Monthly Archives: February 2010

a couch belongs inside

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Several years ago when my children were little, we were having dinner with another family, whose teenage daughter got a call to go to a party/sleepover. We took her together, my littles in the back buckled safely in, moments from their bedtime, while  my friend’s daughter jumped out in excruciatingly tight jeans, sleeping bag in hand, at a house with an old couch on the front porch. Will the parents be home? I called after her. She said yes, the mother and her boyfriend.

I have never considered myself a snob- in fact anti snob is more me- but this scene with teenagers pouring in and out, the chipping paint, and broken window, mom with the boyfriend and an old couch on the porch was an announcement of single motherhood and a falling apart  for me.

Years later when I became a single mother, no matter how hard it was to do everything and pay for everything, I could not bear the thought of my house falling a part. Somehow it represents how we are.

A good couch stays inside. A bad couch gets put out to the curb. No in between.

And this with relationships  as well.

it was pretty

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This morning I was interviewed at CBC for my blog by a host producing a show  due to air this summer. She had read my blog last week and felt it said so much she had wanted to communicate through this show that she wanted me  to read many of my blog posts on air. More importantly, she felt I had spoken for her, a divorced mom of two young children.

We had an immediate connection beyond the obvious and  no shortage of things to talk  about over the last few long phone conversations. After I read one of my favourite passages, I said, without thinking, ” ohhh, I love that one” and then “what does it mean to love your own stuff and admit to it?” She said – ‘well, that is the most beautiful gift on earth.’

I can’t help but agree. When Christine Nesbitt won the gold medal for the 1000 metre speed skate she said she “wasn’t happy” and that her skate “wasn’t pretty.” Her father re inforced her statement by adding that this self judgement brought her to where she is today.

Ok,  maybe true. But is she having any fun? Is she enjoying herself or her self?

Today was not the Olympics for me but it was a small  moment to be recognised for what I am doing- not perfectly, not always pretty but doing something with my self in the middle of it. To be supported doing what you love and to have people appreciate it  is more than  pretty.

I keep telling my children not to be the obnoxious one when they get the 97% and tell everyone with a sour face that they  are sad to have missed those three marks. Somewhere in the crowd is a person just dying to get the Bronze with the flexed arm hang, hoping to pass the math exam, wishing to have a few people sign up for their blog, laugh at their joke, ask for seconds at their table  or tell them their butt does not look big in those jeans.

Today expensive parking was  reduced by a smile, no one  was waiting for me in security, a pissed off producer of Fresh Air was mad to be interrupted because no one else was available to escort me up to the sound booth, there  was a cough button (love that), a headset from someone’s  1970’s rec room stereo, an oversized microphone that gave off a hissing sound, a coffee stained rug- covered desk top, a red button that indicated”on air” and a clock that ticked loudly. Just me alone in a low budget sound room.

Today was not pretty. It was downright gorgeous.

Family is content not form

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Family Day was declared a holiday after I separated by the association of people who like to pour salt in wounds.

As bad luck would have it, my dear friend Sam’s marriage fell apart a year after mine. As good luck would have it, she bought the house just behind mine. We both work from home, have two girls of the same age and at the same school and we both love life. We live 48 sidewalk squares from each other-  counted immediately after purchase .  We are enormous support to one another.

Weekly we cook for one another, dine with one another and run errands for one another. Our dinners have laughter and tears- everyone is invited to table a dilemma or share a story. Who should pay to replace the keyboard  when OJ was  spilled through out, goals, thrills and mistakes, dads and girlfriends breaking up, too much schoolwork, misbehaving at school dances,  great and beautiful things that have happened for the moms, or what a fair amount of chores would be.  Before a date we borrow clothes, we run business ideas past one another, we listen, we talk, we help carry, we wrestle each other’s Christmas trees into the stands, if we buy too much of something we share with the other. Mainly, we buy too much so that we can share.  Our children call the other one ‘my second mom’.

Our meals together are always an event- a full table of laughter, animation and too much to eat.  As Sam says,   “every meal a banquet”.

This is  family too.