Little Fingers, Big Hand

Leaving church.
People joining us for lunch.
Nothing in the fridge.
Deb will go with friends to direct them.
I'll take Aria home via the store.
Got a basket in one hand.
Trying to keep her content in the other.
And tune in, engage.
(She's babbling about the shiny helium balloons.
Takes me a while to figure that out.)
While not forgetting all the stuff I'm there for.
Get to the checkout.
Put the groceries down.
Fish my wallet out.
Aria's restless 'cause she's been held too long.
And I've run out of hands.
Put her down.
"Stay close, baby girl."
She tries to bolt, but I've got her blocked.
Fish card out of wallet.
Now she's playing with the previous person's cart.
Ain't she cute?
Distracted by paying cashier and stuff.
Half hear, half feel empty cart roll over her finger.
Nuts-rats-shoot.
I've got her up before she even starts crying.
Doesn't stop the outburst.
All eyes on me, or her or whatever.
I don't really care.
I only care that she's hurt.
Finish paying, grab bags.
Trying to look at her injured hand.
It's sore, she's hiding it from me.
Hasty exit.
Torn between melting ice cream and crying baby.
Bundle her in car seat.
Big tears welling in her eyes.
And dripping off her cheeks.
But it doesn't look bad.
Mercifully.
Offering soothing comforting sounds.
"Sorry, baby girl."
"You're okay."
"We're almost there."
Try to get home fast.
But traffic sucks.
And I'm thinking.

"Sorry" is something that they say in Zimbabwe in moments like that. It used to drive me nuts: it wasn't your fault, why are you saying sorry? And now I'm in the cultural divide. I'm saying sorry, does that mean I'm taking responsibility? (This brings another realisation: Canada has insufficient cultural ways for sympathising in pain. It was natural in Zimbabwe, however awkward it sounded to us. Word like "sorry" and "shame" were used as terms of instant commiseration.) For my own part, the incident is being mentally replayed multiple times.

She was rolling the cart back and forth. I saw the danger in that, but I was managing it. She wasn't being reckless, actually quite gentle and controlled, or I would have surely intervened. It was a matter of inches -- no more than three. But evidently three was enough. I suppose I could have bodily prevented it from rolling back, so it would only go forward. Furthermore, I only really needed both hands for a moment, and then I could have had her up again. Safe. But the world isn't safe.

I want her to explore and be free, but I also want her to be aware of the dangers that exist. I'm trying to figure out where that balance lies. And it's a moving target, so I know I'll never have it sorted out. But I'm least trying to get a handle on the principle. What I have to come to terms with is that there is enough danger and risk in the world to ensure that she will feel pain. And ultimately this is where faith gets put on trial. Because God allows each of us to feel pain and to suffer. Whether there's a reason for that pain, and whether its redemption is possible is something I must leave up to him. But the stakes are raised when it's a new life that you've chosen to bring into the world. That's a whole new level -- a different dimension -- of trust.

Her crying simmers down slowly.
As if she's willing herself to be comforted by me.
She's finally calm, sucking her thumb.
We pull in, and I park close.
Unclip her, and get her in the front door.
Set her on her feet and she goes tottering off to find Mom.
She finds everyone in the kitchen.
Their reaction makes her arrival a grand entrance.
I hear it all the way from outside.
She's surrounded by so much love.
Enough to make a hurt finger insignificant.
Perhaps that was the point.
OK, touché.

And the ice cream didn't melt either.
Double touché.

If He cares about little hurt fingers and ice cream...
Wow!
The important truths always come at you sideways.

I'M SO TIRED!!!

Well, I just finished my first day of riding training. Some initial thoughts and impressions:

1. We all tend to focus on what we're NOT doing well, and see everyone else's successes.
2. It's fun to ride together and to go fast.
3. I'm good at turning corners, not good at figuring out how to accelerate in first gear smoothly.
4. Slalom SUCKS, but to do better with it you need to imagine it's a waltz ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three.
5. You need to look LEFT, right, LEFT before you start moving your bike every time you stop.
6. I still don't know my lefts from my rights every time (which leads to confusion when the brake is on the right, and the clutch is on the left).
7. Instructors are brilliant at telling you what you did wrong, even if you did everything right. The first time I got through the cones (only once of two times), without knocking any of them down, I was told to turn off my right turn signal. DOH!!
8. You need to stretch and exercise your hands before you start taking lessons (clutching and braking make you grip WAY more than usual - get one of those stress balls and use them).
9. At the end of the day you will be sore.
10. You will mess up trying to apply a brake - even if you've done it many times before.
11. I carry my stress in my shoulders ( They kept knowing I was anxious about what I was doing because my shoulders were around my ears - and it's BAD to ride stressed).
12. IT IS SO MUCH FUN, when you stop stressing out about it and just ride.

The Power of Positive Thinking.

That's right ladies and gentlemen, you can now have ANYTHING you want. All you have to do is...(drum roll please...I said DRUM ROLL...) THINK POSITIVELY!! It's that easy, Ladies & Gents, boys and girls. If you want an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle, you can have it as long as you think positively. Ignore those awful naysayers who tell you you'll shoot your eye out and think positively and ANYTHING can be yours. That's right ANYTHING... You want a new car? It's YOURS, You want a house? It's YOURS! You want your brother to get out of prison? Oh...Sure, WHY NOT? You want your decrepit old dog to get BETTER? Uhhh...OK... You want your dead hamster Fluffy to come back to life...uhhh...sorry kid, it's not going to happen.

Ok, so I don't believe in those fake impossible cheesy versions of "the power of positive thinking", but I do think that a big part of how you deal with life is the choice you make to take situations (crappy or otherwise) and be positive or negative about them. I know many people who are pregnant right now, and often the first response I get from people when we talk about them is: "I thought of you and how you must be feeling right now...(and then in a tragic, sad tone) how are you?". Well, to be honest, sometimes it's hard for me. But that's MY personal issue to deal with, and in the grand scheme of things, how can I be anything but SUPER happy for my friends who are looking forward to a baby. My sadness does NOTHING to diminish the happiness I have for them, and personally, I'd rather talk to you about how happy I am about them than make it #1 about me and #2 a negative conversation.

People tell me how tragic it is that I lost my mother (and she was SO young) is the comment I often hear. I know a student who lost her mom in Grade 8, and her Dad was diagnosed with cancer in her Grade 12 year. I can choose to live my life feeling sorry for myself for what I'm missing, or cherish how long I did get to enjoy my mom. And don't feel too sorry for the girl who lost her mom in Grade 8 - she got her until then! Do you see how it's all in the choices you make and the perspective you have?

And what does this perspective allow me to do? It gives me permission to go on living. Rather than burrowing down into a little hole of self pity and making everyone else's life only be experienced directly in relation to MY life - their happiness is only reflected in how sad I am about what I am missing, and their sadness isn't as great as mine either, for whatever reason (I once had a grieving soul tell me "yes, but at least you KNEW your mother was dying, mine just had a heart attack, and we had no time to prepare". I could have rebutted with "Yes, but your mother saw you have children, saw them graduate from high school, saw you live a happy and long life, and you had her until she was 70", instead, I saw that she was coming from a place of loss and grief, and that this situation had nothing to do with "poor Deb" at the moment, and much more to do with allowing her to express her grief however she wanted.). All that to say, other people's lives are connected to mine, but not a reflection of mine. I have the opportunity to experience joy as well as sorrow. God gives us laughter and pain and by looking at life positively, I see each in both. My joy is only made deeper by the understanding I have of sorrow, and my pain knows hope, and my laughter comes from a place through pain, not denying it.

If you're NOT a positive thinker, it's a choice you make, with each day, with each moment. Choose to look at the world positively, because it develops a habit that will make you a much nicer old person to live with. If you chose now to look at the world negatively, where will that put you 10 years from now? Unable to joke about the bad stuff, and looking for the cloud behind every silver lining.

This is probably pretty rambling, and that how I'm going to leave it. Search for the gems, and let the rest sit. Don't critique it (you negative personality), find the good in it, and let the rest well enough alone. In the end, I'd rather be able to make dead mother jokes (which I do), than have every highlight for the rest of my life become a sad moment of missing my mom, or Stretch, or my pet hamster Fluffy. *sigh* Fluffy...

What I'm learning...

By posting on my blog every day, I'm learning that most people DON'T write every day, and I miss that. Because I'm on the computer every day now, I look forward to seeing who has new stuff out there...and there's less and less who do. Now, I know that life gets busy in the summer, and that there's lots to do, and that some people are busy doing things like planning weddings and growing babies, but I'm not asking for much, really. A little sentence...something to let me know you're still alive & thinking...anything? I enjoy reading people's thought & reflections about life, or simply like to know what's going on with people, and when so many friends are so far across the world, blogs are a GREAT way for me to do that...IF they do that. I know I've been just as bad, and this isn't intended as a guilt trip, but I miss the little pictures with a silly sentence underneath. I miss the one sentence stories. I miss hearing about your lives. I know it's summer, and things can get busy...it's true, but TRY...

Oh yeah, the other thing that I"m learning is that I LOVE it when people comment on my blog. It makes me feel good to know that I've said something that others feel is worth commenting on.

That's what I've learned so far. That, and the fact that some days it's WAY easier to come up with something to write about than other days.

It's Just So Strange

This event is sad and disappointing and whole bunch of other things. But the over-riding feeling I'm having is just how weird this is. It's two rapid-fire reversals: we're going to be parents -- oh now we're not. But neither reversal is a full 180. Being parents isn't a drastic change to who we are, and not being parents doesn't quite return us to the way it always was. (So what direction are we going now?) I have a renewed perspective on how tenuous life is. (Though as I catch up on 32, I thought I was sufficiently aware of mortality...?) And there's the question of how to process and deal with this little life, something that's shrouded in a mystery we'll never understand on Earth (of the five Ws, we know at most two). Deb and I both talked about how virtual this process was the whole time. We even compared it to buying our condo, which up until now was our prime example:

We'd go the realtor, and shuffle some papers, sign something and make an electronic payment. Then we'd go to the lawyer, and shuffle some papers, sign something and make another electronic payment. And then we'd go to the bank do it again. And somehow the binder full of papers, the hurried ink marks we made, and debt records in the bank's database add up to the physical place that we live in. Where's the briefcase full of money, and the handshake? That I could comprehend -- this is a bizarre extension of trust that takes it to a level that I'm not entirely comfortable with. I mean, how surprising would it really be if some suit with slicked hair knocked on our door and said "You filled out two papers incorrectly, and as a result I am the new owner of your home" ? (You can perhaps understand why with the imagination I have, I'm glad that I don't trust only in cars and houses.)

I guess, when it comes right down to it, that's what's hitting me. I'm really feeling how virtual life is. I don't know if that's just a product of this era, with its automated money dispensers and gas pumps, or if there's a fundamental spiritual truth I'm tuning in to. Or both. But it seems the only concrete part of this whole process, maybe any process, is its conclusion. And that's just so strange.