rantings and ravings

Pussy Cat Pussy Cat

Where have you been?

I've been to London

To Visit the Queen

Pussy Cat Pussy Cat

What did you there?

I frightened a little mouse

Under her chair

Like the Pussy Cat in this well known nursery rhyme, I am in a bit of a rut as to looking at my own small predictable world, and not considering possibility, or even risk.

For a start, and I am sure I am not alone when I say that being a full-time Mum I struggle for any kind of quality time to myself, mainly thinking time. I actually feel guilty about allocating time to my interests and needs. Silly I know, and I am sure many will scold me for not taking time for myself, I know the break will make me a better Mum in the daily scheme of things; not so snappy and frustrated, but I still struggle with the idea, and will not allow myself time to chill. It is like I feel unentitled and selfish for thinking of my own needs, and since it has been this way for the past 5 years, I wouldn't even know what to do with myself, even if I did have a spare hour or two.

Recently a friend offered to have both of my kids for a couple of hours, to "give me a break". I couldn't do it. I didn't want to burden this friend with "my responsibilities", and honestly, the thought of coming up with something to do during that time, put me in an absolute state of panic. I SERIOUSLY need to get a life!

I think the worst part of this state of being, is that I have lost the ability to identify the many things that are important to me, beyond the everyday distractions of housework, home maintenance, grocery shopping and bill paying.

Last night at Toastmasters, I was asked the $30 million question - literally. What would be the first thing I would do, if I happened to win the $30 million jackpot? All I had to do was talk for 1-2 minutes on this question, but I struggled; basically I spluttered, bumbled, ummed and erred. Seriously, it was just as painful for the listeners as it was for me, but apart from paying off my house and university bills, I was absolutely clueless - the idea of an excessive and life-altering amount of money was totally unfathomable to me - the freedom, the choices, the social good it could do..... Where do I start? I thought, and then I realised that I didn't have one single idea, and quickly and silently concluded that I would rather not be burdened with such a weighty win-fall - give it to someone else. Is this really my message to the universe?

Ironically, I was also asked to talk about a prize I had won....in all honesty, I have never won anything before. Hmmm, I guess I have answered my own question, but then again, I mostly sabotage any chance of winning, by rarely placing myself in the running - You gotta be in it to win it, as they say. I am not really the gambling kind, as you can probably tell. Most of my inner thoughts about the future are preluded with the word When, and that basically puts an abrupt halt to any future thoughts and plans.

I am not feeling very settled right now, when I am settled, perhaps I can give the future more thought. When the kids go to school, I will think about what I want to do with my life. When I am rid of my debts I can to this or that....

This course of thinking reminds me of the fable "As Famous as the Moon", pg 18 from The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche:

A very poor man, after a great deal of hard work, had managed to accumulate a whole sack of grain. He was proud of himself, and when he got home he strung the bag up with a rope from one of the rafters of his house to keep it safe from rats and thieves. He left it hanging there, and settled down underneath it for the night as an added precaution. Lying there, his mind began to wander" "If I can sell this grain in small quantities, that will make the biggest profit. With that I can buy some more grain, and do the same again, and before too long I'll become rich, and I'll be someone to reckon within the community. Plenty of girls will be after me. I'll marry a beautiful woman and before too long we'll have a child...it will have to be a son...what on earth are we going to call him? Looking round the room, his gaze fell upon the little window, through which he could see the moon rising. "What a sign!" he thought. "How auspicious! That is a really good name. I'll call him "As famous as the Moon"...." Now while he had been carried away in his speculation, a rat had found its way up to the sack of grain an chewed through the rope. At this very moment the words "As Famous as the Moon" issues from his lips, the bag of grain dropped from the ceiling and killed him, instantly. "As Famous as the Moon", of course, was never born.

So there you go...Man, I just flicked through this book. It is really a fabulous, mind-altering read, but I have never managed to get past page 113. I simply have to try this book again. It is not so much of a struggle, it is just that I need to put it down regularly, to contemplate what I have just read.

Anyway, I shall think some more about the $30 million dollar question and get back to you on that one, and of course, most of the time, these things don't even need $30 million to accomplish.

When the world momentarily stops spinning...

A friend called yesterday; I mind her little boy on Wednesday mornings.

"How was your spring break?" I casually and innocently asked."Well...", she begins, "you have NO IDEA what we have been through", she says with a sigh of exhaustion.

Surely nothing worse than the events of the previous 6 months. Seriously, this poor woman has run the entirety of fate's sinister gauntlet. Everything that could turn pear shaped and complicated in a persons life, seems to have in hers. I simply have to shake my head in wonder and think, "what is going on here?"

She is just having the worst possible time at the moment. She is going through a divorce. She is raising three kids, aged 2-7 years in a tiny two bed apartment. She studies full-time. She works part time four days a week. The secondhand car she bought broke down a week after she bought it, costing her $1500 to fix - money she didn't have. Her 19 year old cousin died in a vehicle accident, then her brother died in a logging accident. She has had to work with all sorts of obstacles, so many that I think I would be a nervous wreck at this stage of the game, if I were her. "So", I think "what has happened NOW!"

"Riley was in the hospital for the first 5 days of spring break"

"What the hell happened?" I asked, I had just seen him earlier in the day, with his Dad.

"Well, the doctors thought he had leukemia".

WHAT! I was absolutely floored - stunned.

She then went on to tell me about their five day horror of an ordeal; fearing the worst; being told, by doctors, to prepare for the worst. She told me how scared she was, and how heart breaking it was to have her son transferred to the oncology department; to see all those weak and terribly sick little children. She told me that Riley was traumatised by the daily taking of blood, screaming for a half hour, after the fact, on the first day and then by the fifth, screaming for mercy and crying for the nurse to get it over with, quickly, and that he was moments away from receiving a blood transfusion, since his platelets had dropped to 30. When I asked how he coped with his ordeal, she said that he had woken nightly, screaming in terror. Poor little guy.

He is such a lovely boy - large gentle doe-like eyes; the clearest blue, like glacial ponds they are; and he has a mass of white golden curls haloing his head like an angel. He loves his super heroes, especially Batman. I hoped an invisible, winged warrior was by his side, fighting with him, championing him to get well again; I rather think there might have been.

It was found that he didn't have Leukemia after all, but instead, had an extreme reaction to Glandular Fever - of all things. His mother expressed her utter joy with the news, and then acknowledged her instant guilt, since she was standing in the oncology department of a Children's Hospital, where such miraculous hopes would not be forth coming, for the majority of children and worry stricken families, surrounding her. But still, she was beyond relieved to take her dear boy home at the end of the fifth day.

Unfortunately, Riley is not out of the woods yet. He is still enduring a battery of test, since his reaction was so unusual and extreme. He is still very weak, and though he went to pre-school yesterday, he had to rest for the remainder of the day. So with fingers firmly crossed and prayers abound, I hope for little Riley and his family, that his sickness, will come down to being one of those mysterious events that sometimes occur in our lives, to ensure we are present and passionate participants in life. Please God, say it is so. Let there be only health and happiness to come for this family.

I know I looked into my children's eyes a little longer just now, and sat with them long after they had falling asleep last night, and gave them a tighter squeeze when they run up for a hug when they awoke. Our own lives may be long, but our time with those we love, is so short.

On the theme of footy

Proof that the previously mentioned guernseys have in fact been handed over.
Hope the sight of Olivia, dressed in the beloved Maggies jumper doesn't enrage too many die-hard Adelaide Crows supporters...you know who you are ;)

The Two Man Band - Up There Cazaly

Yesterday the kids were looking for items to play dress-ups in. I scoured the cupboards to see if there was anything appropriate, for that purpose. All was almost lost until I peered into one of Ashley’s drawers, rummaged around a little I found two Australian Rules football jumpers.

One was black and white, with the Port Adelaide Magpies team emblem emblazoned on the front; the South Australian team of choice for both my husband and I, prior to Port Adelaide forming a national team –The Power, and opting for the colours black white and teal (there was already a national black and white Magpies team - Collingwood boo hiss).

The other jumper was red and white striped, baring the moniker of the Ramblers Football Club or “The Roosters”, as they were known; a jumper Ashley had commandeered from the golden days of his country football playing youth.

For the moment I sat clutching those rough, synthetic knit guernseys, an array of football memories bloomed forth in my mind, like imprisoned buds on a sunny day.

I am not a sport fanatic by any means, but football is so ingrained in my personal history that I have possibly developed or inherited some kind of appreciation gene for the game.

Aussie Rules Football is quintessentially masculine. The game is rough and the culture surrounding it inspires a similar coarseness. I grew up with the passion for the game all around me; both grandfathers were players, as was my father and brother, along with most men in my community. But for me, football was more than a game; it was, and still is, a multi-sensory, multi-layered experience.

Football brought our small community together during the winter months. It brought excitement and activity to the town and surrounding region. To me, as a child, football meant long family drives in the car, as we travelled to remote towns within “the league”, to follow the football.

It meant hanging out with my childhood friends and wandering around the ground to the sound of cars honking their horns on the sidelines, whenever a goal was scored. You could hear the harsh voices of men and women screaming, “come on, get up ya useless bastard”, and other profanities, to umpires, opposition players and supporters, along with their own team players; voices that were hoarse from too much yelling, too much alcohol, too many cigarettes and too many hard knocks.

Then there was a whole other harmony. The sound of thundering feet scrambling after an erratically floundering leather ball; so unnerving was the collective sound of nearby galloping feet, panicked and urgent voices; that it sounded like a herd of screaming, stampeding brumbies were about to hurtle through the sidelining crowds, to trample us wee ones in their frantic, fleeing wake.

There was the thumping sound of leather against damp soil during the centre bounce; the smack and slap of a boot walloping the living daylights out of the ball, and of course, the shrill reverberations of the umpires whistle.

Then there were the smells of the game. Such as the sickening, yeasty pungency that wafted through the air, signalling to all that the bar was open for business, and the amber fluid was flowing abundantly; the suffocation of cigarette smoke catching in our small throats, making us splutter and gag; wet leather; bruised damp grass.

There were other smells too, ones that lured children from the snug quarters of the family car; meat pies and pasties, the hot golden buttery goodness hanging in the air like the sun on a winter’s day. That smell taunted us kids, and we would pester our mothers until we had each managed to secure one of those heavenly pastries in our eager hands, along with a packet of salt and vinegar chips, and an extra 20 cents jangling in our pockets for a white paper bag brimming with an assortment of homemade cupcakes, for later on.

There were also the games – not just the bone crunching, mud bath battering and clash of men on the official ground, but the sidelines games; the climbing in trees, hide and seek in the bamboo forest, the escape into a fantasyland of kings and queens, sisters princesses, “Gone with the Wind”, castles made of bridal creeper and moss, and hanging out in the playground, inventing new tricks on the monkey bars.

Now, as adults, my husband and I would make a habit of cozing up on a winter’s night to watch a game together, whether it is fish and chip Friday with a bottle of wine, or another time when our team was playing. It was the history of our involvement with the game that drew us to it, week in week out, season after season.

Here in Canada we rarely see a game. Occasionally we might see a game telecast on FOX sport, but it isn’t live; the results of those games are already known. I can not watch it, not without the vibe, the hype and expectation, speculation, and subsequent jubilation or commiseration with my fellow country men, living in the moment that is fresh footy lunacy. Consequently, my passion for the game fell into hibernation, and receded into a mere glimmer of its former blazing self, and I told myself that football wasn’t all that important to me.

But when I handed over the football guernseys to my children, they slipping them on and running around in them, the sight made me smile, but I shrugged and happily went back to what I was doing, until they inquired into the history of the “soccer jumpers”.

”Oh! But these are not soccer jumpers. These”, I declare proudly, “are Australian Rules Football guernseys”. And at once the stories of football and my passion for the game unfurl like an exquisite Japanese fan, and my enthusiasm was eaten up and absorbed by two wide eyed children who announced that they would “like to see that”.

And since it is impossible that I take them to a game here in Canada, and there was no telecast showing today, I downloaded a song long regarded as the unofficial Aussie Rules Anthem; a song, that has, for generations, inspired many a young Aussie lad to dream of playing footy on the big grounds, with the big boys and the crowds – that song is "Up there Cazaly".

My small world

It is funny how one singular, mundane act or observation can spurn an ambush of thoughts. I liken the phenomenon to a darkened stage in which a single actor is spot-lit and then suddenly the red velvet curtains are flung back to a blaring brass band and flurry of colourful and overwhelming activity on a broadened stage.

Yesterday I took the kids to Richmond. There is a decent mall there. It was not that I was exactly awash with dosh, rather it was raining and we needed something to do, so we went mall walking and window shopping.

Inside the mall, Cathay, the airline, has donated a play gym, in the shape of an aeroplane. The kids love it.

I was observing the 8 or so kids playing.They were all playing rather rough, but in a good way. A girl in front of me, scrambled enthusiastically onto the wing of the plane and then something fell; a single pink button, which rolled under the aeroplane. I tried to get the girl's attention, but she was having too much fun to notice me on the fringe of activity, so I let it go.

But witnessing the unleashed button hurtling to the ground, set me thinking about the button's fate and what I would do with a single pink button, and then to my own hopeless sewing skills. For instance, the black jumper I made in home economics class in grade 8; the one with the holes in the arm pits; the jumper that my sewing skilled Mum was so affronted and appalled by, that she made me spend the entire following weekend making another jumper, under her guidance - a canary yellow version that I could wear to netball (canary yellow, then being among my least favourite colours; black on the other hand...). I think I have detested sewing ever since.

It is perhaps my single regret in life, that I can not sew. My attempts are truly, so amateur, that the word amateur is an insult to all sewing people who call themselves amateur...I am a plain old non-sewer. I can't even handle the task of a simple row of stitching to mend a tear, darn a sock or hitch a hem - let alone affix a button. I have considered buying a machine and then try teaching myself, but I have managed to fight the urge thus far.

Sigh, what a waste - to behold that single bright pink button, laying detached and purposeless upon a cloud covered carpet; destined for the tip when the cleaners come along at days end; its useful life over, and who knows from whence it had travelled and the experiences it had had along the way, only to be met by such an anti-climatic end....

Alex brought me back from the tragedy of my collective thoughts concerning the pink button, presenting his palm with the gleaming pink button, resting in the centre. Smiling he said, "look what I found". Looking around, the girl and her family appeared to have left, so I told him to put it in his pocket. He asked me to look after it for him, and I gladly took it, thinking further about what I could do with the button, as I gazed upon its cheerful, candy-like hue.

Since I was clearly unqualified to sew it to anything, I changed my tact and considered craft ideas for the button -mmm scrap-booking. People use all kinds of stuff to pretty up their photo pages. Perhaps I could use it for some kind of craft project...yes. And so, I resigned to placing it in a box for a rainy day.

The girl, whose pants had previously been adorned with a pink button at the ankle, passed me by, just as I began considering the reality that the poor button would likely be found in a century or so, rattling around in some discarded, dusty old box covered with cob-webs.

I reached into my pocket and approached her, "I think this might be yours", I said presenting her with the button. She looked disappointed that the button has fallen off, but her mother (bless her), assured her that she could sew it back on. The girl and her mother thanked me and walked away; the button had been given a second chance to live out its purpose.

So there you have it- yesterday I was a button's hero :)

Snow geese

Ashley left for Holland, Monday night. He will be away for about 10 days. This time, his trip includes a week in Nigeria, of all places.

Nevertheless, with the prospects of long lonely days with just me and the kids - and spring break next week - I thought it would help the sanity, of all, if we got out of the house as much as possible.

Miraculously, yesterday was a lovely day, so we headed for Westham Island for a picnic.I have probably rattled on about Westham Island before, so I apologise for once again, blowing the trumpet, for this glorious spot.

Westham Island is a flat piece of land in Delta, British Columbia. Much of the island is farmland, with a few farmhouses dotted over its surface. A dike surrounds the island to save it from Fraser River flood waters.

At the northern tip of this very small island is the George Reifel Bird Migratory Sanctuary and Alaksen National Wildlife Area.

Alaksen incorporates the Sanctuary, but is primarily known as an environmental and wildlife research facility. You can visit there and walk the trails. We went there yesterday for the first time. The kids had a ball watching a barge drift along the Fraser, and traipsing through the dark woods, in search for the perfect walking stick. We also managed to hear a noisy woodpecker, though he remained visually elusive, despite three sets of eyes scanning the tree tops.

It was fun, but I must take my hat off to the Bird Sanctuary, it is more inviting and visitor friendly, and the birds are definitely more abundant there.

We always love to feed the birds when we go. It is always a treat to scatter the first handful of golden seeds, and watch the birds swarm around us like bees. Most run over in their waddling way, some paddle furiously from the nearest pond and a few swoop down from...I don't know where - heaven, for all I know. Soon enough we are surrounded by a 100 or so ducks, all vying for their share of the seed spoil.

Anytime of the year is a good time to visit the Bird Sanctuary; spring is fun, because the baby birds are about, but the mothers are understandably protective and thus, can become rather aggressive. The ideal time to go is winter, the place is a winter migratory bird sanctuary after all.

The best and possibly most famous example of this winter phenomenon is the annual visit of Snow Geese. Thousands upon thousands of Snow Geese descend upon select spots along the North American west coast, from their nesting home, Wrangel Island; a Russian island located in the Arctic Ocean, north of Siberia.

Every time we have gone out to see the snow geese, their collective has merely been a lashing of white frosting in the distance, but yesterday, a roadside pasture was blanketed in white, like a foaming sea, moving, rising and falling, rushing in and ebbing away like the tide. Occasionally something would rile them and the entire flock would take to the sky; so many there were, that their swirling mass unit did something to my sense of balance, just as a fading tide might, when one stands in the shallows watching a broken wave rushing back into the ocean.

Their collective sound was of such volumes that I actually took pity on the residents of Westham Island, since living with that constant racket would surely give anyone a headache. If I could possibly describe their squawking, I would have to liken them to a panic among brokers on a crashing stock market floor, two minutes before closing time - take a look at the movie Trading Place, if you can't quite imagine it.

Every year the snow geese arrive to this neck of the woods - that amazes me. What draws them to this spot time and time again? Is it that few other places can be matched for the abundance of food and relative safety from predators? Do they realise that they are protected and even admired by the local people here, that their journey and calling upon our fair shores is so greatly anticipated that they think themselves to be kings and queens among us mere mortals and resident mallards? Or is it something else, something innate, as it is with Salmon heading up stream to spawn in the same sacred waters of their own births?

There is a silent genius about the universe's design, in that we must observe, study and take notice of things, in order to gain knowledge of our unanswered questions. Don't you think?

photos

Here are some pictures of our boy and girl.
The first is a rare sweet moment. The other two were taken yesterday at Horseshoe Bay in North Vancouver, where the ferry comes in to take people over the northern tip of Vancouver Island and the Islands in between. This is a favourite spot for us, it has snow capped mountains that seem to have risen straight out of the ocean and a train track that weaves in and out of cliff side conifers. mist settles low over the bay and floats like it is under a spell.

Little boats tied to lines of mooring decks rock gently on the dark waters. The air seems fresher here.

We go to one of our favourite restaurants here, after the 45 minute drive from home, then, when the weather permits we wander over to the little park for a play.

Despite the ferry terminal, Horseshoe Bay is a sleepy secluded, incredibly beautiful spot.

I wish I could take you there.

I stole this

I stole this quote from Sharon over at Penny for your Thoughts. Thought you might enjoy it too.