Tshway.  Don’t you love the sound of that? It almost seems like it is the sound of water itself.  Got me thinking of a conversation I had with my hubby on the way home from the lake last weekend.  It occured to me that some lakes are named with Lake in the beginning and some with Lake at the end. What makes the difference. I thought, maybe size? Lake Ontario, Lake Superior, Lake Erie, but then Slave Lake popped into my head, then Great Bear Lake. So size doesn’t matter when it comes to Lakes.  Of course this rounded my mind into thinking about rivers, and the same anomaly came up.  The River Thames, Hudson River, Mississippi River, The River Nile, hmm.  Is that only the ancient form or the literary form of identifying those rivers?

Lots of things seem to woosh around in my head.  Now this lovely new word, tshway,tshway,tshway.  Try it out. 

I read a lovely account of hearing the geese moving overhead by the writer Robert James Waller.  He suggested that geese fly south in the fall and north in the spring using only Celestial Reckoning.  Navigation by the stars.  What a thought that conjured in my already over active imagination.  The lead goose takes point and it is he or she that the remainder of the flock follows, some as few as 10, some as large as 300.  Close you eyes and picture 300 Canada Geese moving overhead, wing spans of up to 6 feet, beating in a rythym as old as time itself. 

Fall signals the end of the growing season, and the beginning of the nesting cycle for those of us blessed to live in the north.  The urge to bake, to read, to curl up by the fire beckons me home;  makes me lose the urge to wander that I feel so keenly when its warm outside.

So long Canada’s.  See you in the Spring. 

Hmm.  I am at this point in my life where I am not only questioning the things I once believed to be true, but I am questioning the things I once believed to be false.  This brings many challenges, and yet this line of reasoning, this journey is proving to be quite amazing.  For example.  As a child I believed in the grandfatherly, white haired, forgiver of everything God.  Life itself taught me this was far too simple an assumption.  For a while as an adult I lost sight of him completely, lost sight of faith entirely and then gradually discovered a different spirituality asserting itself through the hubris of my experiences. 

Buddhism spoke a truth to me that I didn’t expect.  The simple logic of loving kindness, mindful living, lack of attachment and desire and the acceptance of change bring me great comfort.  I love the imagery of fighting change being ‘as futile as the day resisting the night, or winter resisting spring.’  Armed with this knowledge I am finding ways to let go of the past by visualizing this powerful message.  Whenever I feel myself clinging to old hurts or sadnesses that keep me in a place I no longer want to live, or overwhelmed with the ebb and flow of normal life I forcefully pull my thoughts to the positive, to the gains change bring, whether or not they are immediately obvious.  In fact, like most of my fellow searchers, the gifts that have come to me through tragedy are singularly the ones I cherish the most.

I have not abandoned the religious teachings of my parents.  Far from it.  What I believe to be happening is the blending of the goodness inherent in those lessons with the natural progression of my own faith.  My own faith in the world, in humanity, in love, compassion, science, everything.  I was never sure what the expression, ‘I am spiritual, but not religious” meant.  I think I do now, or am beginning to.  With every assumption I challenge about myself, win or lose I find my vision of this life, this moment, improving.  Yes, it’s sometimes a shitty existence,  life brings suffering,  life is painful and loss is inevitable.  How we deal with those things means everything.  This premise seems simplistic yet is proving to be the toughest challenge yet.

Through all of this I finally forgave myself for being weak.  Forgave myself for being flawed.  Forgave myself for being me. I am even beginning to see myself the way the people that love me seem to.  It’s really nice. As I see myself in the eyes and the hearts of my loved ones, I learn to care for me.  Something we all desperately need to do!  What I desire now is to hold out some of this ‘truth’ to my kids;  if they want it, in the hope that their own path to acceptance and peace may be strengthened by my own.  If not, that’s ok too.  This is a road often travelled alone. 

good old R.F.  …and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.

Very recently a letter arrives.  This wonderful man has suffered a great loss.  His wife is ill;  terminal, and he has chosen, rightly, to close his practise and care for her exclusively.  Tragic for both of them, and for their children, their family, but strangely enough unbelievably tragic for his patients as well. I have only compassion for his situation, of course, but I had no idea how badly his absence would affect me and my kids.  25 years with the same care and suddenly it is gone. 

I embark on a quest to find a replacement.  In a city that has seen unprecedented growth in the last ten years this proves to be an immense challenge.  There simply are no doctors taking new patients, but I found one.  Close to home, accepting new patients, marvelous I thought!  45 minutes of waiting in a very small treatment room and he comes in.  I try to introduce myself and he holds up an imperious hand and informs me that he is ‘a very busy man.  What are my issues?’  I stumble out with, “My doctor has had to close his practise and I am seeking a new family physician.”  He stops me mid-sentence and tells me he knows this as he has had to take many patients from that practise and again tells me what a busy man he is.  I’m not sure what to do at this point and I stare at him for a moment trying to collect my thoughts.  He barks out, “What are your medical issues?” and stares me down.  Somehow I squeak out the reasons I think I need a physicians care, and although I have a couple of ongoing  issues that are controlled with medication I am basically healthy.  He looks at me incredulously and says, “I am a very busy man, I prefer patients who only come in here with one problem, or just phone in to have their prescriptions refilled.  I don’t have time for patient care!”  Somehow, I found my voice and asked him, ”Why are you taking new patients if you don’t have the room for them in your practise?”  He evades this question altogether and tells me most of his patients are young, and from down east!  I obviously miss the relevance of this remark and am waiting for an answer to the question.  It never comes.  He looks at me one last time,  (to this point he still has not come any where near me or said my name ) and orders me to fill out the forms necessary to move my records to his office!  I am in shock by this point and truly don’t know what to say in retort.  He leaves the room and I am sitting there wondering what the hell just happened!  As I leave the office, I ask the harried receptionist to shred my files and tell her that I won’t be moving my charts or myself and under her breath I hear her say, “I don’t blame you.”  Holy shit.  

  This leaves me with medi-centre style care.  Committed care facilities no doubt, but completely impersonal.  No continuity, no common ground or history, no connections from one family member to the others. Unbearably long wait times, no appointments available and unlikely to meet with the same doctor more than once.  Finding the courage to discuss personal health issues with a complete stranger who really has ten minutes to give you and no more is daunting to say the least.  If you suffer from ongoing health issues or heaven forbid mental illness of any kind you are forced to blurt out things you barely face with a trusted confidant.  I don’t doubt their capacity to care, their ethics or their training, but it takes time to build the relationship of trust necessary to seek help.  How do you do that in ten minute intervals with a doctor that can’t even sit down to talk with you? 

So, here I am furiously seeking alternatives.  I have no idea where to go from here, but have no choice as the option of no family physician is just not viable for me. 

Don’t we live in very strange times?

I was sitting in the front room, watching the morning break over the street, the glow of our Christmas lights shining on the snow drifts in our front yard, the way the arms of the spruce tree held the snow and the lights in a picture perfect tableau. I was admiring my Christmas tree in the pre-dawn light and having a rare moment of complete peace and satisfaction with the world and my place in it.  I was thinking about my kids,  my sisters so far away,  my big brother and how long it had been since we sat around the tree together.  I was thinking about my parents, how much they loved Christmas, everything about Christmas.  The fun, the food, the friends and family that surrounded us.  They were like two big kids and thier joy was an infection we all happily contracted.   I wasn’t sad, just reflective really.  Lost in other Christmases when things were different, not better, just different.

“from out on the lawn there arose such a clatter…” almost.  From the kitchen came the scrabbling of claws on lino, scritch scritch scritch,  dead silence for a second and then the unmistakable sound of my 6 month old kitten, Baxter, trying to make the corner into the dining room.  In hot pursuit was Izzy, our year old kitten, the much older and wiser version of cat of course. 

 He didn’t quite make it.

Right in his path was our creche.  Complete with angels, sheep, cows, shepherds and of course 3 wise men looking earnestly and somberly on.  As Baxter rounded the corner, or attempted to, he veered into the manger, and one of the wise men, Caspar I think,  sadly in the wrong place at the wrong time, was sent flying,  only to land head first on the lovely wooden floor of the stable so lovingly recreated by my carpenter husbands hands. 

Off flew his head - off flew the terrified cat, and just I sat there and watched the whole thing play out in what seemed like slow motion photography!  The poor  mans head spun in a crazy circle and then rolled over and over until it came to a stop next to a sheep. 

Once I stopped laughing and let me tell you, that took some time, I went to the scene of the carnage and picked up poor Caspar. His head had snapped off cleanly, like he had been beheaded by something swift and sharp. How strange he looked, headless, with his flowing robes and outstretched hands bearing a gift. I wasn’t sure what to do with him!

 An easy fix my husband assured me. A little gorilla glue from our friends at Lee Valley and all would be returned to normal.

Not quite I think.  The story just begs telling.  I had to phone everyone in my family.  I phoned my kids, I phoned my mom, I phoned my sisters and the story grew funnier with every conversation.  We all shared that laugh, that crazy moment when the unexpected comes. Of course, then the conversation moved to Christmases past, and funny things that we remembed, some we resurrected from childhood memories, some were family stories that just hadn’t come up, hadn’t been shared.  In turn I spoke to all of them, and by the time the afternoon rolled around I had had quite an unexpected day!

Later that evening,  at a concert at the John Walter House, one of the musicians asked ‘had anyone had a Christmas catastrophe yet that they’d like to share?’ Cat-astrophe alright, and one too good to keep to myself.  I treated a roomful of strangers to a well recieved laugh and felt the story grow again.

Something so simple.  Something that came to me at a time when I was feeling nostalgic about my kids growing up, homesick for my family, my sisters, old friends…and what happens?  A wise man loses his head and I find Christmas. 

Thanks Baxter.  I couldn’t have asked for a better gift.   

Now what remains is where to find the words that inspire, that quicken the pulse or shake foundations.  There is no easy terminology for the writers urge.  I have heard it described by many names;  spewing, purging, both elicit some negative emotions, bursting or flowing, nicer imagery but I think perhaps a collective of all of them is true.   I have been writing my entire life.  Journalling, story writing, letters, cards, emails.  Written words are more to me than markings on a page.  They are alive, breathing, persuading us to think or to ponder, to rage or to find comfort, and more often than not  simple entertainment.  Company on a cold winter morning.  Bliss in the hot Mexican sunshine or the sunbeam laden afternoons on the deck.  I have been accused of retreating into words, into books and find that to be quite alright with me.  Where better to  lose or find yourself? 

My hope is that you, my dear readers, will find some thought has tagged along with you once you’ve visited here and that doing so, some tangle in your own path to enlightenment, freedom, maturity, peace, whatever, has come loose enough for you to watch it stretch out and become what it is meant to become.

Beginnings are often strange.  I have been plagued with blank page syndrome, also known as writers block, so here’s hoping that this very unusual way of writing will tempt the muse to return.

This week, my musings have brought me to the struggle I like to call the  Christmas crazies. I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas.   Try as I might there is always something that will throw me.  Listening to Bing will warm my heart and suddenly bring me to tears, all within the space of one song. Baking cookies without a houseful of kids is just not fun!  It is just plain work, and even icing the little gingerbread guys is just not doing it for me without a tableful of mess and disorder and sticky little fingers! Decorating the tree does not thrill my 24 year old son, and that’s fine, but why does it matter so much to me that he put his own Tree Bear up? Why do I feel sad because they aren’t here driving me nuts, arguing over who gets to put what up and why mom loves him best because he has more baby ornaments! 

The path to enlightenment, the journey to evolve,   ‘welcome the negative emotions, deal with them and let them go’  all sounds perfectly reasonable, makes great sense to me, but the reality of doing that just isn’t happening!   I am trying, really trying to live in the moment, to be mindful - to look at things one piece at a time, and all of this sounds right, appeals to my sense of order and yet!  I suppose if it were so easy to become enlightened there wouldn’t be so many of us on the path trying to find our way!

So, one step at a time, one post at a time until the words work their magic and help me to work out where I am and what I’m up to.  You’d think that at the ripe old age of 48 I would have learned to recognize myself in the mirror, but not so much.  For now, I practise patience, I practise my Tai Chi movements, I practise meditating without complete distraction and mostly I practise breathing.  Little by little I succeed.