I Don't Know How She Did It

Have you heard about those ladies who manage to raise two sets of twins while holding down a full time job involving international travel and still managing to host fabulous Martha-esque parties at their homes while running marathons twice in a year in their spare time? You know the ones. It is hard to praise them because you can hardly get your jaw off your belly button when you hear what they do in a day.

We don’t know how they do it.

When your pile of laundry looks like Mount Everest and the dust bunnies behind your toilet are starting to reproduce as if Easter is around the corner. You’ve got dentist appointments to get to and car repairs to coordinate and friends to drop casseroles with and somewhere in there find time to get a birthday present for the party on the weekend. You’re list seems longer than the constitution and yet someone somewhere does all that and still manages to tack on major projects and full time employment.

Have you heard tale about so-and-so’s grandmother? Maybe she is yours. She was most certainly mine. She carried water from her well by hand to wash the clothes. She got up early to milk a cow and then got her kids off in the direction of the schoolhouse - which she probably taught at. She tended a garden, volunteered at the church, knit warm socks and mittens and sewed up holes in clothes. She cleaned the floors, kept the home fires burning and likely took a shift or two on the tractor in the fields.

And we don’t know how she did it.

But upon further examination, I wonder whether life was easier back then. If I could give up internet commitments (finding used winter tires, checking for vegetable orders, RSVPing to the fair trade party) wouldn’t life be more straight forward? What about if I got rid of our vehicles and went back to a horse and buggy for transport? Then I wouldn’t need to get tires fixed and oil changed except for maybe on the tractor. What about if I didn’t have to worry if my cell phone was charged, if my electricity bill was paid, if my home phone line was on the right long distance plan?

What if my relatives lived within walking distance (a horse walk perhaps)? What if we shared tasks with the neighbours and leaned on each other as needed? It took a village to raise children and a community to work a farm back then. I think it still does. Except many of us are left to try to make it happen on our own.

What if I didn’t need to buy gifts for that birthday party – I could make them out of wool without feeling sheepish (tee hee) around the other Barbie Spectacular and Build a Bunny extravagant gifts? What if I had to make my own ketchup and relish instead of seeking it out in the store? What if I could live without coffee and sugar?

Somehow in all of this ‘making life easier for ourselves’ (and healthier, and more fair, and more environmentally and politically correct) we have complicated things beyond recognition. So much so that people are rushing to the grocery store and buying bushels of cucumbers from far away places to make preserves for the winter. They do this so that they feel closer to their food. We get memberships at gyms and spend hours there every day but drive instead of walking from box store to box store in the interest of saving time.

I have made an attempt to seek simplicity in my life. Instead I seem to have added the task of making relish to the long list of modern day complications. I also made an attempt to rid myself of luxuries that I hoped we no longer needed. I traded the new cars in for old. I got rid of television programming in our house. I vowed to buy almost everything second hand. Clocks, lamps, clothes, shoes, speakers, gifts, dishes, bikes, skis, art, toys, and whatever else I could find that was still useful. The only thing new coming into my home were toothbrushes and underwear and I couldn’t have been happier.

But life did not get more simple. To my surprise it just got more complicated. You see, I never gave up my modern luxuries. I’m not sure I ever intended to. I thought they would naturally be replaced with a full and satisfying lifestyle entirely contained in our house and on our farm.

Wrong again.

We have not one family member within 100km of our farm. We have neighbours who are like family but a build-a-family is not always the same as the real thing. Our market for selling organic vegetables is entirely in the city despite attempts to sell and deliver closer to home. I have friends from past lives who now live on other continents or across this one on other oceans. We have siblings in England and in British Columbia.

Unlike my grandmother, my life is spread across the world and I’m not sure what I can do about it. I’ve come into this new millennium fully embracing all that it had to offer. I signed up for satellites and internet. Visiting family and even work has me taking airplane rides through multiple time zones.

I think my grandmother’s life was hard. Very hard. I think her knuckles were more swollen and her fingertips more raw than mine. However, the maternal border collie in her was able to keep her sheep within a small geographical area in a way that I will never be able to. There must have been some peace of mind in that. My wee tired brain is expected to get a handle on everything between the sun and the moon. A diligent feminist will make every attempt to carry the entire world, past and present, here and over there, on her shoulders. At least our grandmother’s roles were slightly more contained.

We cannot turn back time. I will never have access to the kind of life that was lived 100 years ago. I’m not sure I would want to. Even Amish people who forgo most of today’s modern luxuries have to wait at red lights when they bring their wares to the local shopping centres.

Life got complicated. And I think it plans to stay that way for the foreseeable future.

But here is what we have going for us. We don’t have to beat ourselves up for what we didn’t accomplish today. There is no need to run ourselves ragged as we attempt to be the best of every woman that ever was. Our world is ever changing. And we’ve all had to change along with it. Some stick their heels in better than others and insist on cutting their hair in the shape of a mullet and driving cars with hoods the size of cargo ships. But life is still ever changing.

So I suggest we choose who we want to be today and tomorrow. And never mind that woman who kicked butt with her incredible nineteenth century work ethics. And while you’re at it never mind Marathon Martha too.

Run the miles you can. Knit the socks that beckon you. Make relish if a pile of cucumbers lands on your stoop.

And let’s try to imagine that we’ve earned ourselves a little bit of repose from all of this hard work. Yup, girl, you are capable of getting up Mount Everest, even if it is just your laundry pile. But is that the biggest dream you’ve got? If not, save the pile for another day and put up your feet. Or do the whole pile before the household even wakes up. Whatever works for you.

It is quite simple, really. Be you, here, now, doing what you do. Leave the rest for another time.

Quitting by 6am

I rolled quietly out of bed this morning at 5:41am ready to head downstairs for a bout of some kind of moving and sweating. I’ve learned that getting my 45 minutes of exercise in early sets a great tone for the rest of the day and ensures I don’t find an excuse later on to nix the whole idea. I also know Jennifer Lopez gets up at 5:30am as well and that's got to be worth something. It also allows me to start the breakfast grill at 7am and get the house rocking and rolling with energy behind me.

Secretly, what I love most about this time is that it is all mine. It is quiet and dark and all my little peeps are sleeping in their respective beds. I feel like I own the world. And my only job is to move and flow and listen to my breath in whatever way suits my fancy.

This morning’s adventure started with a tiptoe over the scattered tractors and trains on the living room floor where my yoga mat goes. In a slight bit of a grump, but not too much, I picked up a few toys and eventually decided to head to the other room for my practise, farther away from the bedrooms. But this means waking up the dogs. This room has ‘their’ window from their yard and they surely want in to be with everyone once they see activity in the household. I let the dogs in.

Down went my yoga mat, in the video machine went my yoga instructor and steady on was I. Within seconds I was getting tongue bathed by two very smelly, furry beasts with terrible breath but I repeatedly asked them to take to their beds and pushed the discomfort out of my mind and continued with a viciously focused warrior pose.

Within 20 minutes I heard the pitter patter of little feet coming down the stairs. Apparently their father had given them a flashlight to make it down in the dark. They had told him that I was not home and they wanted to come downstairs to play. Much earlier than their usual waking time, but I was willing to go with it.

Now they were asking for their own yoga mats. I find them yoga mats. Breath. Breath. Breath. My resolve is unwavering. I will not allow these distractions to take over this quiet time I have to myself.

“I don’t like this movie, I want a different movie”, says my son. Mommy is doing her yoga now, if you want to go somewhere else to play you are welcome to. Breath. Sun Salutation.

“This pose is too hard, I can’t do it”, says my participating daughter. Put your feet closer together, like this, there, how does that feel? Better, she smiles.

The whole point of this practise is to prove that I will not be phased by distractions. That the world can go to poop all around and I am still as steady as a mountain. Tree pose, my favourite, the one that combines balance, strength, flexibility, focus, and standing firm and tall. I am starting to grit my teeth more than I would like.

At this time I am wondering how my husband is enjoying his extra sleep. Probably very much considering our bed is usually a veritable circus act or climbing gym every morning before the sun comes up.

The sun is not yet up by the way. The dogs are still smelly and licking me in the face every time I do a Down-Dog pose - which is often. My son now has his chomping, battery=operated dinosaur in my ear and he is testing to see if I can hold my balance while he does this. Peace. Inner tranquility. Undistracted.

Now I’m doing the floor poses. The hour long video is almost up. I can barely hear the teacher over the sound of my son’s drill pretending to make holes in my mat. My daughter is now upset about something and has taken to pouting and glaring at me out from under her freshly cut bangs that are too long (she cut them herself).

Finally, I break. I say a word I can’t repeat here. Nice and loud. The thing is, yoga opens you up to everything. Turns out anger is made more readily accessible just like peace and tranquility too.

My husband comes running downstairs to be met by a toy dinosaur flying across the room.

Now I wonder, is it possible to get some time to myself in the morning? Should I have awoken even earlier? Been even quieter?

Once the dust settled and the dinosaur now missing a leg was pitched in the trash with promises of finding a new one at the store, I was able to explain to my dear, sweet angels what mommy’s intentions are when she does yoga. Mommy needs some quiet time to herself. Mommy hopes not to be disturbed.

My daughter tells me they will come downstairs in the future and play quietly in the other room if they see that I am doing yoga. I think that is a great idea.

Take the dogs with you, I say.

I have to admit that I quit the whole thing this morning. Resigned myself to gaining 100 pounds because I would no longer find the time or freedom to exercise. I would only ever sign up for robot tasks like laundry and dishes and chauffeuring because how dare I try to do something to call my own? I quit the whole thing - for a few hours this morning.

Then something seeped back. The knowledge that the only thing I had to be upset about was that something had been taken away from me. How can something be taken away if you never had it in the first place? I had seen it. The elusive resolve to continue with an exercise practise. It had returned. And been taken away, for only a few relatively short moments.

I’ll be back at it tomorrow. You can't get away that easily.

Possibilities, Come Get Me

I believe we all have a story written on our hearts. I believe we are all connected, all living things, by a thread. I believe that where our stories connect might be called a soul. Where our individual expression meets the rhythm of the world. I don’t think there is a name for my belief systems. But I do think that every religion makes sense of these very principles in its own way, often in the same way with different language. We all need to make sense of our world, each other and ourselves. And thank goodness for religions that help us do that.

Lately I have embarked on a soul-searching endeavour. My intention is to map out the bigger picture and where I fit into it. I suppose I’m writing my own religion. First, figure out your heart’s story. Second, mark the connections. Thirdly, make the rubber (individual story) hit the road (the world out there). I don’t expect to ever name it.

As I have been honouring my commitment to take better care of my body and exercise more, I have found the light of the world opening up again. I see things more clearly. My ideas are more a-plenty. I have more energy. I see how things can work, rather than obstacles all the time. I see potential. My own. That in others. It isn’t quiet at all. It is loud.

Like a song trying to escape from a box.

Until now, I have never worked at a job that I chose. The jobs I have been paid for have chosen me. Jobs have presented themselves and I have pursued them often with success and a certain degree of satisfaction and fulfillment. I have always felt capable and delivered on these jobs but never once did I feel like I was doing what I was meant to do.

It has only recently dawned on me that it is possible to create my own life’s work. An incredible, complete and total luxury I realize. But if I may, I think we all have the opportunity to create this for ourselves. The obstacles for each of us would vary (and the excuses would too), but for the most part, we could all get there if we believed we could, we were willing to move aside the debris in our way and didn’t stop until it happened. I know this kind of ‘American Dream’ thinking is not my usual banter. Usually I like to outline the real ways in which things are hard or impossible.

But today I want to talk about possibility.

The possibility of allowing your unique heart to tell its story.

The possibility that there is a list of things that you could do with your day that would not only make the world a better place, but make you feel like you were finally at home in your own skin.

The possibility that there are powers out there willing to guide you and connect you as you make your way to this home. That where you belong is already written on your heart and you will squirm if you are not heading there.

In the past few weeks since I have decided to no longer settle for a disgruntled existence, I have learned that opening to possibility is one small shift away.

I used to argue with people about how belief worked. Others would say that a change in attitude would make my life better. I would tell them that I couldn’t change my attitude because my bad attitude prevented me from doing it.

I took a chance on believing. Believing that I was capable of more than I ever dreamed of. Imagining that anything I truly wanted (because nobody truly wants heartache and pain and destruction) would be met with open arms, support and a path to get there.
I took a chance on my life, my family and me. Even though I couldn’t see two inches in front of my face.

A friend recently wrote me in the height of the fall season to remark on how beautiful everything was. The leaves were at their peak of colour, the sun ever shining, the days still warm, the air so fresh. He told me to pinch myself because it was all real. We were in the middle of the busiest time of harvest season, the farmer’s market, the animal processing. I noted to myself that I couldn’t see what he was talking about. And to my long list of things I thought were wrong with me I added: ‘cannot see that her life is already a dream’.

Perspective. Beliefs. They seem all that we have no matter what circles around us.

I have built a shape, a form, and an actual room where I can house the making of a new life (although I don’t believe that actual room is necessary – space is). I have written outlines, lists, cut out pictures, words, stories to try to find the one that best matches what I already know is there inside of me. I have carefully considered external advice – all the things that everyone else says I need – and rejected anything that didn’t sit right. They are just like those job postings. Great possibilities but not necessarily the right fit. I’ve been down that road already. There is a better road ahead.

It is as though I am playing charades with my heart and soul. I get euphoric, loud and clear if I get it right. I get fidgety and uncomfortable and go on a rant if it is wrong.

Two words. Keep Going.