Competitive Spirit

The first official running race I participated in was this one: a half marathon (21 kilometers), when I had just turned 59. I loved everything about it! The camaraderie; the cups of water; the corny posters; the feeling that I couldn't do it and then I did!

I still love running races. I've done a bunch of them since then. The first in-person one I did since the beginning of Covid was last October. My smile lasted about two kilometers, when I lost myself in the joy of hearing all those other runners' feet pitter-pattering in front, beside and behind me. Then my self caught up with me and I spent the next two hours or so agonizing about my life and all the things that were going wrong and have gone wrong in the past.

Am I an impostor? Was the main question I kept asking myself. The jury is still out on that one. Because here's the thing: as soon as I say I'm anything, especially these days as the social media is ready to pick up and amplify any little piece of horse shit that escapes my mouth, as soon as I say I'm a midwife or a caring person or whatever, a witch and the like, then .... then I am that. And I necessarily have to be the BEST at whatever it is I've said I am.

And if I'm not the best, then I'm an impostor.

We live in an age of experts.

Experts, apparently, study stuff. They know about stuff and they can tell other people how to do things. But there are so many, many experts out there it's hard to know who to believe. So a regular person just finds the expert they agree with and build a game plan from there. But that leads to some difficulties: first of all, you can't just pick any expert. Some people do actually know more than others about any given subject. As a lay-trained midwife, I know that I don't have as much technical knowledge as an OBGYN... so I shouldn't represent myself in opposition to them. But I do, or rather, we do ... we seem to be living in an age when we are all projecting images of ourselves that are larger than life, and better than the puny reality.

The second difficulty with finding an expert to guide you on your way is the problem of responsibility. If you're following an expert's advice and things go sideways, who are you going to blame? Yourself? I don't think so. If you've already decided that you need an expert to help you do whatever it is that you want to do, then you've already given them some degree of responsibility. 

So, if we do away with experts? Well, no one is going to do brain surgery on themselves I hope. But maybe we could tweak the idea a little bit. Maybe we could add some humility to the picture. Perhaps we could reduce our need for experts, trust ourselves a little more, and remember that living life isn't actually like running a race. No one really wins: it isn't really about the survival of the fittest.

Maskne? You're kidding me...

 I'm not even going to post a picture here because I'm so ashamed of how my face looks. Yes, it's that bad. And, yes, maskne is a real condition. If you're interested, the New York Times did an article on it so you can read up on it and try to prevent it. Basically, it's caused by the build-up of all that your facial pores don't need (bacteria, oil, sweat, dirt, possibly some fungi ... all that good stuff), which gets trapped on your skin because ... because you're wearing a mask. 

I wear a mask every day at my cafe. I leave my house around 8am, get the Metro with my mask on, and get to work, and my face is covered from then until I get back home. That's a long time to have a fabric covering over my face, and I'm paying for it now.

Don't get me wrong, I believe that this virus is real, and that vaccines work, and that wearing a mask works too. I worked in health care for long enough to know that in situations where you don't want bacteria or viruses to spread from your mouth, you wear a mask. So that's not an issue, whether I agree with the effectiveness of the damn thing.

No, my issue is that I have been struck bad with the Maskne, and I'm feeling like I'm 13 again.

• I'm very self-conscious about my face. I like putting on a mask, or wearing concealer, so that no one will notice the awful rash around my nose and mouth.
• I almost don't want to go out. I feel like people will talk about me.
• Even worse, my self-consciousness has spread to other areas: I can't cook; I look stupid (my clothes are old and drab); I am too slow; my hearing loss bothers people; I'm not a good mother/granny/midwife..... the list goes on. Oh, and I'm fat. Ridiculous.

The only time I don't feel this way is when I'm out running, because honestly, who cares what you look like when you're having fun? People will notice my rashy face and what? They'll say "oh look at that 65 year old lady out for a run at 7:30 in the morning, what awful maskne she has". Yep.

 As we get older, there is more pressure to perform, not less. Because old people aren't valued simply because they have been on the planet for longer, and they've experienced more ... well, they've experienced more experiences, good and bad, beautiful and ugly.... so, because we aren't valued for that, there is a huge pressure to prove ourselves in many ways. The one who keeps on working; the one who runs the fastest and the farthest; the one who is the best grandma ever; the one who can afford to support his whole extended family ... you get the picture.

So, for me, this rash on my face has brought up all sorts of worries about whether I was true to myself, and I did what I was supposed to do, and was I good enough as a mother, a midwife, a wife, a friend, a daughter, a sister.... a citizen, an anarchist, a revolutionary, a witch ... 

It's funny what a few little zits can do to a gal's psyche!

Friends

I've been going through some transformations recently, and I've been feeling a little like I did when I was 13 or so... wondering how to navigate the next chapter in my life, super annoyed with everyone and everything, but moved to tears by small beautiful things. 

I've tried to treat myself like one does a newborn, moving slowly and taking care. I've had some huge moral joltings in my life over the past few months, and I've been taking stock and realizing that our small moments with friends are one of life's most important pleasures.

There is something immensely comforting in the fact that I've kept in touch with one friend for 55 years, and two others for 50 years, and I know that I can call or write and we will be back to being ten, fifteen, or fifty. And I love the fact that even as I age, I'm still making new friends.

One thing 2020 taught me was that I am much more of an introvert than I thought. I'm happy to muddle through on my own, and I don't hanker after being sociable. I love to run long distances on my own, to think my thoughts. I love chatting with myself about all the questions and worries I have in my mind.

But of course, I'm not the best person to turn to when I want someone else to talk to, someone else's experience and wisdom to learn from, someone else to have fun with and compare notes on this weird journey we call life.

So here's an idea: if you read this (and I know there are a few of you who will), take a minute to call or send a message to a friend. It will make them happy!

Finding Center

I lost my centre over the past few months and I'm not sure how. I've been feeling like a small boat in the middle of a big sea. The desires and defeats and dreams of others became my reality. I stepped up to a plate I don't really like.

Yesterday,  no it's last week now, I ran a half marathon, that's 13 miles. My phone had broken so I didn't have music to listen to, so I only had my own thoughts and the sounds of my feet, my breath, and other runners talking or the Canada Geese honking in the background. I thought about how I have gotten to where I am, and how my beliefs and convictions have changed and matured over time, but how they got mixed up and sidelined over the past year or so.

Women's reproductive health has always been very important to me. I've worked in the field of maternity care for over twenty years, mostly as a doula but also as a midwife. I am not registered to practice as a midwife here in Canada, so I've restricted my practice to other places and different ways of practicing. 

As the complications and controversies grew and thrived as we lived through a pandemic, I started to hear from women who did not want to go to the hospital to have their babies, and neither did they want to have their births attended by registered midwives. In their opinion, the restrictions put in place for birthing women and their families were oppressive and inhuman. So these women wanted to give birth on their own.

Most of the women who contacted me felt strongly that they did not want to wear a mask during labour; they did not want their partner or doula to be restricted; they do not believe that the Covid vaccine is necessary or valuable. The vaccine passport in Quebec is now required for a doula to accompany a woman to a hospital or birthing centre, and this is also part of the reasons why this group of women are seeking answers elsewhere.

My life has been devoted to a few things: my own family - my husband, my five sons, and their new families; my attempts to live a good life; and my desire to facilitate change for women, their children, and the world as a whole. For me, that desire became focused on working to find ways to make decent, safe, respectful, woman-centred health care available for every woman. 

So when women started calling me and wanting my assistance, advice, and companionship, I agreed that I would provide prenatal support - virtually - and I would accompany them along their decision-making paths to childbirth. You know what? That's insane, and reckless, and lacks consciousness, and that's why I believe that I somehow, somewhere, lost my center. The paradigm doesn't work. Because prenatal care is about touch, and attention, and the five senses, the sixth senses, and all the senses in between. Common sense, for one. 

If a woman wants to give birth on her own, for whatever reason, I actually support her in that choice. I don't like to tell people what to do, generally. But I also like to hold people accountable for their actions. And that means that if you're giving birth on your own, then you don't involve me. Why not? Let me explain: I've had many calls from women who want to give birth "outside of the system". And they want me to be a "fly on the wall." Why would they want that fly there? "In case anything goes wrong". Well, the fact is that, in fact, things DO go wrong during childbirth. And if you're giving birth on your own, you should recognize that and figure out what you're going to do in that situation. 

But it's not right to rely on the knowledge and experience of a fly, and it's not right for a doula to offer to be that fly. Because then when things do go wrong (which, yes, is very, very rare), then what's a fly supposed to do in an emergency? 

I'm taking time away from some things for the next little while, and I don't even know which things. I will be making some time for myself: time to think, to ponder, to meditate, to run, to declutter, to find peace, to find my center again.

Birth and the Fourth Trimester

With all the fuss and bother these days about where women are going to give birth and what will happen to them when they get there, or if they stay home if they will have competent support, or if they're giving birth on their own if they've prepared enough spiritually to accept whatever may or may not unfold ... with all the conflict and controversy about who is vaccinated and who isn't, and what restrictions have  or haven't been put in place been put in place ... with the removal of the woman from the center of the birth experience and the forgetting of this vital fact ... most importantly, we have forgotten that after the pregnancy and birth, there is usually a baby! 

Many, many women find themselves at home after their baby has been born, without much idea of what to do, what they should do, or how to do it. Personally, I was lucky. I came home after fairly difficult experiences with my hospital births, and the breastfeeding went exceptionally well, and my maternal instincts led the way. But over the years, I've seen that my experience isn't common, and I'm moved now to do as much as I can to teach birth companions and doulas about how to provide care during those important hours, days and weeks after the baby is born.

I'm teaching a course on this important time that will be starting on October 26. That's a Tuesday, and we'll be meeting online every Tuesday evening from five to eight pm EDT for eight weeks. The course covers what we will usually see during these days and weeks; how we can use all six of our senses to care for a new family; we will explore elemental ways of nourishing; we will be taking a good look at the family, the motherbaby dyad, and the newborn mother to truly understand how best to increase pleasure and strength during this seminal time.

Breastfeeding is a big part of many women's experience, so we will learn about that. But it isn't everyone's, so we'll look at other options. We need to learn about how to do proper housewifery: cleaning, cooking, tidying, calming. We will be exploring some uses of herbs and food. I am hoping that the members of our class will bring their own talents to share with us.

Please let me know if you would like to join us!

Home Can Be A Tower

I'm thinking a lot about home, and what home means to us. We moved our family to a medieval tower in 1988: it was the beginning of a long series of adventures, some cool and exciting, others devastating and dangerous. I pulled the Tower card this morning for my reading, which can mean change in a fundamental way. It can mean the destruction of one home and the creation of another. It can signal the breaking down of old habits and patterns to make way for new: an eruption, a revolution.

I work alongside women who are thinking deeply about how they want to give birth. Most of them want to birth at home, and many of them do. Last week, one of the women I have been working with over the summer gave birth at home, peacefully, in her place, with her partner alongside her. She came back to the city from abroad because she felt the need to give birth "at home". She didn't just mean in her own apartment, on her own bed. She meant "in her home". She missed the smells of her city; the bicycles; the streets and trees of the place she knew - she knows - as her own home.

When I am invited to accompany a woman during her reproductive experience, whether that is pregnancy, birth, miscarriage, abortion, infertility experiences, or the decision whether or not to have children, I try to facilitate a way that she can work her way back to her "home". We all have a centre place, a home, that we need to be able to return to. When we can't return, we get lost. We get lost in other peoples' needs and desires. We get lost in addictions. We get lost in our jobs. We get lost in cleaning up. We get lost in the search for money or new things. We get lost and then the Hungry Ghost finds us and we feel empty all the time, and hungry, and we don't even know what we are hungry for. But the answer is, we're missing our Home.

I've never felt I had a geographic home. I moved from one continent to the next all my life: Africa, North America, Europe. I love the Canadian Rockies. I feel at home when I'm on a trail. I love the desert. Give me temperatures at body temp or higher, and I'm happy. Then again, I love the challenge of a 20 k run in 20 below zero. 

But I wouldn't say I have a home, like, I don't feel "at home" anywhere. I am at home when I'm with any number of my five children and their spouses. I'm at home when I'm running a long distance. I'm at home ... when I'm on a plane, looking down at my planet.

I listen with awe to people who speak of missing their home, how they miss the taste of a place, or the feeling of the wind on their faces in their home place. My journey is different: because I've never felt the geographic pull of home, I seek to find my centre, and I accompany others on their own journeys to their centres. When a woman is birthing in her centre, she is birthing at home. When she gives birth in her power, at the centre of the event, she has found her home. My job is to navigate with her so she can find the path home. Sometimes there are huge prickly trees in front of the entranceway. Sometimes her home is very small, so small she can trip on it at night. Sometimes she needs to lose something in order to find her home. Sometimes she needs to let go of one place to journey to the other.

Peace.

Makeup for an Old Tomboy

You all probably know by now that I am a new grandma!!! I can't believe I am actually allowed to say that, but yes. It's true. I feel like it's a gigantic rite of passage, and an honour, and more joy than I thought I would be allowed.. but yes, the wheel is turning as it should. And I am growing older and my children are now having children. As it happens, as it should. So be it.

My moon cycle ended when I turned fifty, or rather, the bleeding part of it, because of course I am still led by the moon and she still affects my body. But the miracle of bleeding every month has passed, and it passed with a dramatic few months when every 23 days or so I would lose what seemed like a bathtub full of deep rich blood.

I gained a lot of extra weight after I had my fifth child at 44. I was miserable, and I was eating too much and badly. I was lonely and out of my element. I felt trapped and disgusted with myself. The younger smarter woman would have left the trap she found herself in, but the older and slower one didn't.

But it was fine, because then I started to run, and run, and run until in 2018, on Mother's Day, I ran 26.2 miles. I felt great! I have always been the type of person who wants a physical challenge: back when I had a farm and four little boys I would always be physically busy. Even being a birth companion is physical. But running long distances is the best! So I just kept running. Every day.

But then Covid happened, and although I kept on running, I entered into a new phase of my relationship with my body.

Maybe because I was always running alone. Maybe because I hurt my foot so I had to take a break. Maybe because my Covid stress came out this way, but I started going through the same kinds of feelings many of us go through as girls when we start to reach adolescence. I remember being so terribly shy; so embarrassed about myself; so uncomfortable with my new breasts.

And suddenly, at 64, my infernal mask started giving me a rash on my face that looked suspiciously like my teenage acne. I started feeling self-conscious when I was out running, sure that people were looking at me and wondering why the plump older lady was lumbering down the street with a running watch on. The nightmare of adolescent self-consciousness started to mix and match itself around in my head, until I realized that I had the answer.

I've never worn a lot of makeup. My mother wore it, but she never passed on any tips. I went through a heavy black eyeliner look when I was a hippie, and then when I flirted with punk. But mostly I love lipstick. I've always worn it - every different color from the lightest pink through deep red to almost purple, and a lighter orange for the summer. 

Covid meant that my lipsticks all disappeared into a drawer. I was wearing it for a while at the beginning until I realized that lipstick plus mask makes a mess. I've been going out every day into the world feeling somehow... naked? 

That's what Covid has done to us. We're all feeling naked, or something close to it. Threatened, maybe. Either by the virus itself or by peoples' reactions to it. People are acting wonderfully and awfully. The best of us has come out, and the worst. Our reality has been jolted, as it is when we go through a life change like puberty, pregnancy or menopause. We've been pushed out of our daily routines, our habits, the familiar ways we used to interact with people.

So I feel self-conscious and weird. So does my friend and my neighbour, and even the young woman at the gas station. We're wearing our masks, and no lipstick, and many of us have gained some weight especially around the belly because of our extra high cortisol levels.

But I think I am seeing a little pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel. I see people interacting in different ways, and trying to create a new, better place for us to live. Of course, I could equally go the darker way and note how much more oppression and repression and basic bullshit there is, which is undeniable. The social media have made us worse as a species, not better. But let's say things are getting better. Let's say every "smile with the eyes", every kind act, every time someone went out of their way in the tiniest way, let's say those little things did add up to a mountain of change, and let's say we are moving to a new er and better "normal". 

Most birth journeys include pain, or at least a few moments of .... to call it discomfort is to minimize it ... ok, let's call it intensity. Most of the birth journeys I have witnessed have had several of these moments: before, during and after the child is born. Maybe this is a time of birthing change. Maybe we are birthing a new world, and the intensity and transition that we all feel is part of it.

But lipstick helps.