To Be or Not To Be

As some of you know, I was away on a spiritual retreat this month. It was only a few miles from my home but quite honestly, it felt as though I was a world apart in terms of where my headspace was at.

The retreat center was located on the water overlooking a particularly lovely setting in the Puget Sound. Our vista was the westward, Olympic Mountains view and the weather was hot with crisp blue skies each day.

The nature of the retreat was about getting some clarity around who I am, what makes me tick and then, celebrating that essence, that spirit. Sounds hokey, right? I thought so, too. My initial thought was, "Yeah great, but so what? I don't care about my Being-ness....I care about knowing my Doing-ness."

But what I realized, in retrospect (and it took me five days to 'get' this) - was that cutting to the doing-ness part is a little like putting the cart before the horse. I needed to get at the animal of my Spirit. And incidentally, as I think about that - the animal of my spirit - the animal that comes to mind for me is raven. But that's neither here nor there.

I can't lie and say the retreat was all fun and games. We were a group of 17 in communitas away from our larger communities, and as is the case with throwing any 17 people together into a relatively controlled environment, we were all vastly different in our worldviews, demeanors and energies. And yet what connected us was Love, arguably the only true Real thing that exists. And therein lies the magic and beauty of connection.

The retreat was also about finally stepping into my own shoes. Think Cinderella and the glass slipper minus the fairy prince and imagined fantasy life thereafter. I can't tell you how massively powerful that ownership and affirmation of Beingness is. All I can say is wow. It's huge, huge, priceless stuff. Finally daring to look deep enough to examine who I am, how I show up in the world, what I value most, and what my role in the larger tribe of life is. It was hard, freakin' work, let me tell you and for awhile I doubted if I had dug deep enough.

But finally, finally, self-acknowledgement came. It came to me late on the last night of the program. It spoke to me in code, actually. I went to bed that final evening with an incredibly sore and constricted throat. And it wasn't until I was able to process this in retrospect the next day, that I finally got it. The essence of who I am, since time immemorial, is about voice.

Prior to that, I had spent much of the weekend focused on what I perceived others might think of or define me to be. Was I too this or that? Was I maybe not enough that or the other thing? It was driving me crazy - most especially when coupled with my rejection filter. And more importantly, it was inhibiting me from doing the real excavation work. Once I stopped doing that and acknowledged and fully embodied that it is none of my business what others think of me, then and only then did I finally get to the real work. I got alone with me and I got real.

Who I am is Inukshuk Speaks, which is esoteric-speak for a wealth of things. I chose to be visual and spiritually totemic in identifying my essence because well duh....I'm a visual and spiritual kinda gal.

An Inukshuk, for the non-Canadians in the audience, is an Inuit stone figure, akin to a mountain cairn, that looks eerily human in shape. It is a sacred show and teller, of sorts. It serves to mark and commemorate the site of key tribal events and it also acts as a silent navigator, guide and way-shower for those lost upon the roads less travelled in Canada's netherland Arctic.

It's no accident I should choose this. I've always been hugely attracted to all things northern and Eskimo. My maiden name is Quinn and my favourite song growing up was The Mighty Quinn (when Quinn the Eskimo gets here, everybody's gonna jump for joy). I used to sing it whenever we played Eskimo on the playground as kids (what else was there to do on a minus forty day in northern Alberta, I ask of you?). One of the things I miss most about living in Alberta is being able to see and be dazzled by the Northern Lights.

But the affinity doesn't stop there. I am, if nothing else, the voice of truth and justice in the dark, the epitome of the road less travelled, and I am the commemorator in my family of all things sacred and profane. Being a guide or navigator is what I've always done in life ~ it has just taken many forms, is all.

I was one of two college class valedictorians honoured with being able to commemorate our time by cracking a joke or two. I have always worked in tourism ~ doing destination tour guiding, hotel show 'n tell site inspections and business consulting on next-step kinds of directions. My business name - how's this for a little northern altitude/attitude syncronicity? - is Summitup. And my current role, a la this particular era of my life, is as Speed Demon Driver and Satellite Radio Controller of the Honda Pilot, as well as Chief Cheerleader and Guidance Counsellor to the small Schmidts.

Anyways, I share this long diabribe - not because it's profound but because it's affirming. I have been running from affirmation all my life. Affirmations scare the living hell out of me, I guess because there's so much power in affirmation and because I've heard through the grapevine that they work. It's like being the ventriloquist's puppet who after a long time lying crumpled and lifeless on the shelf, comes to life when the breath of the great Animator breathes sound through the pipes. Scary stuff. Amazing schmidt happens (my nose no longer grows and I stop punishing myself and running off with the burlesque crowd), when I finally speak my truth and claim Who I am.

I finally owned a week or two back that I am here to Speak and give voice to my essence as Still navigator and way-shower.

After trying on so many odd pairs of shoes, I finally found the One(s) that fit and I feel like I've finally found that missing piece of me that got lost with my placental matter at birth.My wise-sage daughter, who is all of 8, asked me when I got back Sunday night ~ after having lived on much laughter, many tears, and very little sleep during the course of five days that felt more like a year and the journey of a thousand miles ~ "what was it like, Mommy?"

And I said, "Well...it was a little like being thrown into an old-fashioned wringer-style washing machine and then chucked into a dryer on gentle cycle with a bunch of warm, fuzzy towels." I'm not sure she got it and that's OK. I did. Finally!

Which brings me to my final thought. This spring, during a similar but more profoundly cathartic retreat, I wrote these words to myself: "I live happily ever after on a moment-by-moment basis, and die erect like the trees to the same ~ death will kill me standing up."

Those words meant several things to me - that happiness lies in the Now, that all life is rebirth, and that my actions will pen my epitaph. But now, in light of my new self-vision, I can honestly attest that "death will kill me standing up" has renewed meaning and vitality for me.

I now see the ground upon which I stand ~ where I have lived and upon where I shall die. It is where I have always stood. My legs no longer feel shakey when I stand there.

I now understand the notion of be-longing. It's that primordial place I've longed to Be. It's my solid ground and my stake in the world and I am eternally grateful that I got to do this soul-search before I died, instead of croaking and then getting called in for death detention into the office of The Maker, who would have sternly asked me, "It's a little late now, Missy, but do you have any idea or inkling of Who you were supposed to Be?" and then having to mumble in shame, "no friggin' clue, oh Hallowed Universe ~ please, do tell!"

The End but to be continued...as always.

Stuff in My Head

Time Keeps on Slipping
As August fades into September, I’m always reminded of the wheel of time and the return of annual rites which seem to slip away in summer’s grasp but return in vengeance each autumn. Rites of passage such as the kids’ re-traipsing back to school following Labor Day ~ another year older, wiser and readier to risk and take hold of their stake in the world.

Holy Daughter is more excited than ever – despite the fact that we’re in the midst of a teacher’s strike that has postponed the start of school until God knows when. She’s excited because her school is brand-new.

And I look forward to returning, strike dependent, to my own fall rites – cocooning into creative projects like writing and volunteering and Christmas prep and new this fall – facilitating The Artist’s Way class at my Church, as well as hopefully finding the courage to splash colour on the walls of this old house.

With this seasonal return comes the eternal return to community, or in our case, overlapping communities. Soccer, ballet, Irish Dance, Scouts, Brownies, seminars, church committee all beg their place in the weekly schedule this fall, as do the inevitable Nutcracker rehearsals for both kids (Holy Daughter was cast as a Snowflake in Act I – a beautiful dance for a beautiful girl; and Holy Son, despite having grown another couple of inches, is once again playing the roles of the nephew, Nutcracker King and the Nutcracker Prince – handsome roles for a handsome boy).

I like how time circles back upon itself, shapeshifting the landscape from year to year so the soil appears freshly tilled and fertile, and the vistas, brand new visions. It is an Eliotian pilgrimage, of sorts, for to journey back in sacred return on any repeat visit is to “arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

Never mind that said arrival is beginning to feel more and more like I’m riding a high-speed express train between years, akin to the train one might ride between airport terminals. Like that time and space between terminals, such a ride between the years feels innocuous, vacuous, and liminal. I am more sensitive to this sacred circling and dance than ever before – how it leads me to retrace my steps precisely with slight changes to the choreography to add some salsa to the mix.

I had the opportunity to experience this déjà-vu feeling firsthand this past weekend when Holy Hub, the kids and I travelled to Orcas Island for a mid-week camping trip.


Holy Hub and I had not been to Orcas in 15 years but it was prophetic that we should return exactly 15 years, almost to the month, since we had last stepped foot off the ferry landing there. Orcas was the site of an intensely personal retreat course we both attended (individually and separately within the span of a few months). I remember falling in love with the island in all its rugged and rustic beauty. It was little wonder, when asked to project ahead 15 years and imagine my life then that I should conjure a vision of Holy Hubby and I living on the west coast with two adolescent children, as yet unborn in thought and form. At the hedonistic age of 27, having to picture my life 15 years much less 15 minutes into the future was a long-term visioning exercise akin to walking over hot coals, which is to say an alternative form of hell.

And so it would be foretold that this prairie girl would find herself moving not just to the other side of the world, but to the west coast within 15 years, with same Holy Hub, two kids and considerably more baggage in tow. I confess, I’m a little disappointed that the huge timber-framed house with the panoramic window overlooking the Puget Sound which was the locale for my west coast family vision did not seem to come to fruition.

Alas, here is the water view out our kitchen/side deck window.

It is a lesson in living and dreaming and scheming, nonetheless. One I’ve not forgotten but one I’ve been more than a little afraid to recreate. It’s the old adage - be careful what you wish for: you just might get it.

And so here we are. And here I am, setting out to retrace the creative labyrinth, or manifest quest, as I like to call it, in communitas with other trepid creative types this fall, who fear not our inadequacies, but our “power beyond measure.” I’ve been shrinking and playing small for awhile now (even as my waistline of late suggests the opposite) but I can see, in kabalistic retrospect, that I have done so in tsimtsumic gesture. Just like God is said to have done in those penultimate moments of earthly creation, I withdrew inward in order to provide space for my darling creations to expand, evolve and flourish these past couple of years. And they have.

But I had a little lightbulb moment on this trip – when we were doing a little round table session where each family member had to say a couple of complimentary things about another member. Suffice to say the kids were at a loss as to what to say about their dear old mom. Oh sure, the usual suspects attached to the daily grind of life showed up. Chauffeur, homework-helper, etc. Not that I was expecting them to articulate their eternal gratitude that I have helped them to find and live up to their highest potential. Nothing so grand as that but I got me to thinking about my own highest potential and if I am somehow playing small by being a stay-at-home mom. And suffice to say, it got me to thinking about what kind of familial epitaph statement I want my kids to recite from their hearts at my funeral. And… “Here lies Mom. We’ll sure miss her. She always let me steal gum from her and let us listen to Radio Disney in the car.”…is not it.

On that note, I’m heading on a personal development retreat next week, aimed at giving me some more clarity on what the hell I’m actually doing on this planet. Carving out four and half days away from home with our schedule is no small feat. Holy Hub will virtually be working half-days (or no days if the strike continues) and taking the weekend off, to do the school and after-school activity runs. But the departure from the norm will be great. Perhaps the kids will see that I am more than a chauffeur and homework-helper. Somehow I doubt that. The more likely scenario is that I’ll return home with less of a vested interest in how they see me and more validation for how I see me. The wise adage that it’s none of my business what others think of me is one I continue to struggle with. It’s all part of the journey, I guess.

Nerve Endings
Speaking of journeys, my healing journey continues. My right hand and arm got wratched in the accident this summer. The whiplash has gotten progressively worse so I’ve started getting treatments at a naturopathic health clinic/college. They’ve implemented a multi-week regime for me that will encompass a combination of ultra-sound, massage and chiropractic therapy. The regular MD prescribed a night-time medication for me to help ease the nerve pain I was waking up with, but it turns out neuro medication moonlights as an anti-depressant. I stopped taking it. I wasn’t noticing much difference in the morning pain department but I was starting to feel a kind of heart palpitation feeling, not to mention an uncomfortable dry-mouth.

Chronic nerve pain sucks. But I consider we were most fortunate, in retrospect, to have sustained as minimal of injuries as we did, considering this was a high-speed vehicle collision.

Need for Speed
Not that anyone can ever accomplish much of a high-speed around here, with all the rubber neckers and gawkers. I have never seen anything so inane in my life as watching traffic come to a standstill on a freeway because there’s an abandoned vehicle on the side of the road or because there are construction cones on the roadside or because said drivers need to put their bifocals on to read the blinking traffic advisory sign board overhead. And don’t even get me started about traffic in the rain. You would think Seattlites would know how to drive in the rain…not. There’s some kind of strange correlation between the wiper blades swishing back and forth across the windshield and brake riding. I don’t get it.

Auto Pilot
And of vehicles, I have to say, we’ve owned Violet the Pilot (a.k.a. “the beast”) for almost a month now and true confession: I’m kinda digging the sunroof, heated leather seats (but not the fact that it was so cold one day this August, it merited a flip of the switch), and the satellite radio features. Holy Hub had what might be called a mini conniption when he discovered I had the XM dial tuned to Oprah & Friends – I love hearing Nate Berkus on the radio. He’s practically the most gorgeous man ever. And his boyfriend, Brian Atwood, isn’t too shabby either. Which reminds me of my first experience walking into a gay bar. It was a jaw-dropping experience on many accounts but most especially because never before had I seen a room full of such good looking men gyrating to techno music. I remember thinking, ohmigosh, THIS is where they’ve all been hiding! See how my mind works? I can go from vehicles to gay bars in just zero to 12 seconds.

Brain Food
But that’s not my fault. Blame it on the random firings of my neurons. I’m reading this fascinating book, This Is Your Brain On Music. I’ve been intrigued with music and brain patterning for awhile now, on account of the fact that the sound of music, like scent, is a great tool for tapping the memory wells. And on account of the fact that my son, the budding cellist and bass guitarist, is beginning to think and hear life in beats, which is sort of Last Mimsy woo-woo, but it’s also more than a little cool. I don’t necessarily make the same musical connections.

The author is a rock musician/producer turned cognitive psychologist and neuroscientist, who has penned such a terrific book for us nerdy types who are eternally intrigued, in a mysterium tremendum et fascinans kinda way, with all things neurological. He also dummies things down, which is no easy task, given that many of us musical neophytes struggle with discerning a staccato from a stiletto and a vibrato from a vibrator.

Memory Lane
You may be wondering how I can tie vibrator to my next trainwreck of thought. Well actually, it segues quite nicely to the latest book I’m reading ~ Loose Girl: a memoir of promiscuity. I have read so many memoirs these past couple of years, that I, too, feel more than a little voyeuristic and promiscuous. Can one be promiscuous in a literary way, I wonder? It was weird and somehow affirming to pop into a little indie bookstore on Orcas Island recently and recognize so many past-read titles throughout the store. I even saw a weight loss book by Mike Huckabee.

Political Madness
To be honest, the Orcas trip, up until that point, was a nice respite from the non-stop political madness this nation seems gripped in. And I do mean madness. How is it possible that campaigning has been allowed to overshadow real politics? Bush and Cheney have been arrogantly resting on their laurels, watching the campaign debacle with amusement, no doubt. In some ways, that bodes well for the Democrats. On sunny days, I trust beyond the shadow of a doubt that Obama will get elected. Because he stands for peace and equality and community building. But then the Republican fear-mongering blows upwind towards the Pacific on stormier days, and then I’m not so sure I trust in the hopes and dreams of the American public.

Madame Palin is representative of so many redneck mamas in this country not to mention Canada, where hockey moms rule the roost. She packs a pistol, cockily declares herself a spitfire and cut her political teeth on teen pageants and PTA boards. I’m all for women shattering the political glass ceiling but her NRA membership and Alaskan pipeline ambitions and pregnancy cover-ups scare me.

Holy Son bragged to his grandparents that if McCain wins, we’re moving back to Canada. I’m not sure where he got that but he’s not far from the truth. I don’t think this nation can sustain two war-loving Presidents hellbent on “victory,” especially when one of them doesn't even purport to know how many homes he owns. I can't believe that the victory rhetoric, relative to Iraq, is still being bantered about and served warm to a gullible public. The only true victory is peace and peace does not follow war except in the title of Tolstoy’s epic.

But maybe that’s what it’s all about: epic. This election campaign has turned into one. It’s both mentally and financially taxing. And it’s such a pity that all those campaign dollars are wholesale wasted. There ought to be a law against such gross wastes of financial resources to say nothing of our attention but then again, we’ll fixate on anything. Watching all those regular Joe, hanger-onner delegates at these conventions had me wondering: who are these staunch political groupies and don’t they have a real life?

Meanwhile north of the border, PM Stephen Harper is looking in the days ahead to call a snap election for mid-October. We’re talking about a campaign span of less than six weeks. Now that’s the way, uh huh, uh huh, I like it. Holy Hub sent me this clip of KC.


Back in the day, he was uber handsome. And so I got to wondering - where is he now? And so I took the liberty of Googled him 'cuz I was curious. I shouldn’t have done that. Suffice to say, he’s aged a tad and I don’t mean that in fine wine terms. More like a crumbly cheese.


But no sooner do I type cheese when what does Holy Son blurt out but, "Cheese makes the world go 'round!" He declared this out of the blue as though he’d solved the key to the universe. Apparently it starts with the cheese which attracts the mouse, which attracts the cat, which attracts the dog, which attracts the boy, which attracts the girl, which brings about love, which makes the world goes around.

Yessiree, it’s all circular. Journeys, chases and even time slips that shift the axis of perspective and cause all manner of disparate things like kids and retreats and island and nerves and traffic and SUVs and sex and drugs and rock ‘n roll and politics converge into one pregnant train of thought inside my head going absolutely nowhere.

Scary, isn’t it?

Back to School Blues

Some parents feel blue when their kids go back to school. Much like an anthropologist, I am fascinated if a great deal suspicious of this rare and deranged creature.

Then there are the rest of us, who rejoice a la Julie Andrews romping through a valley of flowers, singing Joy to the World, the kids are gone, there tru-ly is a God! when the kids go back to school. And we know the moment down to the millisecond, for we have been fervently marking X's on our calendars just as our fellow prisoner brethen have taught us is the thing to do until the Get Out of Jail Free card comes in.

And the ones who rejoice the most are those of us who were too stupid and idealistic to schedule the heck out of our kids all summer, opting instead of summer camps to keep things footloose and fancy free in hopes of having "family time" to visit parks and attractions. Yeah well, let me tell you, that fun family fantasy faded fairly fast - and those are the only f-words I care to share in polite company - I think it was day two of summer in this household before I began spouting the other f-words, as I recall. That was about the time I Googled to see if drinking alone without benefit of other adult commiserate-types constituted pure and certain alcoholism.

I had made it all the way to my last calendar X, without benefit of much anesthesia, as miracles would have it (and yes, I'm bragging), when what could only be classified as a parent's worst back-to-school nightmare occurred.

The school district announced a strike tonight. No school until further notice.

My latest f-word is flabbergasted, to say nothing of feeling frayed at the edges and fried for breakfast at the thought of how long this strike might potentially last. Rumour has it the last strike in these parts lasted 7 weeks. I did the math and that's just asking for Social Services to come calling.

But I'm somewhat prepared to handle this emergency in the short-term. I have an unopened bottle of Bailey's and I know with absolutely certainly, without even having to Google it, that Bailey's is a 24/7 apothecary item. No 'After 6pm only' notation there.

So I'm good to go until Wednesday at the outset. After that, I dunno. You may want to send back-up in the event you haven't heard from me. Chocolate cake and a nail file may not cut it.

The Wheels on the Bus Go Round 'n Round...

Long story short, we're on the other side of the insurance deal and we done good. We got a fair price and then some for our van - $5K more than the other insurance company was going to offer us which makes no sense. But don't get me going on insurance companies.

Short story long, we just inked a friends and family deal on a 2009 Honda Pilot. We pick it up Monday when we slap down our piggy banks. Here she is, in all her dark cherry and black leather glory.But holy schmoly, what a long process this has been.

During this whole process, we had company in from Canada, our 20th wedding anniversary ~ to which I still owe Holy hub a present - not that a brand-new, big-breasted SUV (stupidly uneconomical vehicle) isn't present enough. But we have yet to really celebrate our two decades with a proper date night, although we did enjoy a nice dinner with friends at a waterfront restaurant.

So with all this behind us, I'm hoping to still salvage a mini-camping trip late summer. I really want to test drive it in style and head due southeast to Utah. Fingers crossed.

Anyhoo, I see a couch and some pj's calling my name. Who woulda thunk car-price haggling would be such exhausting business?

Of Life, Limbs and Logic

There’s a fine limbo line between control and acquiescence. I’m walking it with the insurance company of late. Half the time, I have no idea where the safety zone is, what ground I’m standing upon, or if it’s all a grand conspiracy or karmic payback for that time I rammed that unknowing jerkola from behind on the bumper cars in the amusement park. It was funny at the time, or so I thought.

Long, incredibly boring story short, they’ve decided to write-off our Odyssey as a total loss, for reasons having to do with the damages being worth more than 70% of what they deem the value of it to be.

But to be or not to be, that is the question. Safeco's (a misnomer if ever there was one) market comparables and mine don’t at all match. For instance, our Honda-installed trailer hitch, was $1,500.00. They chalk that up to a $77.00 additional value. Can you say, does not compute?

Our vehicle (long incredibly boring story longer here), apart from a couple of fine tooth comb scratches, was still in mint condition after all these years. The original carpet inside had never been exposed to wear and tear – the previous owner had custom carpet laid down inside such that it would always maintain a pristine condition. And we had religiously babied it with Honda servicing this past decade at monthly intervals. But that’s all blah blah blather to the insurance company. On paper, it’s worth a fraction of what we would have sold it for. And in reality, it’s just about the right size for the friendly neighbourhood junkyard dog now.

In any event, we’re now going between the two insurance companies in order to see whether our insurance company will designate a higher value. I don’t honestly expect them to – but part of that control thing is exhausting every avenue, how ever thin and tenuous.

So it appears we are now car shopping, which is an activity that ranks right up there with many other of my least favourite things to do, including but not limited to walking on hot coals. I’ve decided my minivan days are done, but only marginally because we’re now looking – in this day and age of anti-SUV – at a Honda Pilot. It seats 8 and pulls the trailer and is equally as gas gluttonous as its Odysseyian cousin, so it's a bit of a stalemate.

But what do you do? Bite the hand that supposedly feeds you – if near starvation might stand in for nourishment for a moment? Or do you feed the greedy system of oil companies, vehicle manufacturers, insurance companies and the like? It’s not merely a philosophical question: it’s the quintessential, middle-aged conundrum. You want to answer, screw them all, I’m outta here. This system ist sehr farocht and I want no part of it.

But owing to your city dweller status, you’re so entangled in the system, you couldn’t find your way out of the maze even if you were channeling a now grown-up Hansel and Gretel. Or so you think.

You want to think it’s all teleological when, in fact, the whole house of cards schema is ideological, which must and should always be confused with idiotlogical.

But still you hum and sing, because somewhere, somehow, someone told you there is a rhyme and there is a cadence to the entire affair. This is the vehicle that pulls the trailer, that becomes the house on camping escapes, that then parks in the garage like a giant square shape, which is adjacent to the door, of the house the Schmidts built.

Now if you’re a mathematician, you might, at this point, whip out your calculator in order to compute the number of times said trailer leaves said garage in a given year and then run some kind of impressive quadratic equation that factors in the cost of daily driving of said vehicle versus renting same said vehicle for three weekends a year instead. But you’re not, so you don’t.

Instead, you continue to sing, even though this, too, is not your strong suit. For this is the vehicle that hauls the kids all gloomy and glummy, to school and the pool, and then to dance, Scouts and sports with their chummy chum chummies, and gives them each space with a pillow and quilt, for long haul trips away from the house the Schmidts built.

Yes, those rare yet coveted trips away from the house. That’s what it’s all about. There is no price you dare put on the slim to nil escapes from the rat cage wheel of life. And so, you do your own simple balance sheet in your head, which is just like the kind you did on your college accounting exams (which is to say it never does ever balance, darnitalltohell, screw being a Certified Management Accountant – that’s a dumb career choice anyways and who wants to be pot bellied number cruncher in their 30s talking about financial statements at parties and sitting in a back room cubicle with a pocket protector?) And so, as then so now, you fudge the numbers, shed a tear or three in frustration at the ineffability of it all, and call it an even Stephen.

And then you paste a smile on your face and say things like, I’m just grateful we were all OK and not seriously injured (well OK, except that you're now sorely tempted to "give your right arm" for some coveted thing, because it's feeling pretty useless these days anyways). Or, I’m so glad the other guy had insurance ~ Thank! God! for that. Or, I’m glad we were able to salvage at least a week of getaway in our summer. Authentic statements, all of them, for you really do bow down to the god of vehicular collisions with respect to these things.

And then a big sigh builds up within you and you get all stoic and bodhisattva – a syncretism not entirely implausible given Alexander the Great’s oriental camel express train east way back in the day – but somewhere in that space between stoicism and Vibhajjavāda, you yield to a deep-seated jealousy that Alexander managed to eek out a helluva lot more than a week’s all-expense-paid getaway and to a far more exotic locale than a $27.00 dollar a night cabin on Camano Island.

But alas, when you are finally able to strike a yogic pose for a moment on account of your inability to breathe lately - and as you ponder the nature of all things – love, pain, the whole damn thing - in the best Texas twang and Scarlet O’Haran pose you can muster, such as whether meaning is (a) a priori; (b) a posteriori; (c) a freakin' pain in the posteriori or (d) all of the above ~ then and only then does momentary enlightenment come to you, such that you begin to spout the impermanence of all things ~ even, especially, vehicles. Which at a purely organic level, is just matter. And matter does not matter. But then you think to yourself, even your 11 year old son knows that positive one minus negative one equals two. Which might then mean that it doubly matters. And that spells double trouble, given that you come from a long line of worriers from way back. Well three lines actually, if you consider the not so small matters of marriage and adoption. All of which begins to make your head hurt, which then has you reading the fine print on the medical insurance forms the other insurance company sent you (paperwork that when subjected to purple infrared strobe lights, sports Please Do Not Sue! between the lines of the size 2 font text) to see if perhaps they'll cover headaches and brain strain. For it's all rather exhausting, all this meaning-making business, and it only serves to add to your lethargic laze of late, especially when you consider the anthropomorphism of the rain these past few days. Coincidence? You think not. The skies, they are a crying and that's not just a pathetic fallacy, it's real. Or is it? You no longer ascertain the acute differences between reality, unreality and surreality.

But you know it's pathetic, for you ken this in your bones. Most specifically, your clavicle, scapula, humerus, radius, ulna, scaphoid, lunate, triquetrum, pisiform, trapezium, trapezoid, capitate, hamate, metacarpal and phalange bones. So then you revert back to the old-school philosophy you used to spout in a hashish haze – life’s a bitch, and then you die. But your mind has been so addled lately that even in this, doubt plagues you. What if that’s wrong? What if you've transposed the logic? Maybe it's supposed to be, life’s a die (and boy did you roll a schmidty number), and then you bitch. And you realize you're onto something. Some little nugget of truth that at last, and at very least, you can latch onto. Because at least there, in that small place of lame life, limb and logic, you have a place upon which to stand.

I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Depressing Stories

I see that book (I Feel Bad About My Neck) everywhere and think to myself, who the hell is this Nora Ephron and why should she feel bad about her neck?

It wasn't until I happened to have been feeling particularly bad about Meg Ryan's botched nose and lips (she used to be so gorgeous pre-2001) after watching her latest dismal movie, My Mom's Boyfriend, and did some googling, that I found out that Nora Ephron is a bigwig Hollywood screenwriter who wrote Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail, and When Harry Met Sally, among other big movie hits.

Interesting stuff. Well, OK, maybe not. What is interesting, is that last week after doing the Seattle Underground Tour (a must-see/do activity for anyone, local yocal or otherwise, looking to kill a couple of hours in old downtown Seattle), we made our way to Elliot Bay Books in Pioneer Square. Elliot Bay Books has got to be one of the best bookstores ever. I adore it. But for some reason, it always reminds me of the charming bookstore in the movie, You've Got Mail. Turns out, however, that downstairs in the underground bowels of Elliot Bay Books is where they would shoot the coffee shop scenes for Frasier. I never knew that until last week.

Anyways, you're probably wondering why I feel bad about my neck. Or perhaps not. In either case, the reason I feel bad about my neck is that a scary thing happened to me on my way home from the specialty Irish shop in Seattle a couple of days ago, where we went in search of Irish dancing socks for Holy Daughter, who will be dancing in her first official competition at month's end.

I was on the I-5, minding my own rush hour business as our lane came to its predictable stop-n-go halt, when all of a sudden an SUV came up out of nowhere and ploughed into the rear end of my vehicle. Can you say Holy freakin' scary, batman? The kids and I were all OK, luckily and praise be to God, but my ass end isn't. It's flattened and crumpled and dented and extremely bruised.

And I feel bad about my neck.

My daughter and I had a doctor's visit yesterday and we are both suffering minor effects of whiplash - mine is mostly a right arm muscular pain extending all the way from my forearm up through to my shoulder and lower neck and back - likely caused from gripping the steering wheel and holding on for dear life at the point of impact, as we were pushed up to the car in front. Her's is an upper back pain. Her booster seat flew forward towards me and then was flung back wherein she bonked her head against it.

I also felt bad for the poor fellows in the car I hit. They were enroute from Vancouver, BC to attend The Foo Fighters concert in downtown Seattle but ended up getting stuck waiting on the side of the I-5 and enduring the stares and honks of lurking motorists, as we all did, some 75 minutes for the state trooper to arrive.

As with all sad twists of fate, crash and circumstance, timing is everything. My son stoically observed not many minutes after the accident that had I only listened to him and detoured for a bite to eat as he had requested, we would have not been in the scenario we found ourselves to be in. Woulda coulda shoulda is schmidta though.

It happened, as schmidt tends to do, just before we were about to embark on a camping trip for a week. We now have to cancel said trip, on account of not being able to pull the tent trailer, but as luck would have it, were able to salvage our state park getaway in small part by being able to find a nearby cabin rental for virtually the same price as a campsite. So we are now doing a marine rather than mountain retreat but I no longer have to stress about cooking with propane.

I'm also thankful to the God of small things that the repair shop did not deem the Odyssey a complete right-off, as is the trend in auto repair.

So in the meantime - which sounds to be 3 weeks - we'll be pimping a ride in a rental car, which as it turns out, means a red Ford Edge for this upcoming week of vay-cay. Which also means the kids will be sitting beside each other. Which is a cardinal sin in this family on account of being within intimate proximity to poke, punch, pinch, jab and jeer and pester one another. Which is the depressing part of this story.

I wonder if there's a special place in heaven for mothers, like say a luxe spa with the sign "Pas les Enfantes dans la Heavenly Spa, si vous plait."

Now that's my idea of heaven.

Lazy, Crazy, Hazy Days of Summer

Lazy
Today was the first day in a long while that the whole house (save Holy Hub, who is a 5am creature of work habit) slept in. Holy Son awoke at 10:50 am. Long live sloth.

And yet summer, in all its lazy splendour, barely begins and evidence of its demise is all around us. The more audacious leaves of the bunch dare to turn colour. Bathing suits are already marked down for clearance in the stores as the merchandisers impatiently prepare to bring the back to school stuff in. And the seasonal camping gear displays are now slim to nil. How sad is that?

Summer is short enough already. But I'm doing my best to ignore the department stores and their mixed up calendar.

Crazy
The latter part of June saw us prepping for our crazy Canuck street party. We were mostly on track with getting the house in order and food/drink together when we received a last minute call from out-of-town (country actually) friends that they were a couple of hours away and heading our direction with baby in tow.

The weather was gorgeous during their stay and one of the highlights was being able to attend the local Canadian Consulate barbeque, with Canadian wines and beers on perma-pour and Cadbury chocolate bars in huge abundance. We got to play hose hockey - our team name was The Touques - and we sucked which was not entirely good, considering the game entailed blowing a ping pong ball through various team member hoses attached to the sides of the blow-up hockey "arena" through to the opponent's goal.

These friends departed on the last Monday of June but not before said young mat-leave wife, who shall remain nameless, divested herself of the equivalent of someone's annual salary on anything and everything she could think to buy, most especially if it sported a designer name and a stiletto heel. We see our fair share of Canadian visitors who come to shop but she took the proverbial cake. Our friend advises that the shopping didn't let up even enroute back to the border. They couldn't even open their car door without something falling out. It brings new meaning to the term loaded. May the Lord have mercy on him. They've barely been married a year. He's in for it, I think.

I like when our life is graced with real shoppers though. It helps put things into perspective for Holy Hub, who harbours the erroneous belief that I'm a shopper. She's way out of my league, I'm afraid.

Anyways, no sooner did they drive off, then sheets were being washed and changed for our next arrival, a few hours later, of my sis-in-law, who caught took the Clipper over from Victoria with nanaimo bar ingredients in tow (Bird's vanilla custard pudding mix). At 5am the next day, I was busy making a triple batch of this quintessentially Canadian dessert for our party that night.

We were blessed to have 83 degree weather for the party that night and hosted the entire affair on our front driveway, which is quite large. Somewhere between 40 and 50 people showed up from the cul de sac, our old neighborhood and various other nooks and crannies of our life here. Holy Daughter set up a Canada Customs booth and our cardboard cut-out Mountie acted as sufficient deterrent for those hoping to sneak into the country without appropriate i.d.

Lucky for them, she was feeling generous that night. She permitted library cards, Costco and Safeway cards and even a red and white debit card. All visitors were then duly branded with a Canada tattoo and allowed entrance, but not before having to attempt to answer a series on not so skilled-testing questions about Canada. Holy Hub passed with flying colours - I barely did. I couldn't resist throwing a dud question into the mix that even the Canadians in the crowd answered wrong - see if you can find it.

1. What are Canada’s two national sports?
A. Ice Hockey, Basketball B. Baseball, Tennis C. Basketball, Lacrosse D. Lacrosse, Ice Hockey

2. How many lakes are there in Canada?
A. Unknown B. 500 thousand C. 1 million D. 5 million

3. Who was the first Prime Minister of Canada?
A. Alexander Mackenzie B. John A. MacDonald C. Louis Riel D. Wilfred Laurier

4. Canada has two national symbols. What are they?
A. Beaver & Maple Leaf B. Maple Leaf & Moose C. Beaver & Grizzly Bear D. Moose & Salmon

5. Canada has the longest covered bridge in the world (1,282 feet long). Where is it located?
A. West Montrose, ON B. La Sarre, QE C. Gold River, BC D. Hartland, NB

6. What university developed the world's first anti-gravity suit?
A. University of Toronto B. Simon Fraser University C. University of British Columbia D. Queen’s University

7. Andrew Bonar Law was the only Canadian ever to do what?
A. Win the Indianapolis 500 B. Serve as Prime Minister of Great Britain C. Board the MIR space station D. Win the Tour De France

8. How many National Parks are there in Canada?
A. 84 B. 25 C. 40 D. 60

9. In which year did Canada adopt the metric system?
A. 1975 B. 1985 C. 1967 D. 1970

10. How many time zones are there in Canada?
A. 6 B. 8 C. 4 D. 5

11. What is the highest mountain in Canada?
A. Mount Forbe B. Mount Logan C. Mount Kitchener D. Mount Lefroy

12. What is the longest river in Canada?
A. Fraser River B. St. Laurence River C. Mackenzie River D. Red River

13. What is Canada's most northern island?
A. Queen Charlotte B. Ellesmere C. Victoria D. Baffin

14. Which of the following authors is not Canadian?
A. W.O. Mitchell B. Margaret Atwood C. A.A. Milne D. Michael Ondaatje

15. Which Province has the largest concentration of moose in North America?
A. Alberta B. British Columbia C. Newfoundland D. Quebec

16. When was “Oh Canada” proclaimed as Canada’s national anthem?
A. 1870 B. 1935 C. 1980 D. 1999

17. What year did Canada quit using dog sleds as the main mode of transportation?
A. 1898 B. 1903 C. 1911 D. 1932

18. Which one of these inventions was not Canadian?
A. Roller skate B. Basketball C. IMAX D. Artificial Heart

19. Which one of these games was not created in Canada?
A. Trivia Pursuit B. Pictionary C. Scrabble D. Balderdash

20. 80% of Canadians live where?
A. In Igloos B. In Ontario C. With a Caribou D. Close to the US border

We featured Hockey Night in Canada street shootouts and Capture the Americanadian Flag in the back forest for the kids, while adults got to eat, drink Canadian beer or our own special yuckaflux, another Canadian tradition, and be merry. Holy Hub, who wore a cowboy hat made of out Molson Canadian beer boxes, made a saskatoon berry (a crunchy blue-ish berry indigenous to Alberta and Saskatchewan) cobbler in the Dutch oven that proved popular with Canadians and Americans alike. I looked equally as festive, decked out as I was with my Mountie-ish hat and RCMP apron.

And a fine time was had by all. One neighbour whispered that the block has never seen so much fun.


But the fun and frivolity didn't stop there. We then kicked into Holy Hub birthday mode with family celebrations starting the very next day, since Holy Hub and I were planning to be out for the evening of his birthday. Not just anywhere out but at the BB King concert, no less. A few months ago, I went searching the Net to see if I could maybe surprise Holy Hub with a flight to wherever BB King happened to be playing the night of his birthday. Imagine my surprise to find out that he was booked to play here, of all far flung places. Gotta love synchronicity.

So off we went, with little more than our newly-purchased beach chairs in tow, to our first outdoor concert at the local winery. Talk about feeling like a couple of naked, country bumpkins showing up to the city faire. All the couples - and that was pretty much the demographic - 50+ white couples - were decked out with little picnic baskets, bottles of wine, intricately-etched wine glasses, miniature cutting boards with cheese knives, imported cheeses, grapes, the whole wine and cheese enchilada.

I had thought to pack some cookies and chips. We bought our wine and our kiosk dinner there and then proceeded to sip serupticiously out of plastic cups and dine in dubious plastic fork and plate pleasure. And then we did what all good concert goers do - we grooved to the King. He was as much a delight to listen to, as he regailed the crowd with tales of yesteryear and now, as he was to watch. 82 years old and still oozing the blues. It was fun. I haven't smiled that much or felt inclined to break into musically-inspired tears so much in a very long time.

So little wonder that come the 4th of July, I was plum tuckered. We flew an American flag on the house for the first time - it was a landmark day in liminal citizenry. Attempting to hit the hay at 9pm that night in these parts, however, was an exercise in futility. Whereas our old neighbourhood was pretty quiet and devoid of covert pyros, our new neighborhood was a vestige of such. Firecrackers were shooting off from every side and in every direction. I felt like I was the lone dud popcorn kernel in a pan of hot oil that night. I finally gave up, got up, and with Holy Hub and the kids newly returned from their high hilltop fireworks viewing vantage point one neighborhood over, I joined them for a quick dogwalk around the block.

Hazy
Not even a week later, we would return for the same walk around the block in order to view the charred remains of a neighbour's house that went up in flames in the wee hours of yestermorn when, to quote Edgar Alan Poe, "each seperate dying ember" (of the lady's squashed cigarette butt) "wrought its ghost upon the floor." It was a cataclysmic awakening outside our bedroom window with fire sirens wailing, helicopters hovering, embers exploding, flames raging and smoke billowing.

And it was surreal on many fronts, to say the least. I had just finished drafting my memoir chapter on Fire, which details our own family tale of how much went up in smoke the day our house burned to the ground on January 7, 1970. Fire was very much on my mind. It's never been very far outside my consciousness, actually.

When I was the same age as Holy Son now, a house nearby to our own in Kenilworth blew-up - the fatality of a gas leak. I remember riding my bike over and standing there, aghast and in wide-eyed stare at the gaping hole where their house and home once stood.

As I trace our own married life and times - (two decades come August), I can't help but notice how often we have been touched by tragedy equally as close to home. In Edmonton circa mid-9os and only a few blocks away from our house, a young mother was brutally murdered by an intruder. Holy Hub studiously went about installing a house alarm system for us and I slept with one eye open each night for years thereafter.

In Islamabad, a Swiss man was senselessly murdered while hiking on the scenic-lookout hiking trail across the road from our home. Holy Hub studiously went about fostering increased security and international relations in our parts by plying the Checkpoint Charlie police at our corner with all-you-can-drink tea and chat.

One year later back in Canada, our brother's house caught fire. All escaped relatively unscathed but as I recall, he wore that tragedy with "like father, like son" pride for years to come.

And then not long after settling into our Calgary home, our neighbor just three houses up was found dead at her front entry landing ~ supposed the legacy of a random intrusion. But those of us who knew her to be estranged from her disturbed husband, an aldermanic hopeful in the previous civic election and fundamental Christian with a troubled teenhood, knew different. Rumours quickly spread of how the kids were found locked in their bedroom upstairs. What mother locks her kids in their bedroom unless fearing a danger far greater than fire?

Three years ago, tragedy again struck close. Shortly after moving to the U.S., we awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of fire engines. Turns out, a disgrunted divorceed man a couple of blocks away had set fire to the house for the insurance claim. The house next door caught fire, as well, and three years later, it has only just been rebuilt. The burnt remains and blacked shell of a car in the attached garage of Mr. Arsonist's house (who now sits in jail to ponder the perils of playing with fire) stand as testament to his bonfire of vanity.

And here again, the home fires burned. "A spark neglected makes a mighty fire" is perhaps the greatest of Herrick's understatements, as our now homeless neighbors have learned.

Suffice to say, I'm thankful for a little quiet on the western front from hereonin this summer. The closest I wish to get to fire this summer is at marshmallow stick's length away, superstitiously chanting "I hate white rabbits."