So I was walking across the main road that’s on my paper route when I passed over this for the first time:
There I was, standing in the middle of the road, wondering why they would print the word “Danger” on a manhole cover. It’s in the middle of the road! Cars drive over it all the time! So I took this picture.
Luckily, I got out of the way before a car came.
Blog post of December 2nd, in honour of Every Damn Day December. Check it out! It’s not too late to join in!
I read once, when my kids were very young, that a baby who laughs when it is startled is a baby who trusts his or her mother. It’s something that I found followed through to their toddler years and beyond. I joked with my kids that I was going to do horrible things with them; cook them and eat them for dinner for instance. They’d laugh, knowing I would never do such a thing, because they trusted me.
There was one instance that I will never forget and I try not to regret for the simple reason that it taught me something.
I was leaving the pool where Alex was, at the time, doing physiotherapy. He wasn’t walking yet at the time, so he must have been less than five years old. I carried him out of the building, loaded with purse, swimming clothes and Alex all in my arms. I remember it was cold. I put him down on the curb in front of the car but to the side where I could see him, so I could wrestle my car keys out of my coat pocket. Had a car come, I was prepared to stand in front of it to prevent him being hurt. I proceeded open the doors and put the bags in. Then I waved goodbye to him and pretended to get into the car, expecting him to laugh. He knew I would never leave him there by myself. But instead of laughing, he smiled at me and waved back.
Whether he didn’t understand the joke or not, the vision of that tiny little boy sitting bundled against the cold, waving goodbye to me with a trusting smile on his beautiful, innocent face, still brings a tear to my eye.
Our children live in the world we construct for them. Whether they are healthy or sick, they can learn to be happy from us as parents because they trust what they see – the example we set. Alex spent the first eight months of his life in the hospital. All he has ever known, from birth, is pain. To this day he wakes up almost every morning with reflux, trying to vomit past an operation he had at six months of age called a fundoplication – basically, a knot was tied in his esophagus to prevent anything coming up. And yet he is the happiest child I’ve ever met. Other people observe this and ask me if he’s ever unhappy. It’s all he’s ever known. He sees me deal with his morning time retching with ease and he is reassured that it’s normal.
One day I know he will find out that it’s not. Will he stop trusting me at that point? I have no idea. It’s for sure that I’ll have the task of assuring him that even if it’s not something everyone experiences, it’s just the way he is, and that’s okay.
The point I’m trying to make I suppose, is that our children are our sponges. They take from us what we show them, and whatever that is, they trust it, because from the very beginning, we are all they know. I hope, for my own part, to preserve that for as long as their personal experiences away from me will allow. And that they will continue to laugh all their lives.
noun \ˌser-ən-ˈdi-pə-tē\
: luck that takes the form of finding valuable or pleasant things that are not looked for
: the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for; also : an instance of this
The above is according to Merriam-Webster online.
The most notable instance of serendipity in my life was the meeting, for the second time, of my children’s father.
Luc and I first met when we worked together in Aurora, a small town just north of Toronto. He came into my workplace and asked for my boss. The first time I laid eyes on him I remember thinking to myself, “And what the fuck do you want?” It had been a hectic day, or so I tell myself twenty-eight years hence. I was, hours later, to find out that he was my new manager, and I thanked the heavens above that I hadn’t said out loud what I was thinking. We’ve laughed about it many times since.
Months passed, and he and I got along well. He’s a nice guy. Then he was transferred. A few weeks later I found out that he’d broken up with his girlfriend. I, too, had broken up with my boyfriend and was looking for a roommate. I offered, he refused. Shortly after he decided to go back to Montreal, to be close to family and we lost touch completely.
Three kids plus a few years later another seemingly serendipitous event occurred in my life. As it turned out, it wasn’t so lucky and my relationship with Luc ended. Perhaps it was fate, but if it was, I haven’t seen many benefits from it. I am single, yet again.
This all comes to mind because I met someone online, a couple of days ago, with whom I have a great deal in common. Whether it will continue into a lasting friendship or fizzle into nothing as these things sometimes do, remains to be seen. But for now it feels like fate.
We never know what fate will drop in our laps in the next instant. We can only hope to have great serendipitous events, that brighten our outlook, that give us hope for the future, and that help us to believe that maybe there is such a thing as good luck.
Serendipity can take us to important periods of our lives, which may seem to have been fated to happen. On the other hand it could be some little thing, like losing and then finding a piece of jewelry. Just about everything leads to something, right?
What is your best serendipitous event? I’d love to hear about it. If it’s really wonderful, why don’t you blog about it? Just please be sure to put a link in the comments here, so I don’t miss it.
I find myself saying ‘If I could only just…’ a lot.
If I could only just find more time to write…
If I could only just have more money…
If I could only just find true love…
It goes on, ad infinitum. But all these things denote that I’m not content, when for the most part, I am. I have my children here with me, we have a roof over our heads, the air inside is warmer than outside, and there is food in the fridge. And I’m keeping up with my writing quite well, although sometimes it’s a struggle to do anything else.
So what is it which makes me wish for more? Is it simply the human condition to keep striving? It’s hard, for me at least, to keep my mind from going, from wandering, and from wondering what it would be like if I had just a little more.
Now if only I could consume nothing but coffee and chocolate and wine and cheese …. then I’d be happy.
What would make you happy?
Warning: The following my cause you to spit coffee out of your nose. Please read with caution.
Do you ever have so many things go wrong at once that you wonder if you’re on a sitcom and nobody told you? I had one of those moments at 6:30 this morning – far too early to start wondering who started the cameras rolling.
So there I was, standing at the counter in my kitchen, painstakingly crushing my son’s chewable vitamin with the blunt end of a knife as I do every morning. He won’t chew it – I have to stir it into his yogurt.
Anyway, there I was with this fine fine powder on the counter when my cellphone alarm went off in my pocket. I reached for the phone and pulled the crushed pill off the counter – all over the floor.
So I go to the broom closet, take out the broom and drop the dustpan. Bend down to pick up the dustpan, the mop falls and hits me on the head. Stuff the mop back in the broom closet, go back to the kitchen. Sweep up the mess, almost knock an opened bottle of wine on the floor with the broom handle.
Yes, there was a stopper in the bottle; no, I don’t drink wine at 6:30am, though I’m not sure why not.
All this happened in the space of about ninety seconds. One of those mornings when I just wanted to go back to bed and start again, you know?
I’m an excellent person for keeping secrets. Unfortunately, I’m a horrible liar. Unless it comes to my mother, in which case I’ve been practicing since I was four and had it down to an art by the time I was a teenager, I blush, I look the other way, I avoid eye contact… I do everything in the book that will show anyone with an ounce of observational skills that I’m not telling the truth.
Is it a good idea to entrust a bad liar with a secret? If the person you’re confiding in knows your deepest darkests, and they also know, say, your spouse, do you hope that somehow they will suddenly find the ability to not blush, or simply avoid your loved ones lest they give you away?
I’m finding myself confronted with these issues, not in real life, but because of my writing. My plot is so thick with secrets at the moment, that not only am I having a hard time keeping track of who knows what, but I’m finding it difficult to not give things away to my reader.
I actually studied the body language of people who are lying, just so that I could write a more believable liar. In this, I’ve found the perfect way to tell when my kids aren’t telling the truth, and how I, myself, can become a better liar.
But back to telling secrets. Everyone has them, whether they’re big like infidelity or small like you think someone looks horrible in their favourite suit. Fibbing is a necessity when it comes to secrets. Secrets in fiction can be the backbone of a story.
Can a person who is a bad liar even have secrets? I sometimes feel as though I’m an open book, for all to see. Maybe that’s why secrets are prevalent in my fiction – practice for real life. I’m puzzling it out on paper.
Do you suffer with this dilemma, either in fiction or in real life with yourself or someone you confide in?
Tell me. Tell me your secrets. I won’t tell anyone, promise. 😉
I’m finding it difficult to come up with something trivial to post here today, when in the Philippines so many are feared dead.
There have been too many natural disasters to count, far too many innocent lives.
It boggles the mind.
As of today, two of my children are adults. My middle son turned 18 today.
It’s really strange for me. I know I’ve said it before, but I’m in a unique position. I can watch him shave his face, reach up to hug him because he’s so much taller than I am, and yet I bought him Lego to unwrap today – the contradiction being because he is severely autistic.
I feel sad that he isn’t like his older brother – thinking about moving in with his girlfriend. I don’t know that he’ll ever have one. But at the same time I am, very very slightly, content that for a while longer I will be able to watch over him.
A very happy birthday to you, Chris.
I love you very much.
Do you ever have one of those days when you want to write – you really do – but everything that comes out of you is sheer crap? I’m having one of those today.
On a happier note, I handed in what I consider another eight pages of utter drivel for my short story course today. Well, okay, maybe it’s not that bad. I hope it’s not. But I wasn’t allowed to polish it since it had to be a rough draft, so I certainly wasn’t happy with it.
It’ll at least be interesting to see if my professor sees the same things wrong with it as I do.
So unless I get a reprieve from this creative brain fart I’m having today, my NaNo wordcount is going to pot. I am so due for a weekend off – it’s been five weeks.
Maybe after 48 hours of solid sleep this weekend I’ll be back into the swing of things. Back in the saddle.
Back to being creative enough not to keep falling back on proverbs.
Or maybe I’ll feel better after a good night’s rest tonight. After all, tomorrow is another day.
So yesterday I was sitting in an unnamed coffee shop
with my friend John, and we were chatting over lunch. A couple of twentysomethings sat at the table next to us and proceeded to scratch their lottery tickets.
When John and I got up to leave, he commented that he needed his jacket cleaned soon – he works in the automotive-type industry and it is covered in grease. The man at the next table said, simply, “Baby shampoo.” We both looked at him and he explained: “You can get grease off clothes with baby shampoo. Oh and it costs $300 to ship a car from Vancouver to Toronto by train.” The latter was something John and I had been discussing earlier on in the conversation. We both thanked him for the information, like the polite Canadians we are, and left.
Since then I have thought about all the things we could have been talking about, and one conversation I had years ago with my ex sticks out in my memory.
Being a writer, sometimes I talk about my characters as though they’re real people. Just imagine what the eavesdropping couple would have made of this:
Me: So it turns out Helen is fooling around on Frank.
John: That bitch!
Me: I know, right? But I don’t want him to find out.
John: Because…
Me: Well, you know. He’s in jail. There’s just so much a guy can take.
John: True.
Me: So I’ve decided to kill her.
John: Huh. How?
Me: I can’t decide. I was hoping you’d help.
John: I’ll do what I can.
Me: I mean, I’ve thought about drowning her in the bathtub.
John: That’s a good one.
Me: Or I could just drop the hairdryer in with her.
John: And fry her…
Me: I don’t know though. It seems too convenient.
John: How about killing her in a car accident?
Me: She doesn’t drive, so that would mean killing someone else as well.
John: How about Martha!
Me: YES! Great idea.
You’ve got to wonder if the couple at the next table would have been quite as ready to make suggestions…
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