From the Heart – Dancing in the rain!

Where do I belong? W.I.S.E. Project 2016- Journal Notes

“Love the one you’re with”

April 14, 2016 michd74Leave a comment

Photo Credit to: canadaclass10.wordpress.com

In 2008 we headed West, packing our lives into a U-haul, our hearts overflowing with memories, leaving behind the only home and lives our kids had ever known. After spending our growing up years and the early years of our marriage on the East Coast surrounded by family and friends I am surprised at how deeply and quickly our roots sunk in here. My husband and I credit our jobs and a few close friends for firmly rooting us in this Western life but for our children it is their home, their friends that have become family, their sense of community and the opportunities they have been afforded to do the things they are passionate about.

It was the summer of 2008 when we arrived at our new home in Alberta and because we had a good reason for being here it began to feel like home remarkably quickly. As a family we had been apart for eight months while my husband worked in the Alberta Oil Sands so geography seemed like a reasonable thing to try to overcome to be able to be together as a family as much as possible. But even so, the sense of belonging to a place, the feeling that where we are is where we were meant to be, still depends just as much — if not more — on our attitude about the place as it does on the place itself.

Edmonton is not my home in the sense of heart and family. I am proud to have been born and raised in the fair province of Nova Scotia. I love the ocean and will always be captivated by salty air and crashing waves. Lakes, long coastlines, beaches and sand between my toes. I love my family and nothing can replace seeing them as I often as I would like but the thing about being from a family as close as mine is the security in knowing that you are only a thought away. I credit being close to my family as the reason I was able to move across Canada and create a life. When everyone else was full of warnings about everything I would hate in Alberta it was my family that said to me that they knew that I was strong enough to assemble a life anywhere. They would miss us at the family gatherings along the shore, for every imagined reason we could think of to get together and eat good food and tell tales but I would be in their hearts, on their minds and definitely on the tips of their tongues because with family, no matter where you go you never get left behind. There is an inclusion that happens within a family like mine that cannot be touched by time or distance. Instead of making it harder to leave, this made it easier really, knowing that they wished us well and had nothing but good thoughts and high hopes for our journey ahead. The vastness of the land between us would never sever our bonds.

That all being said eight years have come and gone since we landed in Alberta. I remember like it was yesterday how my husband whisked us off to Jasper immediately because he knew I would be enamored with the mountains and it would alleviate the heaviness in my heart. I was awestruck by the majestic Rocky Mountains, standing proud and tall and on guard, touching the sky with their monumental peaks and reminding me just how small we are in this great big, phenomenal world. Lakes of Caribbean blue that mirrored the lofty, snow capped summits made my heart ache for my ocean playground a little less. Like a John Green novel, slowly at first and then quickly all at once I fell in love.

There was a moment last summer that my husband and I decided it was time to move home to Nova Scotia. We want to be close to family and lead a simple life, watch our grandkids grow up. We were very excited and started planning a timeline and telling family, trying to convince the girls.

As it often does, life happened and almost another year has passed since making that decision. The bottom fell out of the Oil Sands and financially took a lot of our immediate choices away. The timing wasn’t right when things were good and it is even worse now when things are bad. Funny the wrenches that get thrown into your life, but I am a firm believer that there is a reason for everything that will reveal itself in time.

Looking back to last summer after we made the decision to move home we had taken a trip to our favorite spot in the East Kootenay’s along the shores of the Upper Arrow Lakes. It is our spot for calm and clarity, to unplug and unwind and remember the things that are really important. When I step onto the little ferry that takes us to Burton, British Columbia it strangely feels like coming home. I remember staring up at a starry sky over the lake and being overcome with emotion wondering how I could walk away and never see that place again. My husband took my hand and said “I get it”, knowingly; because his heart was ravaged as well.

Like a time aged tale of being torn between two lovers my heart is divided and may always be, no matter where our story leads us.

Unfortunately living your life and making a living sometimes pulls you in entirely different directions.

It reminds me of a saying,

“Wherever you go, there you’ll be”

Indeed here I am, and what am I to do but make the best of the story that I am in the middle of?

Another fitting quote if you will allow me,

“Wherever you are be the soul of that place”

I will be. I am committed to it.This place has been good to me and my family. The people have been warm and kind. The community has embraced us. We have had good times and great experiences. I know that it is not my forever but it is my right now. Like a line from the 1970 hit by Stephen Stills of Crosby, Stills and Nash, “Love the one you’re with”

Attitude is everything!

A Penny for your thoughts…

March 20, 2014March 20, 2014 michd7417 Comments

How it must feel to pack up thirty years of memories into boxes, to decide what gets put in the trash pile and what comes with you to your new home. I remember six years ago when I packed up my house and moved 5300 kms away to Edmonton, Alberta. It was a huge process and whenever I was upset my Mom would say “take the memories!” They don’t take up a lot of room and there will always be a use for them.

I spoke with my Mom today and she is in the throes of packing up thirty years into boxes and I wish I could be there to share in every smile and every tear, I am sure there are many. I can’t even imagine the things you would come across and the memories they would evoke. I jokingly said “Don’t throw anything of mine out!” My Mom said she is sending me a little envelope and I am so excited to see what is inside. When I was home last spring she gave me a package with newspaper clippings, awkward school photos and poems I wrote. You really cannot give someone a better gift then a memory that transports them back in time. I frequently dig out that envelope and thumb through my past and though I always wonder what the heck my mother was thinking with some of those haircuts I was sporting I will treasure the contents of that package forever.

The house my Mom is packing up was my home since I was about 11. I believe we moved the summer I was going into grade six. If I remember correctly my Dad had lost his job and we put our house up for sale and when things took a turn for the better and my parents wanted to take it off the market the Real Estate company held us to the three month contract and though my parents wished it wouldn’t our house sold. I recall my parents apologizing to my brothers and I about the house they were moving to. It was a “fixer upper” and the rooms were much smaller but it had room for my Dad’s business ventures and he could be his own boss. We didn’t really care, it was a roof over our head!

We were about to embark on a humid Nova Scotia summer, we had endless sunny adventure filled days on our minds. Moving was no biggie for us, just a different spot to lay our heads at night!

Our parents even allowed us to attend the same school in the fall, grade 6 for me, grade five for my younger brother and the same Junior High for my older brother. These were the days when kids actually played outside and I really don’t remember it being such a big deal. I am sure it stressed my Mom out a great deal but we all adapted.

We only had a few short years at that house while my Dad was alive but it was great to have him with his business at home. I got to make him and the guys coffee and clean his office which for some reason I thought was super fun! I remember thinking how glamorous it would be to have my own office someday! Ha!

My Dad owned an Auto Body shop and he also had a dealers license so we grew up with several different vehicles. My older brother had a car from the day he turned sixteen and he never quite learned not to get attached. He took a shine to a Bronco Dad had brought home for him and was quite disappointed when he came home from school one day and Dad had sold it and got him something else. Anyone who knew my brother during those teenage years will recall how much he liked his cars. He had a black Monte Carlo that he treated better then anyone in his life. One day he bought another Monte Carlo, black as well but a bit newer, he decided to sell his original love to an acquaintance. Apparently my brother was getting reports that the new owner was driving the car erratically (burning the piss out of it) was the term he animatedly used to describe the treatment of his true love he had sold to another. I shrugged my shoulders when he told me. I really didn’t understand what this had to do with him. My brother couldn’t get past it though so he contacted the new owner and made arrangements to buy the car back! My brother now had twin black Monte Carlos. I secretly hope that in the envelope coming is a picture of me beside one of those sexy black Montes with my long glorious black permed hair and poufy eighties bangs!

I remember how my friends and I used to spray the product called “sun in” in our hair in hopes of getting au natural highlights and lather ourselves up with suntan lotion and lay on the roof of the spray booth during the July heat waves with L.L. Cool J beats playing on my bright orange boombox! In the cooler monthes we used to pack into the tiny hallway of the upstairs to play Risk afterschool and sometimes we carried on the game for days!

I’ll never forget the time my younger brother and his friends decided in their “everything’s a great idea” teen years to take a newly painted car out of the shop and go on a joyride when my parents were away. They got to the bottom of our road and panicked when they thought they saw my parents and put the car in the ditch. They took the smashed car back to the house, put it back in the garage and locked up as if nothing happened. My older brother and mother met us at the bus stop the next day and my brother immediately knew why and tried to walk in the other direction. There were a couple of tense days to follow in that little house. Later that night I tried to sneak my brother a peanut butter and jam sandwich but my Dad intercepted me. Under the circumstances, and I can sympathize with his frame of mind, he thought it best that my brother go without supper for the night! After awhile it blew over and we moved on, as a family in that little house.

Years later after my dad passed away and my stepdad came along to give my Mom a new lease on life and someone me and my brothers could count on always, we made new memories in that little house. We became adults, married and brought our own children there for family dinners.

When my mom and stepdad pack up those boxes I wonder what kind of things they will recall, what stories they will tell. Which ones will make them laugh and which ones will make them cry? Whatever they choose to put in the throw away pile, I hope it’s regret and sadness. I hope they take with them thirty years of memories from that little house and they pack all the love our family has for each other and fill each and every room in their new home with it!

Cheers! I am off now to open my wine and drink my book…or something like that.

xo Michelle

P.S. Always take the memories.

Help Me to Fly

January 15, 2014May 4, 2016 michd747 Comments

It’s the last night of my “Dirty Thirties” and I am lying in bed eating a coffee mug full of Ice Cream. The last couple of weeks have been emotionally draining and my initial excitement about turning forty sort of fizzled and died. I am generally a pretty upbeat person who tries to see the good and the lessons in every day problems but there have been a couple of days lately that I had a hard time getting out of my pajamas and I curled up and cried.

I have a fourteen year old daughter.

I could stop here and for some of you another word would not have to be typed without you sighing knowingly and feeling empathy for me…a virtual stranger.

One day the little girl who once looked at me like I was more important than the moon and the stars decided she didn’t like me much. It came out in her words, her actions, her body language and her disrespect. It put a Valley between us, a river of tears and hurt ran through it turning compassion into compulsion. I have always been told that you can only be a parent or a friend, not both! I know my child deserves discipline and boundaries. I know that understanding accountability will make her a better person in the future but every day I miss the little girl who hung on my every word, who thought that the sun shone because of me, that I was responsible for rainbows, cherry flavored jello and all the other good things!

I decided to break the parenting rule, I miss being her friend. I found that it was exactly what we both needed. We needed each other. I found out that my scared little girl who likes to think she is all grown up is feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders. At fourteen she is so worried about figuring out life and worrying about the future that she is miserable right now. I let my hurt fool me into thinking that she didn’t need me when in reality the more she pushed the more she wanted me to love her back! She wants to know that I will love her no matter what and when times are overwhelming will I just listen and not judge. Will I hold her and laugh with her and be happy for her? Will I treat her like a young lady but love her like a little girl.

Our expectations cannot be so great that our children will constantly fear disappointing us. Teenagers feel a lot of pressure in today’s society to be smart, attractive and popular and in turn we as parents want to do our very best to make our little humans into people they are proud of. There comes a time when we need to allow them to learn from their mistakes instead of making them fear taking chances. We need to be quietly encouraging and supportive, even if we don’t always understand. We have to remind them that life will happen, ready or not and they cannot plan their entire life in advance. We need to remind them that the biggest regrets they will have in life are the chances that they never took. They will make mistakes, we need to tell them that we will love them anyway.

The best we can do is help them to fly and let them decide where to go!

If you are a parent you need to watch this video. Sometimes the hardest thing is watching our children grow up but I believe that they will always need us as much as we need them!

A ticket to visit Mum

You’re Going to Miss This!

December 13, 2013December 12, 2015 michd744 Comments

I am sitting here on this frigid and snowy winter night thinking how quickly the moments of your life sail by and all the things you wished away that now you would give anything to have back. When you are five you want to be ten and at ten you just want to be a teenager and when you become a teen you can’t wait to become an adult. Then it happens, you legally become an adult and you just want to be a kid, you want to have the freedom to make your own choices but none of the adult responsibilities that come along with that.

Your parents inevitably told you to be careful what you wish for, they told you how quick it would pass by and how you would long to have the time back. What did they know? Old fogies! THEY KNEW EVERYTHING!

I remember how on Holidays and Sunday dinners at my grandmothers they always had a kid table set up. I sat with my brothers and cousins eating my turkey dinner all young ladylike while Mike played hide the boogie in Gerry’s mashed potatoes and Gerry fell for every tall tale and dare my cousin Billy laid out on the table and then some. In the blink of eye and without any fanfare we graduated to the adult table. Apparently you get to be an adult at a certain age even if you are still putting peas up your nose and engaging in eating contests.

Over the years we thought of those missing from the dinner table, those we had lost to life’s cruel fate and those who were enjoying their own family dinners miles and miles away. Some of us had our own young families now, taking their place at the kids table where we once sat.

As the world turns and it continually does, life as we know it changes so quickly but one thing will always remain the same. The moments that at the time may seem like nothing special or out of the ordinary are the moments that we would do anything to have back.

Christmas at my Grandmothers house is the one thing that will always come to mind during the holidays. My mother comes from such a close-knit and special family. The thing I like the most is that they never save their affection for the holidays. It is there all year-long and they make a constant effort to be together, even now. The Holidays always felt extra special because we were dressed in our good clothes and we were told to be on our best behavior (some of us must have been deaf) and there was even more food then usual!

Christmas can be a stressful time of year for people, mostly because people have long ago forgotten why we have Christmas and it has become so commercialized that we break the bank trying to give everyone the perfect gift when the very best thing we can give to the people we love is our time. It is the one thing we always wish we had more of, time with our loved ones. So I say that this Christmas though I cannot see my family know that the most precious thing that I have ever gotten from you is the time we spent together, the laughs we shared and the memories we made. Know that a simple phone call, letter (or text if you are so inclined) means more to me then any gift possibly could.

Merry Christmas and enjoy this special time with your loved ones and if they are far away or not with you any longer give thanks for the time you shared.

Love Michelle xo

Candlelight Confessions

November 12, 2013November 12, 2013 michd746 Comments

I am a self diagnosed night owl and have a problem going to bed, in the same token when I stay up till all hours of the night (technically morning) I am not exactly excited in the morning when my alarm goes off. I do however have a great appreciation for the early morning hours the rare time I experience them. I like that the floor is cool on my feet and the weather hasn’t quite been decided. I like the smell of fresh brewed coffee and the warmth of a fuzzy robe. I like the sound of the traffic as early morning commuters start their day. However I also like the quiet of the late evening hours with pale shimmering moonlight struggling to peek through the slats in the blinds. I am writing by candlelight with the drone of classic rock radio in the background contemplating how I can manage to enjoy my late evenings and still manage to see early mornings. It seems a challenge, especially for someone like me who also enjoys sleep. It was 3 am this morning when I crawled into bed. I love that feeling of lying on my belly, stretching out my limbs and sinking into the warm comfort of my bed, quickly contemplating my day and taking a moment to smile and be thankful for the good parts.

This week I was extra thankful for a long weekend, it really seemed to last for an eternity. On Friday Morgan turned 14. Where does the time go? Hubby is away working so we decided to take off after the Remembrance day ceremony at school and have a girls fun day! Morgan had the opportunity to design her custom Antiks .

Antik Skate Boots are born of passion, design and quality, brought together by Mo Sanders aka “Quadzilla”, a lifetime skater who put his heart and soul into the process and design of the way roller skate boots were made. Morgan started Roller Derby when she was ten (almost 11) and these are her dream skates. They are pricey but I am told they are worth every penny.

After a day a Roller Skate shopping, clothes shopping and dinner we picked up a friend of hers and one of mine and we went to the local Roller Disco. My friend commented on how it appears that Morgan seems at home on skates and this is true. On skates she feels free and content. Haley as well loves the freedom of skating till your hearts content with disco lights and loud music. I admit it is hard not to get caught up in the atmosphere. I am not fearless like my girls but I strapped on a pair of vintage rentals and happily rolled around to classics such as I love Rock and Roll and Don’t Stop Believin. I really did have fun.

Morgan introduced me to the world of live streaming movies so I watched more movies in one weekend then I usually watch in a year. At one point Morgan and I were curled up in front of a roaring fire watching a romantic comedy while Haley gallivanted around the rec-room in her make-shift dance attire watching Dance Moms on YouTube and making her own dance routines. Then Haley would come hang with me while Morgan watched the WFTDA championships (Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby Assoc.).

I got to hug my girls, stay up late, sleep in, make good meals, read stories of war recollections out loud so that they can truly understand the meaning behind Remembrance Day and share some big hugs and laughter too. I got to talk to them candidly about current events, issues that they will one day face and give them my special blend of Mom wisdom that I am sure they cannot get enough of. Alas all good things must come to an end and without a fight to stay up late they snuggled into their beds and fell fast asleep.

I immediately missed my husband. I realized that though we texted in the morning and when he got off work we hadn’t spoken on the phone. By the time I realized how much I missed the sound of his voice it was way too late to call. He will be rising early as he always does, facing a frosty morning and a full workload.

So as my candle flickers, illuminating the darkness I am a little lonesome but very thankful for my husbands work ethic and dedication and how it affords me the time to raise our girls and not allow society to do all their rearing.

I am thankful for so many things, not the least of which being the remarkable sacrifices those who have served our country past and present have made so that we can enjoy our beautiful country and live free.