Strathcona Writing Group

After a long day in the lice trenches, my darling husband insisted that I still head to Sherwood Park for my writing group meeting at the library. It turned out to be a welcome end to the day.

The Strathcona group is different from the Fort group. The Fort meetings are more structured. There is a presentation often times and someone leading the meeting. I took my turn last week and talked about publishing options and blogging. Strathcona has more writers who seem to be actively working on novels and we spend more time listening to each other’s work. They also self-publish with an anthology and organize writing workshops that are held at the library. I like both groups. I like the people and I take something from each experience.

Last evening I am afraid I monopolized a bit because I have been very busy writing since Christmas: poetry for an on-line magazine that was seeking submissions, another short story for my sci-fi story series, two pieces for a flash fiction contest, the start of my haiku’s for another e-zine and then finally a short based on a story Rob told me about Shelley. The group really likes my sci-fi series and I admit I am proud of it myself. Rob and Jordan have been reading pieces as I finish too. I think Jordan likes them a little more than Rob but it is the kind of subject matter that she finds more appealing than he does.

One of the comments I get from the Strathcona group often is that I have a strong voice as a writer and it lets me get away with breaking the sacred writing rules of fiction. Most notably the “show don’t tell” rule. Much as I love the compliment, it makes me wonder about this “voice”. Who I sound like that is so different from me and where does it come from? Being able to write is a gift, I know, but I still wonder about it.

In addition to my readings, Nathan read a poem that he’d written inspired by a Canadian Armed Forces recruiting commercial. Nathan is an interesting young man. He might be Farron’s age. He lives at home with his parents and his mother also attends are writing group. He has a limp which I am not sure if it is related to his short stature or not. He appears to be a little person but again it’s just an observation and not based on anything he has said. He’s very smart with a wicked sense of humor that I think Jordan might appreciate, but I am not in the match making business where my step-daughters are concerned. I think they are perfectly capable of meeting young men on their own. Match-making is a dangerous pastime anyway. After Nathan, Rebecca read her latest revision from a fantasy novel she is working on based on World of Warcraft characters she has created. I believe she is on her second revision. She is a very visual writing. She creates elaborate settings and is quite well versed in mythology. I love listening to her read. She has a Dutch - maybe - accent that really lends to the writing she is doing. Finally Heinz read a couple of his poems. He is an older German man who always seems to have very sad love poems to read. Makes me wonder what his story might be.

The first part of group was catching up and the last part of group was devoted to up-comings. There are workshops starting next month again and running into April. There are several that appeal to me but Rob doesn’t have the timeline for Texas yet and I don’t know when he will start traveling for work, so I am not committing to any but the first workshop on plot right now.

When I got home, I found two very tired lice warriors. One at the computer in the kitchen and the other barely awake upstairs after a trying bath and nit-picking sessions. Which reminds me that I have laundry still and hair to check. So far Rob and I are clean. Fingers crossed that we stay that way.

Lice

Well, my sis-in-law’s visit has turned out to the be gift that keeps on giving. Katy has lice. The irony abounds really because back in Des Moines Katy had a classmate who had lice, continually it seemed, for two years and despite her long curly hair, she never did get it. The reason for that of course is that lice isn’t that easy to catch. According to the health unit nurse I spoke with this morning (and my best friend in Iowa who is a nurse as well) it really takes head to head contact such as sharing pillows, bedding and hats. So, even though it is remotely possible that Katy could have picked up the offending insects at school or child-minding at the fitness center, the most likely suspect is Rob’s niece who slept up in Katy’s room on the trundle bed. Katy loves the trundle and played on it, building tents and such for days after. Also, it given the time span needed from contact to infestation (7 to 10 days), Rob’s niece fits the profile (the girl had her hands in her hair constantly -raking and rubbing). When Rob saw the title for today’s blog he said, “So you are just going to blame my niece for this then?” “Yep,” I replied. He just shook his head and laughed, “I hope my sister never finds and reads your blog. She’ll never speak to me again.” Ah, if it were only that easy to rid one’s life of drama-makers.

So, in addition to the hair-treating - mine too probably because I have long hair and Katy is in close contact with me - there are beds to be stripped and washed........again. Clothes to be washed. Stuffed things and dress-up clothes to be bagged. The cat, according to my best friend, should be dipped in a flea bath. (And the cat is becoming a saga onto herself anyway at this point. One more straw and Rob is going to reassemble his old shot-gun.) Rob volunteered to work from home today to help out. The last lice scare, which was the first time Katy’s daycare sent home a note, I stripped and quarantined stuffies while Will walked in circles - something he was wont to do because of the dementia - oblivious, unable to even give moral support. I commented yesterday on Alicia’s blog piece about how hard it is to be a single parent. I made the observation that even having a second adult around didn’t change things in some respects. But I didn’t mean with the heavy lifting, like today. Rob will help with the cleaning and head dousing. For me the emotional aspects of parenting have always been and continue to be the toughest thing. I just find it draining to be on call to another human being from infinity to beyond. Katy is very demanding and has been since moment one. She doesn’t make the demands on Rob or anyone else really that she does of mean in terms of needing my attention and needing me near. And I am a person who needs down time and to retreat into myself in order to maintain equilibrium. Perhaps because double parenting is so new to me I went into it with expectations that were too high. I really thought I would be magically altered and that the things about Katy - her clingyness and incessant questioning and her difficulty entertaining herself - wouldn’t bother me as much anymore or that Rob’s presence would abate this somewhat.

Rob and I talked about this last night. I told him that I just don’t find joy and fulfillment in the kinds of things that most mothers seem to. Sitting for 45 minutes in that nasty waiting room at her ballet school for instance is beyond boring, but their our moms their happily nattering away like it was an outing for them. Last spring we were visiting my folks and tagged along to a t-ball game of my 6 year old nephew, I was so bored. The coaches do their best to move those games along but it is still painfully slow. My sister though had a grand time with the other parents. Clearly this is social for her. Just thinking about years of this kind of thing to come doesn’t give me the same thrill that many parents seem to get. Rob’s late wife coached their girls even, but I was a basketball and a volleyball coach when I taught middle school. Did that for years, but only because they paid me. I couldn’t imagine doing it for any other reason. Coaching is thankless and the kids’ parents are maddening to deal with. My friend Meg literally sacrificed her free time for her three girls. Nothing superseded their activities, not even her own needs really. She was quite Buddha like in her contentment about it too. I sometimes think that years and years from now Katy will sit around with her friends and say this like, “I love my mom, but she just wasn’t quite cut out for motherhood.”

Mounds of lousy (maybe an exaggeration as we find just a few bugs and no nits yet on Katy) call me from the basement below. Rob should be back in the next little while with the shampoo and treatment stuff. Fun awaits.

The Zen of Gratitude

I have my first yoga class in about half an hour and have been killing a bit of time reading blogs, and yes - the widow board - and the theme of being grateful came up again. Sally’s little girl just turned four and she recounted the day and her birth story on her blog. She mentioned that she felt grateful for the time she was able to parent with her late husband because she realized that that is not always the case for some - like me for instance. And it’s funny how in the midst of those milestones and anniversaries of this and that which litter the landscape of everyone’s life that those of us who have experienced great loss and tragedy find that we have reason to be grateful. It’s that double-edged thing that in the beginning we fight and cut ourselves on frequently because we don’t want to acknowledge the fact that for the vast majority of us, things could be so much worse.

And what’s worse than losing your life partner? Well, I mentioned an old friend recently in another blog entry whose three year old son was murdered by her own husband just about six years ago. That - is worse. And I don’t think many of us would have to look to far afield to find family, friends or acquaintances whose lives you wouldn’t swap with for any amount of earthly or beyond reward. It gets back to that thing grief does with our focus and perspective. Luring us inward to the point where our eyes are permanently crossed from the intense navel-gazing and we find something personal in the most innocuous of setbacks. Grief whispers seductively in our ears, trying to convince us that we are the focal point of all that is unfair but try as it may it can’t truly compete with what we know, and that is that we are not the most unfortunate and put upon. And eventually (though for some this takes a very long time - if it ever happens at all) we have to admit that death is not personal and we have not been chosen from all others because everyone is touched sooner or later.

One of my goals for this year is to try to find that grateful Zen place that so many people seem to connect with so much more easily than I do. I cannot go through to much more of my life being unable to shake off other people’s perceptions of me and of life and its many events. There is always a reason to be grateful and to look beyond and to find joy.

Hockey Skates

I have been skating with an old pair of men’s figure skates I bought eleven years ago on sale at Target. I got them on a whim but ended up using them quite a bit those first two winters. There was an outdoor rink by the public library which was a 5 minute drive from where I was living. I used to head over there in the late afternoon when I got home from school and skate for an hour or so nearly everyday - especially that first winter. I skated by myself. I didn’t really know anyone who was interested in circling a frozen pond as the daylight hours dwindled away. I was at the point in my single life that I did pretty much whatever I felt inclined to and that meant that I very often was on my own, but I was used to it.

We started skating here as a family thing and because I thought it would be a nice skill for Katy to have. A child can’t possibly develop a healthy active lifestyle if it isn’t modeled for them and they can’t have favorite physical activities if they aren’t given a few to chose from at least. But the black skates just didn’t feel as right on my feet now that I am older and they are flatter from years more of running and wider, and tad bit longer, from childbearing, so Rob suggested that we get me a pair of hockey skates when they went on sale at Canadian Tire recently. I admit that I have been tempted by hockey style skates in the past. They look more comfortable. I have very flat feet. So flat that I avoid wearing anything but runners and hikers whenever I can. I don’t do sandals or flip-flops. Dress shoes of any kind are torture. Hockey skates are wider and have a large toe box than even male figure skates and they don’t constrict the ankle as high up, and I felt very comfortable in them from the first moment in the store.

On the ice, hockey skates are another matter. It feels for the first few moments as though you have never skated before because the figure skates have a longer blade that forces you to be more aware of where your foot is just to avoid catching one end or the other and face-planting on the ice. And they are fast. It’s like being freed from invisible restraints. Movement is so unrestricted by comparison. I felt at times as though I was barely skimming the ice surface which in fact I was technically as Rob tells me that when skating we are really not gliding on the ice at all but on the water that is melting beneath the skate’s blade.

The skating season lasts until April sometime and we may be gone by then, but I think the skates may make the cut for items that travel back to the states.