

While some serious health problems occur just because and the cause is almost impossible to pinpoint, hence we resort to saying ‘genetic causes’ and leave it at that, while still not giving up the fight, others are avoidable and, worst of all, caused by human action. Irresponsible action that is. And that is simply unforgivable. That is something we need to know about, act upon and learn from.

Case in point number one: Flint, Michigan. If you’ve been reading the news about the town of almost 100,000 where people have been drinking lead-laden water for long enough to face serious health consequences, it is hard not to be horrified when you think of the dreadful reality that the parents of those thousands of children are facing.

Someone, somewhere (and it is not hard to know where as inquiries take place) decided to save money while putting people at risk. As always with any risks we take when it comes to a population group, the most affected will be children. Their small growing bodies can only take so much, and many of the consequences are irreversible.

Lead poisoning is one of them. Even small amounts can wreak havoc with a child’s body (with an adult’s too but the scale is different and for the scope of this column I choose to focus on children’s issues) causing irreversible damage. Ditto for unborn children.

A case that should serve as a reminder that our children are vulnerable and though resilience is one of their stellar qualities, they can only do so much when their health is becoming the subject of a Russian roulette game played by people who have the power to make decisions.

Case in point number two. The hydrocephalic babies born lately in Brazil and other areas of South America where a GM mosquito species resides and is being thought to spread the Zika virus, which many scientists believe to be causing the birth defects observed recently. Some environmentalists’ groups point to a pesticide called pyroproxyfen which was sprayed in order to kill the mosquito larvae in some areas as the culprit.

The answers are still not in, the debates are still raging. The reality that mothers of babies born with severe birth defects – many of them with limited access to funds that would help them care for their babies as they grow and face innumerable challenges – is a hard one to fathom. And the actual one they are left with.

The two cases and so many more remind me of these things: with our actions today we influence the fate of our children and their children. In how we plan our life and theirs we can make choices that honour the role we were given, as their protectors, to the best of our ability, and their defenders, in face of those who attempt to make bad choices.

It’s coming down to this: as much as we can, in raising our children – and the Earth village are all included here – we have to give it all. We have to keep our actions in line with the promise that matched the love we felt when we first laid eyes on our children.

Whether it pertains to digging mines or building pipelines, or to allowing the quality of air to increase as sales of new cars soar, there is but one way to do it right: the health of people comes first, children first of all.

In everything that we do at the community level, city and planet, we have to be mindful. Sometimes we really only have one shot to make it right. For them, for their future, for honouring ourselves and those who once cared the same for us.

The Bond We Cannot Let Go Of

Originally published as a column in NewsKamloops on January 30, 2016. 

Day with boysThe sky was painted in yellow light and beautiful white and blue clouds as the sun was setting in Kamloops. No sign of new snow, just the old hardened dirty banks by the sides of the road, some already transformed into dirty rivulets by the day’s warm air.

Just minutes ago we had left behind at Stake Lake a blizzard so thick and fast it felt unreal. Between getting out of our boots after a day of skiing and warming up next to the woodstove, we were in winter wonderland. ‘That came so sudden,’ both boys said as they ran outside on the cabin porch to look at the white curtain draping ever so fast over the surrounding trails and lake.

We had opted to play some today. After a shorter than usual day of school we took off into the hills, prompted by the morning warm breeze that had the awnings drum a premature spring dripping song.

The trails of hard snow with their surface melted by the midday sun made for some challenging terrain for young kids unaccustomed yet to all the skiing tricks, but it sure compensated in opportunities to bring our school talks with us in the middle of the woods.

Icy tracks on slopes that make you slide backwards again and again offer a wealth of physics observations, aside from the terrible annoyance of finding yourself subject to forces opposing your actual will.

So much to learn from as we followed trails, green and blue, and had clomps of falling snow missing us by mere seconds. The more ‘why’s sprout out of an outing, the clearer the message that if we allow our children to get separated from the great outdoors, a whole lot of learning disappears. For us too.

We all have much to lose if that happens.

We need to see trees to remember why we have to have many of them, countless, and we need to see forests in order to protect them from excessive and irrational logging.

We need to breathe fresh air and see the blue sky in order to be in unison as a community asking that the project that would bring a mine too close to Kamloops be reconsidered. Or that more areas are made available for walking and biking, which will slow us down enough to realize the preciousness of clean air and the beauty of a place where clean air matters.

We need to head out with our children to see the magic of the endless spaces our province is blessed with. Every season has its magic, but winter holds a special place in the hierarchy of wonders as it provides us with stories otherwise invisible: tracks of all sizes left by animals, big and small. It makes visible a world that we are easily forgetting in the rush of everyday life.

It is easy to forget that it is all shared land, easy to take for granted all that the invisible others make happen, easy to forget that we are not the tip of this wonderful world, but part of it, with a duty to try our hardest to keep it in balance.

The delicate and at the same time sturdy features of nature are available to us in Kamloops just steps away from home, wherever home happens to be. On any given day as you go for a walk, stop and take a look around. The vast spaces we have so much of are but an open-end invite to take yourself and your family out there and see the secrets nature so willingly shares if only we make time for it.

The icy slopes near Stake Lake were reason for intense frustration in our little guy at times, but then again, life is like that. If you’re out there, you learn that too.

Ups and downs, bumps and bruises, hope and laughter, frustrations bunched up like a ribbon that wraps around your mood too tight, there is nothing like taking a day off and finding yourself far from your everyday life and staring at shreds of clouds careening over tree tops as if to taunt you… Slow and fast redefined, time as you know it disappearing, and woods silent enough to bring the worries inside your heart down to a whisper. It matters to know that feeling.

Our sacred bond with nature is not one we can afford to let go of. There is simply no replacement. No app for that either, there’ll never be one. We owe this big secret to our children, sooner than later, because that’s what’s going to keep their world alive.

Why We Need To Fail

‘I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.’ Carl Jung

2014-12-13 16.12.09We need to fail. Not to be failures, but fail at. Dot dot dot. Failing at (fill in the gap) defines the very thing that happens occasionally (yes it does, to everyone, whether we admit it openly or not, or at all), but failing at does not define a person. It should not, unless we let it do that. Sadly, it does sometimes, because some of us learn to define our worthiness through our deeds. Being a parent gives me the freedom to say that parents a behind that one, most of the time anyway.

‘You are worth it because you do things and you do them well’ is what I do not what to tell my boys. You are worth it. No buts or ifs.

Hopefully that will allow them the freedom to fail at times and admit it too, knowing their worthiness is just the same or more if they do. Hopefully they will take a deep breath and say ‘well, that didn’t work’ rather than ‘I failed.’ The latter is not constructive, nor true. If stabbing oneself in the back would be possible, that’d be it. Or rather stabbing your soul, flat out cold. Telling it to look for a better residence.

Making mistakes does not make one a failure. In fact, you can fail at many things, we all do. At being human at times, which is in fact a terrible sin if you ask me, but I’ll leave that for a later chat.

We fail at keeping up with our schedules, with our plans, with our resolution to smile more, to not raise our voices at our children (OK, I am the only one, right?), to do the workout routine or finish that long pushed-aside story which you’re almost afraid of because it seems to have developed a life of its own and you almost feel it pushing you out of its way (again, that’s just me perhaps) because you’re not good enough. Well, you get the idea. We fail at things.

We fail at making things happens or making them happen the right way, but that is what it takes to figure things out. So that’s one thing I want to teach my boys in our school at home. Feel free to fail. With a mention: when you do, do it right. Which means that once you make the realization that things did not work out, you face it with dignity but not by identifying yourself with it, then you sit down (or go for a run, whichever allows for the inspiration flow to surface) and do some brainstorming. Why didn’t it work? What can be changed to make it work? What have I learned by failing at? What holds me back from believing I can succeed?

Failure without the after steps makes for a lost opportunity. So if I am to follow logic in that thicket of thoughts that just grew out of seeds of life on this page, well, I get to a simple truth: each failure is an opportunity. To learn to do better, to let go if necessary, to change something (self attributes included), to stay alive.

For as long as you fail at things, you know for a fact that you are alive and daring. Which is a good starting point for the next adventure. That’s what I want the boys to learn. That is what I hope to remember next time when my knees are bruised and self-worth is ready to take a plunge.

Keep learning. Through everything. That is all. For now…

The Things I Remember

The small volcanoes my Dad would make in the front yard near the black currant bushes. He smoked these cigarettes that were pure tobacco. Short and no filter, so there was always a little bit of leaf bits falling off the ends as you pulled it out of its paper wrapping.

Somehow I loved that. As much as I hated how they affected his health in the end. But I was a kid then and volcanoes meant nothing but my Dad’s magic, his smell, his hands preparing yet another small mound of dirt to put a minuscule cigarette butt in, and my wonder at the sight of that small trail of smoke raising just like he predicted. I remember that.

My Dad smoked outside only, no exceptions. When I was old enough to want to match the breath of late summer nights with my own I would follow him outside as he smoked that last one of the day and we would listen to crickets and the sounds that spoke of beauty and presence in words that sounded like songs. My Dad loved telling stories. I remember that.

I remember my Mom’s hands tidying up the kitchen table, handing me a cup of tea in late evening, the steam rising like a whisper and dancing the night away as we talked. I remember her smile in the morning, her voice, the caring ways she’d wrap us in so we would always know which way is home. We did, my sister and I, until the day home stopped being there.

I remember mornings of brightness and small baskets to fill with strawberries, fresh eggs and curious chickens, their greediness to eat the handfuls of lush green I was throwing over the fence. Beady eyes, eager beaks and sounds of mornings that could not be translated into anything but an echo. Such is the fate of heart imprints, they stay within.

It is because they do that that I believed time can stand still. I sipped at times and other times I spilled some, I cherished and I wasted, some of what I should’ve learned I learned early enough and some I learned too late.

Coffee time, I remember that. Sometimes it came with straight faces, other times with silliness and laughter. My parents chatting, tidbits of life. Never a doubt in my mind that it will last. Before life stomped its ugly feet loudly and roared, before I knew of fear and words left unspoken. Forgiveness for innocence… does it exist?

I remember the day my Dad typed Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘If’ and brought it home. The paper was thin, almost see-through (the irony…), each typed word a chubby critter linked to others to create a story. The meaning eluded me for many years. Today it all make sense.

I have lost so much since and gained so much too…

Tomorrow is Dad’s birthday. His first without him in the only world I know.

Mom’s was two weeks ago. Her ninth since it is only the echo of her voice that comes on that day. What is left then?

Summers with mornings too bright, evenings so wrapped up in flavours and sounds, stories left behind, laughter and tears, feet running on hot pavement to escape sun, cheating time with hugs and lengthy coffee time, everything exists as long as we remember it should.

If… the paper is even thinner now and words faded. I read it again and again. The poem becomes a story becomes a river of memories and stories told and untold, of wishes and dances where the music simply does not matter… it is but the willingness to dance, to live as if you hear the music, to know that it is there, to trust that one day you will hear it and it will all make sense.

I light candles, I say prayers, I cry. I love the lilac bush that towers over the grave and I hate that it can spend infinite time there, so near… Where to from here… I will read the poem, again, I will slow down to surround each word with reason, each seed of wisdom with gratefulness, I will do it so I will remember.

Not only for myself but for my sons, for whom I will one day type a poem. This or another. Just because. Because I want them to remember. Because I know they will. Because I know it is a path towards understanding the shadows, the light and darkness that time dresses in as we move along…

If Lakes Could Sing… Oh, But They Do

Day to beThe morning snuggle and read with little boy are obligatory. You gotta have the right book too. It has to keep little kids ask for one more chapter until, pushing their face into your neck, delighting you with their gentle warm breath as they whisper sweetly ‘One more, Mama, pleeeease?’ you yield, and when the chapter ends the game starts again. Oh no, not this time. No becomes yes and the sun coming through the window splatters on the page you’re about to read. Same irreverence as the child… Can you blame them though?

We’re reading E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web (again, and pretending we have no clue about what’s coming) and little boy’s apprehension of spiders dissolves with every page Charlotte proves her love and devotion towards the pig called Wilbur who can truly make you question your meat-eating habits if you’re still at it.

True to form, last week’s end saw the boys learning about animals in our little school. Past the usual anatomy and physiology – miraculous on their own of course, we snuggled to listen to talks about whether animals feel or not, courtesy of Carl Safina, an amazing scholar with a penchant for saying it like it is and an ardent desire to save the world.

We listened, and then we got very silent as we paused to think how to place all that we heard in the context of human compassion and how it should (must) influence the way we take from here onward.

WonderingsMy wild boys’ eyes could not be rounder as they learn of these things and their questions more pertinent. Truly, children have it right. Their minds uncorrupted and their ears still able to perk up and hear the sounds of the world many adults tune out. The world that matters because it keeps us alive with it.

The same old question that makes grownups roll their eyes at times… ‘Can one person change the world?’ Idealistic and dream-like, but dreams have to start somewhere. Learning is dreaming is pursuing. Children have that flame alive and burning. They say ‘I can’ until we tell them enough time ‘It’s not possible’. Then the flame subsides.

Learning comes with listening to songs that can change the tune of your own if you allow the child within to keep alive, not just in playfulness but in how you write ‘Possible’ on dreams.

This world and that A bit of a rethinking of life as we know it, but as we’ve come to discover daily, the mandate of our school at home includes shaking off limiting beliefs and making room for thinking, debating and realizing that on a good day, we’re merely seeing a sliver of all that wonder of the world.

There cannot be gratefulness for opening your eyes to a new day unless you’re poised to learn why you can do that and that seeing all that you see as you go about your day is a string of happenings that your mind can choose to learn about and understand, and in doing so you’re ever more in awe of how much you don’t know.

Hence we learn about ignorance too in our school. The value of not knowing, which, as you admit to, takes you past the slimy reality of superficial knowledge, a dreadful disease of our world, and leads you into what becomes a path to never stray from. Knowledge of the world.

It comes with square roots, and fractions, with spelled and misspelled words, it comes with French greeting phrases and stories of early explorers, with science experiments that tie you to ‘Why?’ forever, with understanding that we may be but one thread in the life tapestry. Learning to hang onto, learning that other threads are equally important if we are to tell the real story. Resilience is as much a word as it is a concept. A goal. Just like compassion.

So we learn. Learning comes with waking up mindful of what your next steps, careful enough to not step on someone’s dreams and smiles, and if you do, to have the strength and humbleness to ask for forgiveness.

SilentWhat you can seeBy the time the week ends we’re spoiled by sunshine and venture to out searching for winter wonders. Boys and snow go well together. Most times anyway. We find it: magic. White and silent, it lives where your hot breath has an echo, among tall trees with beards of snow and forest paths sprinkled with myriad tracks of animals that tell stories… stories that tie into our learning, stories we can learn.

Boys follow the path that takes us to the lake. We are at Lac Le Jeune where last visit saw us braving minus 21 Celsius, freezing toes and fingers asking for mercy. That was then…

taste of magicToday is cloudy and quiet and we’re not hoping for sun as we’re too enraptured by the whiteness of thick snow. But sunshine pushes the clouds aside and we’re stuck in sparkling beauty. I have one thought as I stare at small blade-like crystals of hoarfrost… ‘If this ever ceases to exist as such, we are poorer for it. Lost.’

Being overwhelmed by magic that reduces you to that one thought gives reason to choose the one path that makes sense after that: simplicity. Aiming for what matters.

wonder...It matters to have boys run and scream with joy as they see ice crystals perched on low branches and on the side of the lake, it matters to be there with them.

It matters to stoop down to observe tracks, signs of life, big and small, to decipher the voices of the woods, the words they write for us to heed; it matters to realize that there’s no better place to see than where everything seems hidden. Everything we need to see to learn is always in front of us, wherever we are.

Boys and musicIt matters to have the boys throw handfuls of snow on the thin ice that hugs the lake surface in a tight embrace and see their faces light up with wonder ‘Did you hear that?’ Yes, the ice sings. More? It’s a game that keeps on going. It has to. For them to learn, for them to never be afraid of joy, never ashamed of playing to get there…

The lake sings, the sun is shining brightly, birds and boys do the pitter patter on snow and under the trees, each laughing in their own way, each quarreling just the same, maybe to remind of imperfections needed to keep humbleness in place.

It matters to have that moment stuck in your heart forever, to understand that it is not in what we strive for on the outside that we find shelter in but in what we carry with us, deep inside, in how we find ourselves hopeful enough to never give up searching for better days, and wiser by having experienced the hopelessness of lost days…

To be is to learn. To learn to be. And magic is all.

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