Going Back to Ross River

I traveled back to Ross River last week. It had been almost three years since I drove away in the midnight sun to our new home in Whitehorse. It's a long drive at four and a half hours, and not one that's convenient to make with the additional two children we've acquired since moving back to town. I was hoping to go back at least one more time before we eventually move out of the Yukon, so when an opportunity to cover a news story came up, and Rich was off work to watch the kids, I made the solo trip back to a place that will always hold a special place in my soul.

I was headed there for a happy occasion, and was looking forward to seeing friends I hadn't seen in a while. I was curious to drive around and see if anything changed. I played old mix CDs on the drive up, singing loud and waxing nostalgic for a time that seemed so long ago, but is really only four years removed form my present. 

The people living in my old house were gracious enough to host me, and invite some of my old friends over that evening to visit. It was so strange to walk over the threshold as a guest. These walls held some difficult first years of my marriage and parenthood, but also were the setting for so much growth and celebration.  It's true what they say, though, you can never truly go home. I am changed since then and was happy to be visiting. I will never forget what I learned and saw, and to be honest, I was unprepared to be so deeply immersed in the town's sad history again.

I was eager to ask for updates of some of my favourite Ross River characters, and was happy to hear some were doing well, or had moved on to new adventures. I asked on about a few of the kids I had worked with at the school and library, and I won't say I regret it, but I was certainly naive. I was hoping for good news, or for confirmation that things were still the same. Sadly, some of the kids that had meant a lot to me at one time are not doing well. The town, their troubled families, the cycle of addiction and violence and abuse has gotten the better of some of them. Over the course of the evening, I was transported back to a time when my heart broke regularly for the sad stories that were commonplace in these sweet kids' lives.

I drove home very quietly. No music playing, no increase on the odometer. I took the country drive as a chance to absorb it all. I cried. I sighed a lot, replaying the things I'd heard and learned.  I wondered how in the world some of those very young girls would ever get through the things they've been through. I thought of my own girls. I thought of the struggles I've faced and wondered how in the world I would ever handle prolonged sexual abuse, a childhood robbed by molestation and getting drunk before learning how to read. 

Some of the stories I heard I wish I could forget, but then again, maybe it's better I know what happened to those kids. Their daily realities and struggles to keep going are things I wish I could un-hear-- really? Who am I to think I should live so carefree and removed from these realities? Was it really only three years ago that I was living here?

The kids in Ross River have a hard life ahead of them, and I know for many of them it will be a sad story that plays out. I will take their stories with me and remember that everyone has a story, some as sad as these kids'. I will pray that things get better, and work to encourage and help those who struggle. I won't soon forget Ross River and all the impossibly sad things I learned and saw while there.

The tree I carved in my old front yard, Abby's birth date.

How We Spent Our Wednesday

Abby and I woke up to clear, blue skies pouring in our window and the excitement of an adventure buzzing in the air. We hurried through breakfast, and she did everything I asked of her -- the first time, no less. We were going to visit a goat farm with her preschool. Field trip!

Abby loved the newborn goats best, and took her turn cradling this one in her arms. She thought it was cool that the goats had long, rock star beards, and that the rooster's call could be heard from anywhere on the farm. She was very gentle and calm with the animals, which I'm sure took a lot of self-control, because she was bursting with excitement and happiness. I was too.

We ate a picnic lunch at Lake Laberge after finishing goat-handling. (Does the place sound familiar? It's the setting of a famous poem). The lake hasn't yet thawed, but it was beautiful and picturesque. 

In my books, a day spent cuddling newborn goats, going on a road trip with my oldest girl, and having a picnic on a pristine beach is a pretty amazing day.

Ode to Mothers Everywhere

 As it is, I imagine, for most mothers, I have deep feelings about mother's day. I feel very loved and appreciated by my family most days, and enjoy the gesture of cards, breakfast in bed and small gifts on this particular occasion. I don't want anything expensive because, as the chief financial officer, I know our resources are limited. I don't want a gourmet meal, because I know it will cause stress to those unaccustomed with preparing anything more complicated than grilled cheese. Waffles in bed make me smile pretty wide, especially when they are paraded in by my family bearing sweet, homemade cards and gifts.

The sun, growing fireweed and, apparently, aided by Angry Birds characters.

My first gift made entirely by Abby:
Body scrub with avocado oil, vitamin E, lavender oil, epsom salts and grape seed oil.

I know today celebrates what I do, what role I have taken on, but I don't feel entirely comfortable accepting praise when I am still so new to the game, and have such big shoes to fill. My mother has already been put through the gauntlet by my siblings and I, and I now idolize her. She has gone where I have not. I am still being mothered by her, and she has attained a level of patience and understanding that is still beyond me. I will always have something to learn from her.

I truly believe that mothers know something everyone else does not. That "something" is hard to articulate, but it is a perspective shaped by understanding human nature, patience, maternal nurturing and love. It is being quietly proud that I am part of a sisterhood that has kept the earth's population growing. Kings, rulers, poets, leaders, all come from mothers. We are given a great responsibility and great power, and that is intimidating. That humbling power changes us. Not all of us, but those who accept motherhood as part of their being, learn from this role and see things differently.

We are the source of all life. Science, with all its advances, has not come up with a way to introduce a new human being to the earth without the vehicle of a human mother. The process needs the incalculable magic and mystery of a mother.

Not every sect of society and certainly not every individual celebrates women as life-givers, or even as equals. I think that denies credit due to those who transcend the boundaries between life and creation, between God and humanity, by bringing people to life. It is a mystical and sacred thing women do, and I feel it now more than ever with a little miracle fish-flopping and kicking inside me as I type. As I look at the faces of the beings who began inside me as two cells.

Another instalment in the "photos Abby has ruined" series

Cards from my grandmother, mom and faraway friend. Garden decorations by Abby.

Today I raise a cup of tea to the legions of mothers who have come before me, for you are responsible for every single person's existence on this planet. Woah!

Sensory Overload

Okay, this is just phenomenal! Not only has it been T-shirt weather outside, but all the snow has melted, the birds and wildlife are out rubbing the sleep from their eyes, and my windows have been left open for days and nights on end. Rich remarked how much happier his girls have all seemed since the warm weather moved in, and I agree. We are all feeling the sunny lovin. 

I heard someone blaring their car radio while they worked on their garage. I saw young boys learning how to do ollies on their skateboards. I felt the heat of the sun on my bare arms. I smelled ... well, I smelled the dog poo smell that comes with the thaw. I watched chickadees forage for nest-building supplies and food on our lawn.

I sent Abby out to ride her bike with the neighbourhood kids before lunchtime. Skylar asked to be let out back and stayed there the whole afternoon long. I gave Hailey and Robin their first pairs of walking shoes to wear outside.

Abby told me several times how excited she was for springtime.

"Mama," she said. "I don't want winter to come again, not for a long time."

Spring ... it's real!

Don't worry-- it's spring now. Even though there was a snowstorm leaving 20cm of snow in its wake (and on my driveway) on May 1st, May 7th brought T-Shirt weather. And melting snowbanks, and kids riding bikes through puddles, and flood warnings, and babies who can go out in their strollers for walks wearing fleece sweaters as sufficient outerwear.

Halleluia. That was close.

Our plants have maximized on their current real estate and desperately need to be planted outside, away from the destructive plotting of one Goober cat. A week or two more and the last of snow should recede, providing a welcome home to our waiting marigolds and "colourful annuals," (as the left-hand side flowers were described on the seed packet Abby chose).

While we wait for Mother Nature to finish cleaning up from winter and get serious about spring, Abby began work on some garden decorations from a kit she received as a birthday gift. In it were six wooden ornaments that she painted, covered in glitter glue and stickers and let dry. My homework tonight is to affix them to the provided wooden stakes and then hope to God they stay stuck, at least until they go into our flower bed.

This warmer weather is so encouraging. Just when I thought I couldn't take windshield scraping and snow-tromping any longer, redemption came in the form of bare arms. I took a nice walk with a friend today and actually was concerned about sun protection-- what a novelty! 

My Inner Poet

I read an article this weekend that really resonated, and reminded me I've been neglecting a big part of myself: The poet. I have been enjoying my days and finding little joys everywhere, but I haven't been stopping to smell the (hypothetical) roses. 

A poet finds beauty in the minute and the grand. She stops and meditates on the qualities that make it whole and finds the most specific and evocative words to pair with her observations. The poet gives our souls references, jumping-off points to take with us on our days as we observe beauty ourselves.  It is the poet's role to see a sunset and describe it in words we can recognize, agree with, and apply to the sun setting before our own eyes. It takes a slow pace and a heightened awareness to think like a poet, and I've been remiss.

I think a few things have gotten in the way. Social media, with its fast-paced updates and comments require quick wit and shallow thought. Conversations with friends move faster, and seem to have less room for contemplation and a real absorption of words before one offers her response. Parenting itself often requires thinking on my toes, and reacting with cat-like reflexes to a cry for help. 

There is room for a lot more reflection, contemplation and poetry in my day. In preparing dinner during the kids' nap time, there is pause (while stirring the sauce) in which I could use my sensory observations, pair them with memories and metaphors, and piece together a poem in my head that captures the simple essence of a butter reduction. Just for my own heightened enjoyment. During a quiet moment during our afternoon walk, when the sun is warming my cheeks and I begin to recognize signs of spring around me, that is totally poetry in motion. 

It helps me slow down, construct my thoughts deliberately, and really mull over my initial reactions. When I don't give myself the time to think and feel, how do I know what's important? What's special? What's worth letting go of and what's worth celebrating? I don't. Because without poetry, I don't recognize the beauty of my own, unique thoughts as they filter through my head. What a disservice to myself.

So today, I am beginning to work on slowing down, making an effort to pause and really reflect before writing, speaking or otherwise offering a few of my thoughts to anyone. I am reading more of my favourite poetry and on the lookout for new pieces that speak to me now. I will write some of my musings down and tuck them away in my desk drawer to revisit later.

I leave you with a stanza from Robert W. Service's The Spell of the Yukon and hope it resonates with you northern readers, even a little bit, as we exit winter and enter into the most renewing of seasons: spring.

"There’s a land where the mountains are nameless,
   And the rivers all run God knows where;
There are lives that are erring and aimless,
   And deaths that just hang by a hair;
There are hardships that nobody reckons;
   There are valleys unpeopled and still;
There’s a land—oh, it beckons and beckons,
   And I want to go back—and I will."

Directionless

The playoffs are upon us. Rich gave me warning that they were coming, and offered both a shrug and a sly grin because he knows it, and I know it: his priorities now shift to include Ottawa Senators games. Our afternoon walks are arranged around game time, and he agrees to watch/sufficiently monitor kids during hockey games while I prepare dinner on the days he is home from work. Go Sens go!

We have been having some worries up here about our impending summer move, and feeling a bit of the helplessness that comes with being an RCMP family. Baby is coming, and it is making me itch not knowing if we'll be here or somewhere else. I am feeling very off-kilter and unprepared when I'm not sure whether to set up a nursery or not, make summer plans or not. We're doing what we can and trying very hard to be patient. Isn't that something I promised myself I'd work on? 

In the meantime, I'm aware that the kids have no idea what we're worrying about and that makes it easy to dive into our days with joy, ambition and happiness. Their enthusiasm rubs off on me easily, and my days give me so many reasons to stop, look around and smile. I am renewed by things like afternoon nap time for mama (wherein I nest, spring clean, organize and prepare dinner), and morning activities like bread-making, because they give me some direction, even if only for the short-term.

This picture was actually taken at 8:30 p.m.! The sun has been staying up much longer as we near the solstice.

It goes almost without saying that regardless what stresses circle around our heads, I am still very in love with what's going on in my middle.