Is There Space for Me?

In the days after bringing my newborn son home from the hospital our family began the delightful, disorienting process of adjusting to a new human in our home. I sat on my perch for hours on end feeding the little guy or holding him while he slept. Because this was my second child I was far less overwhelmed at the concept of taking care of a living being. The greatest challenge I found was learning how to give my daughter (who had just turned 2) the same attention I was used to providing her with.

Many questions are on my mind these days like how will I maintain quality time with my children when I return to work? How will I find a way to fit in exercise? How will I keep up a practise of writing my thoughts regularly? How will I ensure that the meals available to my family are healthy and wholesome? I don’t ask these questions as a way of wondering if I will manage these things. I am taking a great deal of time in the days leading up to my return to my job in the city answering these questions. How will I? Not whether and if, but how. Ideas are being thrown around like snowflakes in a storm.

I recall vividly the moment that my two year old stood at the edge of my lap as I held my sleeping son. “Is there space for me?” she asked. I glanced into my lap and noticed in the physical realm there was very little room for her on my lap. But when I looked into my heart the answer was clear, and without hesitation I said: “Of course there is! Come on up!”

The moments that followed would define the entire next few years of my life as I learned how to integrate all of the essentially important things together. I shifted my sleeping son so that he leaning out over the armrest of the chair and aided my daughter as she took up residence on a part of one knee. We sat there awkwardly together while I tried to keep everyone safe and happy. And with every bit of strength I had I tried to prove that there was no way she could be displaced.

The thing that stands out in my memory is that my daughter had understood at such a very young age that something could come along and take the place that she had once occupied. It breaks my heart to imagine that she thought for even a second that something could. She was so precious and small and needy and yet she realized that she had become the independent one.

I stand firm in my resolve that with a little patience, an enormous amount of organization and a lot of forgiveness, I will be able to hold on to all of the things that are important in my life when I return to work. I have made a list of the foods that we produce or process from our land that are non-negotiable: maple syrup, a case of canned apple sauce, 100L of tomato sauce, a winter store of frozen peas, green and yellow beans, rings of zucchini, dried tomatoes for pesto, frozen roasted squash, frozen trays of spinach pie, jars and bags of berries. These are all the tasks that involve my hands - many more come straight out of the fields and go directly into storage or the fridge or freezer (potatoes, onions, carrots, beef, eggs etc.). With a list like this, I am hoping to accomplish them as I have every year without the panic and urgency that comes from processing every single thing that is surplus from our garden. I will take what I need, and leave the rest to the neighbours, the chickens, the cows and the earth. This is about letting go.

Next year there will be no meat birds and no pigs. We will keep a handful of laying hens for ourselves. I have still not managed to let go of our Jersey cows. The meat and milk they bring us provides value that cannot be measured in my opinion. Who will do the fencing and the milking? Oh, that would be a post for another day. Luckily our Bonnie is not due to calf until July.

For exercise? I have developed a roster of possible scenarios that would constitute a workout and plan to make sure 3 of them fit in every week. The scenarios involve multiple settings, various times of day and lots of room for flexibility to allow room for success. For one, I will continue to use my 5:30am spot for yoga. As it stands, I am always too tired at that hour – surely returning to work won’t change that. But lying awake in bed that early brings a far less desirable result by 7am than forcing myself out of bed to make it happen. I intend to walk or run at lunch once every other week with a friend (or alone). I plan to keep up my regularly squash games but expect only one every other week to materialize. Lately I have found a 20 minute spot once dinner goes in the oven where I can jump on the treadmill before the food is ready. A quick run during this time might be possible. And one day a week – a weekend day or my one day off in the week (I will be commuting 4 days a week), there will be a long, slow walk, snowshoe, ski, or run. An hour or more where possible to wind down and revisit.

I know you’re probably shaking your head imagining that there is no way to keep any of this up. I think you’re right. But I also know that I had done it before in spades. I kept all of those balls in the air and the only one I dropped was my sanity. It seems to me that my task at the moment is to recognize the changes that have occurred since then.

Firstly, my children are no longer 2 and 4. They are now 4 and 6.

Secondly, from the moment my daughter expressed her need for me in the presence of my newborn baby, my nerves began the process of a long, slow unraveling that would take years to heal. In the same way that your nerve cells need multiple years to re-grow after they have been damaged by frostbite, I have learned that my emotional nerve endings needed multiple years to recover from the fray I had put them through.

Thirdly, what was once a construction zone is now called my mostly finished home. The bare drywall screws are now covered in plaster, paint and paintings. Structures that had never been built are now finished. Storage rooms have been recovered as living space. Electrical outlets are covered. Plumbing runs where it is needed. There are many more aesthetic tasks to complete, but for the most part we are no longer living in a major-work-in-progress. Only a normal level of upkeep is required (still huge I know!).

Fourthly (do people still count like this past three?), I have spent two incredible years seemingly glued to the hips of my children. We have worked, played, roamed, built, explored, laughed, cried, screamed, learned to sleep!, learned to use toilets!, learned to eat with utensils! The ways that we have come together have been the gift that a different work arrangement has given us. I am hoping my bank account of feeling close to my children will buy me a few months of guilt-free time away at my job. Secretly I’m looking forward to a change in this regard but no mother should say such things out loud right?

Fifthly (now that’s a cool one I’ve never seen), for the most part I manage to cobble together 7 hours of sleep every night (sometimes more, and sometimes broken but it is consistently there). The way that my brain functions is surely changing with age but my thought processes feel far less damaged now than they did in those multiple years without consistent sleep.

Sixthly (oh, even better than fifthly), we have finally learned that our situation requires external support. For some reason, we assumed our resourcefulness and excellent team-making partnership was enough for us to take on two off-farm jobs, live hours away from our relatives, run a farm business, grow most of our food, build a house, raise two small children and throw in some cats and dogs and elephants and unicorns to care for. We have recently acquired the great skill of asking for help.

What this looks like is a long list of phone numbers for people to call in case of emergencies or in case we can’t make it back to pick up our kids from school on time. It also may look like my husband changing his work configurations over time. It means getting full time help on the farm (which we could have used from day one but were too stubborn to admit). It means better communication between the two head partners at work in the business of home, farm and child management. Words like: 'I need a break, be back in an hour' are words we have recently learned to say out loud.

For now I must introduce my excellent life to a new sibling. My job. Job, meet my life. Life, meet my new job. I think you two should get along famously. If we listen lots, adapt as needed, forgive mistakes, let go often and be realistic about the demands we have on each other, seeking help where needed.

Job, do you have space for me?

Metamorphosis

I have spent the last month in limbo. After some digging around, a lot of discussion, calculating, reaching out, phoning around, brainstorming, option hunting and reconsidering, I am looking to go back to my office job in the city. What????, you say. I heard that. I can hear your surprise from here. Why would someone give up all that is going on around here for a commute to an office, for a job in the government?

Almost two years ago I made the massive shift from my professional work as a science policy/analyst/government/biologist/advisor person to a stay-at-farm mother, farmer and homemaker. It was an awesome couple of years. The transition was a complete change from my normal routine – and in all good ways a much needed change to our family’s system. A lot of problems were solved, new challenges arose (as they always do), I became the envy of many and a terrible example for many more.

If you should happen to see inside a cocoon as a caterpillar makes its shift into a butterfly, you do not find a specimen that looks part caterpillar and part butterfly. Instead you find a mass of gooey cells waiting for and following instructions into the next transition. Transition is like that. The space between landmarks is formless. And for this excitement-junkie, control-freak that is both exhilarating and as scary as all get out!

Two years ago I turned from being a chair-bound, neatly dressed, thinking, analysing human to outdoor farm girl with dirty fingernails and a slight eau-du-manure about me. I gained much more involvement in the day-to-day operations of our farm as well as a vast ability to be more hands-on in my children’s daily lives and the meals that we ate. The change was as extreme as turning a fuzzy land crawler into a free-flying creature.

The past month I have been floating in the shell of transition. Formless. I did not know where my aspirations were going to land or what they would look like. I knew that the universe had opened a door for me and change was rushing in. I did not yet know what it was going to look like. I leaned heavily to all sides, waiting for my instructions. Should I write a book? Should I play more music? Should I do something less artistic, more cerebral and more suited to my obsession with research, organizing and playing with data and equations?

My answer came a week or so ago. I couldn’t share until things firmed up a bit more. It seems that day has come.

So this is the part where I climb back into the cocoon, remove my wings and remember what it is like to crawl again. Most people have an idea of what working for the government is about. I have worked for multiple departments, at different levels of government, in various parts of the country, doing a huge variety of jobs and I can tell you that every experience has been vastly different from the last. There are some consistencies but the differences far outweigh the stereotypes. Kudos to those who can sum up the government so easily. After being there first hand for almost 15 years I can’t sum it up quite that quickly.

I think we all need to experience life on the ground. We need to remind ourselves of where we fit into the biological functions on earth. To know what it is to grow and raise and interact with living things. I have spent the past two years (for the most part of nine years really), doing that in spades. I wouldn’t change it for the world. I came, I dug in, I burned out, I rose again, celebrated, and then did it all over again. I didn’t just buy the t-shirt. I made it from scratch, practically growing the cotton and weaving the fabric.

Early this year I was re-introduced to the part of me that desperately needs to embrace order, structure and predictability. It is the same girl who lined up her figurines in alphabetical order as a child. The one who tracks her life in spreadsheets. The one who builds systems and explanations for abstract concepts. She has been dormant for some time now. And she came to me recently with a vengeance.

I am grateful to say that I am not returning to my old work for money or for reasons related to status or societal expectation of women today. Everything I have written in this blog for the past year has been an attempt to learn the worth of my own salt as a woman. I struggled with the alternative way that I was providing monetary value to my household. I looked for justification in a new kind of feminism – a women’s right to choose what she does with her days, and a women’s right to choose NOT to work out of the home. Along the way I considered going back to my ‘job’ for all of the wrong reasons (to escape, for money, to not lose my position). Today I go back because its the right thing to do, and have the good fortune of casting those past reasons aside. On the farm, I batted for both teams simultaneously – the ‘working’ woman and the stay-at-home mother. I was both and I was neither.

When I began writing here I assumed it would help me make peace with my decision to give up my professional life to be a mother and a farmer. Instead, I find I am once again ready to be someone who works outside of the house. Entirely by choice. For reasons other than money (although of course this won’t hurt). Because I want to. Because I can.

I now know what it is like to indulge my efforts and creativity entirely in a farm. I have wanted to know what that felt like for eons. I now know. It is everything you can imagine it is. It is nothing you would ever expect it to be.

As I get ready to leave my cocoon once again, I can honestly say that I’m ready to fly again. But this time I will fly in a different sort of skin. I’m sure there are few on the planet that could see taking a government job as flying. But I can promise you that I wholeheartedly do. Everything that has been lacking in my life over the past two years is available to me in this position. Clean clothes, adult conversation, quiet time in the car, delving into research again, writing my thoughts down and exchanging ideas with others. Clean fingernails. The smell of soap.

I know the novelty will wear off soon as a new set of problems emerges. I also know I will terribly miss the heartbeat of my home as I leave it every day for greener pastures. But I have to say that new challenges seem like a complete and total breath of fresh air right now. I think our family could use some diversity in our tasks. I think my children need to be part of farm life but not so much so that they learn that the closest thing to a family vacation is about washing 400 pounds of squash.

I shall hold forever in my memory the gift that the past two years has given our family. I learned so much and had a great many opportunities to be closer to my kids, my land, our community and our food.

But I think it is important to remember that we are neither butterfly nor caterpillar. We are both. And neither. We share the ability to move between these states at will, within each day, each season or from year to year.

Because that’s what choices are for.

The Power of a Positive Attitude?

We are told that if we have a positive attitude everything will work out in our favour. Because I’m a cynical sort of visionary, I find myself wondering whether positive people can see more clearly into the future. Or if they actually have the power to build what happens next. What do you think? I reckon it is probably a bit of both.

I tend to be the sort of person that things happen to. In other words, I don't feel like I'm the one driving them. One day I wake up and a huge inertia overtakes me and I go forward, mind set until I see it through. I don’t plan, I don’t set goals, I don’t make to-do lists and I respond terribly to being told what to do (other people’s goals, I suppose).

Instead I make must-get-done lists and wait for the inspiration to make them happen. I write down things I hope for, wish for, ideas that have found me in the night or while I am driving quietly in my car. I listen for cues all around me. I watch for the signs.

And when the sign comes, I feel a wave. An undercurrent of energy lifts me up and transports me with seemingly little effort to the place I imagined I would be next. It doesn’t look like ambition or drive. I don't trample along the way. It feels more like floating. It looks like attaching myself to the necessary flow.

The other component that seems to be in place when things start going my way is that I don’t seem to mind if I don’t get what I’m after. In other words, I’m okay either way. I remember the wave that overtook me a couple of weeks after meeting my husband-to-be. I felt so completely out of control of the force that was pushing me towards him that I was scared like you get on a roller coaster just before it leaves its perch into a fall. I also remember, very clearly, in those days, not minding how it was going to end. All I knew is that everything was right in the world when he was around.

You see I think the element here that chronic positive, happy people may miss is that the trick is to get to a place where any outcome is okay. Or perhaps the understanding that you may not completely control the outcome. You may only be in tune with the ride. It isn’t like you’re leaving the door open for failure, you’re just kind of trusting that you know what you’re doing and letting it happen. The work is to find the right decision, to ask the right questions, to learn the right language, to feel the right internal cues. Far greater than half the battle seems to be figuring out what we want. Once the desire is felt on the level of bone and blood, getting there seems almost an easy ride. Because everything can just fall into place. It is like conspiring with the universe. Or having a main line through to God. Don't we all have access to such a line if only we would pick up the phone?

So while I don’t think that imagining a positive outcome for yourself or others is necessarily about fortune telling. I do believe that the minute you see it all clearly, is the minute you are connected to making it happen. And everything that crosses your path will help with that goal.

No, I don’t make lists. And I don’t pray nearly as often as I should. But I do believe. Some days. In my own power to tap into the frequency of all things good in the world. For some reason, either by luck or by coincidence, I have never been wrong. Nothing I was sure of ever went a different way for me. Everything left unclear became a burden of confusion and disconnectedness.

How about you? Do you believe that your attitude makes a difference for how things happen in your life? Do you think you have the power to change your destiny?