Grade 1 and Grade 3

A Vocabulary List for New Canadians:

1. holiday: (noun) vacation. Ex: "We're going on holiday."
2. runners: (noun, plural) athletic shoes. Ex: "The boys bought new runners for school."
3. expiry: (adjective) expiration. Ex: "What is the expiry date on your credit card."
4. Catholic Board: (noun, proper) A school board that runs the Catholic schools which are FREE just like the public schools. The Catholic schools use the same curriculum as the public schools, but they also integrate faith in God and service into all that they do.  Ex: "My sons will be attending a Catholic school this fall which is run by the Catholic Board."
5. Grade One and Grade Three: (nouns) The reversal of 1st grade and 3rd grade, respectively. Ex: My sons will be entering Grade One and Grade Three next week after our abominably long summer.

Thank God. I pray each morning that I will not kill them before then.

Dear The Soon-To-Be Teachers of My Sons :

You're likely working off the excess weight you may have acquired during the summer: creating name tags, putting up tacky boarders, fighting with the copy machines, kissing up to the Principal, comparing tans and pictures with your colleagues, hugging the ones you missed, and hiding from the ones you didn't.

Maybe you're even looking at all those empty seats in your classroom and enjoying the quiet and fresh air that still exists before the steamy invasion of stinky and small humans. I know. I was a teacher for the past 14 years, and I know what it's like to teach other people's children. I know how mind-numbingly difficult it can be. I know that you'll sometimes be sad and crabby in the mornings and sometimes at your wit's end resisting the urges to slap someone and cry. I know that you likely do not appreciate every person you work with and that you have to jump through so many policies and procedures that you sometimes lose sight of why you became a teacher. I know that your smiles will often be forced.

Well this year, you will be spending the year with the two most important young people in my life. These two little humans are the investment of my life. For the past eight and a half years they have consumed almost all of my mental, emotional and physical resources. And though they are a huge pain in the ass some much of the time, they are the receptacle of my investment and I am proud of them.

So I ask you this:

If my children are disrespectful in any way, to anyone, please discipline them.
If they are lazy, please notice and encourage them.
If they are messy, please show them a nicer way.
If they are sad, please hug them.
If they are arrogant, please humble them.
If they are snarky, please don't tolerate.
If they are brilliant, please praise them.
If they excel, please show them how to help others.

...and lastly, (the exact same thing I ask of them each morning): Be kind, be patient, and be polite. And remember, even though these students you are about to meet and spend the year with are not your children, they are someone's. And they are loved without conditions by many.

In return, I promise to pray for you also, each and every day: That you will spend more time wondering with them than memorizing facts, that you will find the uniqueness of each of them instead of finding faults, that you will open up new worlds and possibilities to them and they will want to return to the space you create. That you will teach them about God and Faith and Service with your actions more than your words. That you will bring out the best in them and help them feel safe enough to take important risks.

Thank you for being a teacher. Thank you for sharing in my investment. I trust you even before I know you.

After all, these two boys of mine, and all of their classmates, are the future. And even though at this moment they aspire to be professional hockey players and animal hunters, we all know that they will more than likely become teachers or farmers or dentists or lawyers or roofers. But let's all pray that whatever future they choose that they will above all be kind, be patient, and be polite. In Jesus' name.

slime

Being a mom of two young boys requires some fairly extreme sacrifices. I often wished for girls and dreamed of nail-painting and hair-braiding and baking and doing dishes together. Fuck. What is that? As if a domestic atom remains hidden deep within me, longing to be the stay-at-home-goddess that I so despise. But. Guessing from my many women friends that actually parent girls, I'd say that my fantasies about raising girls are about as far off as, well, any other fantasy.

Boys, however, require....slime. Slime, a substance that abhors me. It is as hard for me to look at slime as it is for many to look at a hypodermic needles or at a drill that is about to enter the mouth. I was one of those women who gasped after being asked if I'd like a mirror during delivery. "Hell no," I not-so-meekly replied, "I do not want to see that human until it is wiped up, cleaned up, and preferably bathed." Slime is repulsive to me. Absolutely. I can't even eat eggs if they have a bit of uncooked yolk. Agghhh. I am dry-heaving after merely typing the words.

So. My recent parental sacrifice: I took my boys fishing. I was assured by my loving and vindictive husband that I had no cause to worry because Myles (the eldest son) would "take care of it all." Little did I realize that being within a few inches of said "taking care of it all" I would have to witness (watch AND listen) to the ick of the wiggly and helpless worms being cut (really cut! by a knife!) in HALF before being impaled onto a hook. I could hear their screams of terror. But it only got worse for them. They were then slowly lowered into the depths of the lake to be nibbled on by even slimier and uglier creatures: Fish who would come on board our boat, not amused, with gouged out eyes and bloody mouths (and swung mere millimeters from my eyes) only to wait for an 8-year old human to rip and tear the hook out of eye or cheek with about as much gentleness as a hungry alligator looking at a sweet little bunny.

I admit it: There was a little pride involved while watching my eldest decompose and mutilate these poor fish as he separated them from their hooks. I would say 10% pride, 90% disgust. But that 10% was amazed at his capacity for slime. Something clearly not passed down from me.
It was the hardest stomach challenge since childbirth.

I say: I wish we had girls. And then I say: I don't want to do that again.

mandates

You know you live in Canada when.... you look down the street in the afternoon to try and spot your children (to make sure they weren't kidnapped, though sometimes you wish they were) and you see at least three driveway road hockey games occurring simultaneously...

I was busy unpacking boxes that were packed up months ago... old photo albums that I wish were destroyed. My own children didn't recognize me in some of them, the fat years. Those years when I must have lost a mirror and hadn't yet learned that when you eat a lot and don't exercise, the pounds add up like Count Dracula on crack.

But. Here's the thing. Unpacking some of these old mementos causes me pause. I have a gut reaction that says, these don't belong here, what are they doing here? Wait. What am I doing here? If these relics from 1980 followed me here, that must mean I'm staying. My trail has followed me. This isn't just an extended vacation where my dishes followed me... my everything followed me. My parents even followed me for a few days.

About an hour after they left, my mother texted me: "I love your new home and city. Be happy there." It was a command. And I wouldn't call my mom the bossy type. She's more the whatever type. So when she says (or texts) like that, it's a threat. A don't-you-dare-not-do-it threat. And I can't even type what happens when you don't follow one of her few of these. Let's just say it involves extreme pain.

So I'm here in Canada. I'm really here. To stay. And it's weird.

Being new

My mother-in-law recently had a health scare, and we needed to explain to The Children (in a moment of don't know how to b.s. this one, better just tell the truth) what happens when things get "old," like our dog, our cars, and a lot of the stuff in the fridge... Death is part of life, death happens to us all, dealing with death is hard and sad, but you get through it, it gets better, etc.

So my 5-year old is thinking about this, clearly getting a bit nervous, and then asks, "But you and Daddy are still new, right?"

Yes, indeed. We are spanking new.

We are new here. Here in Canada. Here in this expensive and strangely quiet and questioningly-friendly place. And being new is hard. It actually kinda sucks much of the time.

Yesterday, I cried when I couldn't find the grocery store. We were all really hungry and tired of eating takeout on the floor.

Today, I almost cried at the bank. The customer service reps here were willing to give me a mortgage, but not willing to give me a bank account. Because I have no proof of address. Even though they just gave me a mortgage to help fund my primary residence. I'm not saying Canadians are stupid. But.

And. I can't get my car registered unless I have car insurance. And I can't get car insurance unless I have a Canadian license plate. Hmmmm....

Ya. New.

But I do know where the nearest liquor stores are located.

And people are crazy nice and polite here. As in: we were invited to someone's house for lunch after a 5-minute conversation; we peaked in a trendy shop downtown and the owner was so excited to hear where we just bought a house, he asked us our address so he could stop by; some people we met at the beach a few weeks ago called today to invite us to the hang out with them tomorrow. This has all been a salve for my sad and lonely soul. And it also seems a bit conspiratorial: are these people terrorists? Kidnappers? Or worse? We have nothing to go by except our guts.

Our NEW guts.

May they lead us to the right places.

baptism by waterfall

If you move to Canada,
you may want to jog early each morning
(early before the sticky tourists violate the beauty and try to steal it with their fancy lenses)
and you will get to Table Rock
where you can look at the water and try to comprehend its allure:
As if you are a droplet
fumbling into the unknown
helpless.
It may assuage any feelings of importance you may have
it may stroke your ego with a soothing peace
it may force you to a place of humility and smallness
it may cause you to wonder how often humans have stolen beauty in the name of safety...
Then one time you might go there
and you might peer over the edge to collect this daily reminder
and the wind will shift
and you will be shrouded by the cloud of heavy mist
and you might laugh
(and passersby may think you silly or insane)
and you will feel refreshed
after being baptized by the water that should go down but has risen up to embrace you...
and as you finally turn around to leave
to enter your life post-baptism
you will see a rainbow
and you will laugh again
and maybe cry
and wonder what change has taken over.

Happy 4th of July to the US!

From what I've learned so far, this is marvelously magnanimous of me. Most Canadians don't seem to like the people that inhabit the US, or the Country itself. Rooted like most hatreds, I'm guessing, in jealously. The "US" is filled (so they seem to think here) with a bunch of selfish, gas-guzzling, fat, land-hogging, arrogant older brothers and sisters who disdain them.

But I am not through with my inculcation, so I am still distrusted and not considered a member of the tribes here just yet. Apparently, my probationary period involves some torture: a family reunion that promises to be hot and painful, a survival test of the humidity, a driving test (though I can't see this being too hard since apparently NO ONE here knows yet how to drive. Example: On the freeways they have large signs that say things like "Use caution and check your blindspot before changing lanes" and "Stay alert, stay alive." As if people on the road have never driven before. What? I must check lanes AND stay alert? WTF? Whoever heard of that?)

So I am once again in a liminal space. Not yet a member here, but cut off from my comfort zone. And oh how I miss it at times.

In my cultural education, I am learning:

-how to snip the corner of my milk bags, not too small, not too large--like finding the balance between a scream and a whisper...
-how to resist the temptation to chat on my phone while driving...
-how to make my vowels a bit more taut--they waste no excess in overpronouncing their vowels here. As if every jump between consonants needs to be as tight as Nik Wallenda's rope over Niagara Falls: Say that instead of thaaat, say long instead of loooong...
-how to enunciate my t's; this particular consonant gets barely any attention in the states, yet here, it is much loved and even often used in place of d's, as in good, which sounds like goot. Also in words like that, yet, a bit (common), and cute. It's so cute...
-how to lift my inflection at the end of every sentence, as if I'm always asking a question: As in, "We are looking for a home to buy?; We have two boys?; We just moved here from Denver?..." statements I've made of late ad nauseum...
-that recycling is complex: there are THREE bins we have in the kitchen that we use to sort all of our waste. Organics (anything that you might be tempted to throw down your garbage disposal), Plastics, and Paper. Oh, and you only get one black trash bag per household per week. You have more? You must purchase extra garbage tags at the city building.

Perhaps soon we'll have a ceremony where I will be let in the fold, as for now, I am existing in this trial period, waiting patiently for the unknown day when I will belong here. I suspect it may take a while.

We celebrated Canada Day on July 1 at this location above (My favorite place on earth, the reason I agreed to move to Canada, and where you'll find me every summer from here on out). This holiday is strangely familiar to your 4th: Lots of flags, general merriment, fireworks, hamburgers, bad jokes, and beer. But this country is only 145 years old. And my family watched the fireworks in the cradle of a boat in the middle of the lake. We were rocked by the waters while we peered up into the Canadian night sky, listening for echoes, watching for our favorite patterns of explosions.

For a permanent home? We discovered a lovely little peninsula called Port Dalhousie (pronounced da-lose-ie) in St. Catharines. We have a tradition that we never turn down an invitation for coffee or a drink if we have nothing better to do and the people seem mildly interesting... After our first Church experiment, we were invited for coffee to an old Dutch couple's home. Turns out they were trying to sell their home which happens to be on this lovely little peninsula... Yes, we'll be moving in early August.

8 year olds, The Trinity, and cross-dressers

This past Sunday I took my 8 year old to Church with me. He went to Sunday School for the first chunk of the service. I chose a seat about five seats deep in a lonely aisle. A 60-ish year old woman sat next to me. And by "next" I mean immediately beside me. Which was a bit strange since there were several seats to spare. But whatever. We "greeted" in the normal, sometimes painful, obligatory meet-and-greet way that Church services often force. She was kind. She wore a pink sweater, and we giggled that we matched down to the shade. I complimented her jewelry: how it delightfully livened her colors. She smirked in the humble way that women do to let other women know that they know. She wore a mini-skirt, heels, and had a cute grayish bob. She sat with her legs crossed. And had a purse. She introduced herself as Jessica. Jessica, however, had failed to adequately shave the thick scruff on her chin. Lots of it. She was clearly not a she. 

And I spent the next 45 minutes wondering why. And terrified what Myles would say when he joined us in the service.

Trying to take notes during the sermon, I struggled with a dead-beat marker. Jessica scrambled in her purse to find me a worthy pen. She may have peaked at my notes. I did my best to disguise them so she wouldn't know they were about her. Kind of.

The Trinitarian topic prompted my first scribble: Church relations with one another are to reflect the relations of the Trinity.

The second jot: A quote by Miroslav Volf, "The Spirit present in all Christians 'opens' each of them to all others. It starts them on the way to creative mutual giving and receiving, in which each grows in his or her own unique way and all have joy in one another."

To all others? Really? All? Even the ones who are seemingly misguided and crazy? (Yet, I, myself am certainly misguided and crazy...I think I have learned, however, how to disguise it better.)

Creative mutual giving? What must I give to this man who has chosen to badly disguise himself as a woman? I struggled with my temptation to give him/her my disgust. Surely my censure and visible displeasure at her choice would create a change that we all could live with, right? I caught myself quickly, realizing that this must be the normal response of many, one that she is likely painfully used to. I also thought maybe Jessica trusted me not to do this in her choice to sit next to me. 

I suspect that we all wear a disguise to some degree. Trying to convince people we are someone we are not, but only aspire to be. Most of the people I associate with wear disguises that are generally approved by the masses: The executive, the supermom, the compassionate servant, etc. Jessica does not. My visceral response to this man-woman was one of judgment and fear. And shake-your-head oh dear. My judgment of her was rooted in an expectation of how most people I know implicitly agree to wear their disguises.

When Myles joined us in the service, he didn't flinch. When she asked, Myles showed Jessica the drawings he had done in Sunday School. He sat cozy with us in our too-close-together-seats. He answered her questions politely. He even took her advice about how to draw better tails on wolves. 

We ended up sitting together again at the Church BBQ that followed the service. I learned that Jessica lost her wife of 39 years to breast cancer last year. I also learned that Jessica is a successful engineer. And. That she just came out as a She a short while ago. She read my expressions well as I tried desperately to force away any judgment. But. I unmasked my confusion. She explained that after coming out as a she, she was finally able to feel like herself, to feel that this is who she really is. And in spite of the torturous reactions of many, she feels like she is being true to who she was designed to be: A woman.

In the folds of the weirdness of the story, there were some truths: A longing that we all have--to find our true selves, and be content. To find that one disguise that doesn't feel like a disguise. That one that feels like home, that it was meant just for us. An identity that reveals who we are, not who we are not.

And why am I tempted to judge someone who finds themselves in a socially unacceptable disguise, to judge that just because it's not one that I choose, it is wrong? My discomfort reveals more about me than it does about her. She was confident. And happy. And eager to share her story. I am so worried about what people think of me most of the time that I return things that people make fun of. I practically still live in middle school with some of my girlfriends. I am forced to listen to their desires for bigger boobs and Botox, and then look in the mirror and want the same.

In the end, I realized that it is not my job to judge or condemn. I am only called to love. And Jessica did indeed give something to me. I hope I gave her something too.