I Love Housework!!

It's true. Although you probably couldn't guess it looking at the state of my home right now. Cobwebs everywhere. And dog hair. (update: I got a Dyson, and I vacuumed all that shit up)

When I first started doing housework, my mother was working teaching math at the university, and doing art in her spare time, and being a proper wife and mother. I thought she was a slob, so I cleaned up. It was probably an obsessive reaction to being a misfit adolescent, but it did teach me the thrill of cleaning.

"Some people may regard the little details of the physical environment as mundane and unimportant. But very often, the disturbances people feel come from the atmosphere around them." This phrase from Chogyam Trungpa's book "The Sanity We Are Born With" jumped out at me when I first read it, and it affirms what I believe about the simple tidying-up that we can do as housewives, as friends, as mothers, as roommates, as doulas. 

The table I'm working on is a little cluttered. I ran this morning so there's my running detritus. My agenda. A vase of flowers and in the distance you can see some stuff on my kitchen counter. It mirrors my state of mind these days: a little cluttered, some half-finished business here and there, some worrying issues in the sink.

Mother's Day was originally conceived in 1872, and was accompanied by a plea to all mothers to rise up and end war. It took almost 40 more years until Mother's Day was made a formal North American "day", and the one that was accepted into the calendar began as a liturgical tradition in a Methodist Church. 

The original Mothers' Day Proclamation, Julia Ward Howe 1870

“Arise, then… women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.

From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence vindicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of council.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take council with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after his own kind the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women, without limit of nationality, may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient, and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.“

~ Julia Ward Howe

Today was Mother's Day. I began my day with a text from one of my daughter-in-loves. Then a son. Then another son called, and I got to have a long discussion with my grandson (who's ten months old, so our discussion was mostly da-da. Da-da-da. Da-da-da-da, and so on). Then another son and his partner invited me for brunch, but I wanted to go for a long run so I declined, then another son called, and another son's girlfriend texted. I went for my run.

So much love!! There's love all around us. And somehow, for me, when I clean it's almost like I'm shining and dusting and uncovering that love, brushing the cobwebs off my worries, shining up my compassion, scraping off my resentments and my hatreds. 

I did three loads of laundry, changed the sheets on the bed, vacuumed and washed dishes, I dusted the wooden furniture and shelves and I replaced the screens in the windows. I watered all the plants. These simple tasks help me stay reasonably sane, in an insane-seeming world.

Every single one of you was born from a mother. Some of you are mothers yourselves. Let's hold hands, in motherhood, in sisterhood, as housewives, as writers, as athletes, as bank managers, as painters, as machine operators, as ourselves. Let's dust off our hearts and spread the love!

To Dye or Not to Dye

In the reflection of the reflection of the reflection you can see an older women with actual smile wrinkles who is participating in that age-old activity: vanity. I figured I would grow out my hair and wear it loud and proud grey. But then the grey looked yellowish and I was wondering how many women actually do have that lovely silvery grey I see around. Anyway I decided not to visit my old hairdresser because of Covid, so I snuck into the bathroom armed with a box of evil-smelling dye and turned my hair red.

I used to have beautiful coppery hair. When I went to Bali in 2012, it almost touched my bum it was so long. But then I started running seriously and it was too heavy to carry around, so I cut it medium length. Now it's around my shoulders and growing more slowly, I guess that's one other thing that happens as we age.

I am very lucky to have a group of friends who love to braid hair. When I go and visit them, I get sat in the fancy chair and my friend combs my hair and then another friend braids. It's such a lovely, comforting activity. I remember when I travelled around in Africa on my own back when I was just a twenty-something, I used to envy the women I would see sitting together everywhere, braiding each other's hair. 

I've been reading Iron John by the American poet Robert Bly. It is an exploration of the mythical fundaments of masculinity, but of course he also touches on the fundamentals of the mythical feminine. "If an ancient Greek saw a man who had Zeus energy, he would never say, "That man is Zeus." His mythology distinguished the layers. Now that mythology has collapsed, contemporary men again and again confuse a living woman with the Woman Who Has Golden Hair. A living woman with stomach, small intestine, and a disturbed childhood is not the woman of light. A person who discreetly farts in an elevator is not a divine being, and a man needs to know this."

Hair is very powerful. There is hair in so many of our myths and stories. Animal hair, human hair, men's hair and women's hair, they are all significant and infused with power and life force. Human newborns are (mostly) hairless, or if they do have hair it is only on their heads and shoulders, and it is thin and powerless just like the human babe.

So should I color my hair with powerful alchemical chemicals? Or should I let the grey grow out and wave my freak flag? For now, I'm voting for color, keeping the reddish tints alive, at least in my dreams and in my mirror. 

It's A Free Country and Other Random Thoughts

We had a bunch of snow a few weeks ago and I was driving to work one morning when I saw what, to me, was a typically Canadian sight. A man in a little car had failed to turn left and he had pushed his car deep into a snow drift that was right in front of a construction site. The guy wearing constructions clothing - orange mostly and many layers so he looked huge - was trying to push the car out of the snowbank. The man driving the car was pedal-to-the-metal and spinning his tires in reverse. He looked confused. Traffic was at a standstill. Another car, a larger one, behind the stuck car, stopped and the driver put on his flashers and ran to help Construction guy push other guy's car out of the drift. The light turned green so I had to go but I'm assuming all ended well.

I saw a photo the other day of some young Afghani girls who are just starting to be able to attend school again (online of course). When Canada pulled its military presence from Afghanistan, they had no idea that the Taliban would regain power so quickly, or maybe they didn't care. Anyway women and girls there certainly took a beating, but hopefully we will see some change one day so that education will be available for girls and boys both.

Meanwhile, every step I take while training for a half marathon in April and a marathon in October is a step towards raising money to support Free to Go, which is an organization that provides girls and women in war-torn areas the opportunities to participate in sports. Running, hiking and learning about other sports help girls and young women to develop their independence and give them the strength and endurance they need to grow into strong, healthy adults. 

A final thought for today: be kind to each other, don't try too hard, let life unfold as it will, keep the peace, don't forget to laugh.

Fear and Bears

I went to the Rockies over a year ago with my husband. We had a great time, hiking, hanging out and generally enjoying being in the magnificent Rocky Mountains. They are definitely one of the most beautiful and haunting places in our wide world.

I used to go there often when I was a young woman, and the mountains gave me a feeling of peace and confidence I've remembered often throughout my less peaceful life. So I was surprised to hear the many warnings about bear spray: how there were so many bears, how aggressive they've become, and how everyone should be on high alert and carry bear spray.

There are excellent arguments for and against carrying bear spray. 

Arguments For: bears have changed over the decades. Apparently they have gotten much less afraid of humans and perhaps they've become more aggressive, and perhaps the populations have grown. And, why not? It's easy to hook on to your belt and easy to deploy if you need to.

Arguments Against: for decades people have been living, hiking and exploring in the Rocky Mountains and we've always learned that making noise or travelling in groups and following simple rules will avoid nasty incidents with bears. Also, most people obey traffic laws but every so often some poor law-abiding soul gets hits by a car.

I did a very unscientific and completely informal poll on a Facebook group I belong to with over 25,000 members. It's a trail running group, all women. I asked them whether they carried bear spray in bear country, and who had ever had an encounter with a bear. Some of the women had indeed had encounters. No serious ones. Some of the women carry guns. Most of the responses were along the lines that most bears are afraid of humans, and that life itself can be risky.

Life can indeed be risky. Just last week I heard that a bunch of people were forced from their homes by an adjoining state bombing their country. My heart is pretty broken. A maternity hospital was bombed and we know of at least one mother and baby who were killed. How does that make any sense at all? As a midwife, we said brightly to each other "Meconium happens", until a baby actually died and then we realized, yes, the shit actually can and does hit the fan way more often than we would want it to.

But all of this is just begging the question: when is it smart to be afraid and when is it dumb to carry bear spray? Fear is necessary for life: we avoid dangerous things by working through from fear to avoidance to survival. But we can also get too cautious in life, and our fear can prevent us from living our lives properly. 

Balance is the key, but where do we learn how to balance this tightrope, this knife's edge we call life? And how do we teach our children that balance? When part of us only wants to create a soft cushion around the child so they'll feel no pain? Of course we fight against that urge in ourselves, because at the same time we know that humans need to experience richness in their lives, and part of that richness is darkness too. We've all heard the trope about darkness and light. But it's true. As Alan Watts says, if you want the Yang, you gotta take the Yin: more Yin, more Yang. 

Give me those Rocky Mountains, hold the bear spray. No, wait, YOU carry it, I'll skip blindly ahead. 

Now play this song, close your eyes, and remember everything is fine.

  

Shields, magic, bubbles, screens

 

One of the key qualities that a doula or a midwife seeks to make use of during her journey with a woman as she births is the ability to create shields, bubbles and screens. This quality is akin to magic, and it is hard to access and even harder to use skilfully. 

1. Shields can help prevent a birth attendant from bringing her own baggage to the birth room. To do this, we must place the birthing mother at the very center of the experience, so much so that our own desires, opinions, concerns, and emotional reactions do not really matter. At the same time, we must be constantly aware of the health and well-being of the mother and child, but not in an emotionally infused way. Rather, we have to notice what is happening, much like a Buddhist will notice emotions as they drift past during meditation.

2. Bubbles are wonderfully useful and I made so many of them when I was working as a doula in the hospital setting! A bubble is a protective sphere around the birthing woman. It can include her partner, you as the birth attendant, her midwife, her mother or whomever, but its main purpose is to maintain an emotional or spiritual "space" within which the birthing mother can find her way. Often the woman giving birth has other people's ideas and opinions floating around in her head, which can detract from the intensity of what she needs to do. The bubble will often give her the chance to be fully aware of what her body is doing, so that she can stop thinking through the event.

I will create a bubble by visualizing, but also with physical closeness to the woman (eye to eye contact, light massage), and also with carefully chosen words and a physical distancing (turning my back) from the people outside the bubble. Sometimes it will be necessary for the woman to move to a different room in order to fully accept and embrace the bubble.

3. Screens are effective when there is a danger of you, the birth attendant, becoming emotionally engaged with another person in the birth room. You must erect a mental screen so that your exchange with the other person doesn't infect the atmosphere in the room. For example, if the birth is taking place in a hospital and the nurse is feeling lonely and wants to chat about the patient in the next room, I always like to erect a friendly screen so that the nurse doesn't feel rejected but she knows that conversation isn't appropriate. On the other hand, if a member of the staff is being abusive to the birthing woman I will erect a very strong, impenetrable screen that shields the birthing mother and her family from the anger or ugliness that is taking place. This can be very difficult.

These methods can be used outside of the birth room as well, in stressful situations in all walks of life. Just get your magic on, and you can create a peaceful dwelling for yourself and those around you.

Decluttering and Re-Imagining

I have been de-cluttering my spirit over the past few months. I had descended into some bad habits over the years. If it only takes 30 days to initiate and maintain a habit, imagine how difficult it is to shed twenty years worth of bad habits!

But I realized that the best way wasn't in fact to navel-gaze for the rest of my life and try to figure out what I should keep and what I should throw out. The best way, for me, was to grab the toilet brush between my teeth, and to turn my back on habits that didn't make me happy, and to march into the sunset, toilet brush firmly held to remind me.

De-cluttering can mean anything at all! For me, it means moving towards play and saying "YES". It's so important to play. Ooooh, we are taught to feel so guilty all the time. I'm trying to break down my deep feelings of "having to be busy". If I'm not busy, what the hell am I taking up space for? What a silly idea. Plants aren't busy. But I'm not a plant. hmmm. 

I'd like to do these things: 

• freedive in beautiful water
• climb Mount Kilimanjaro
• work as a midwife again
• go into space and see the blue jewel of earth
• kiss my grandchildren as often as possible
• run long, long distances
• organize all my books into subject
• learn more about birds
• go dancing
• visit all my friends all around the world
• learn about the constellations
• spend months in the desert

What do YOU want to do?

The Magic of Meditation

I always tell myself I'm going to start meditating, then I do, but I only keep it up for about a month or so before other things become more attractive. Like running or sleeping. I've read a lot about meditation, and I know that physiologically it makes a difference to how our bodies process stress hormones, how our blood moves, and how our bodies function in general.

But since I'm not a meditator, how can I access the kinds of things I want from meditating, without meditating? What do I want to feel? How do I want to change my body and my mind? What's my goal?

My goal is inner peace. My goal is world peace. My goal is a healthier body. My goal is a better temperament. My goal is a better birth experience for women. My goal is to be a better person. My goal is to be the best ......

Hold it right there! "working on yourself", having a "goal" in terms of self-discovery or self-care, or healing from trauma or whatever... these are not useful. Why are we starting at a place where we are intrinsically broken? Why don't we start from that place where we are whole? If you can sit with yourself for one minute and be grateful for ... grateful for just being. For the little things that may give you pleasure in the here and now, then that is good. And that's all it is.

Life is made up of tiny drops in the ocean. Do something, it will have effects. Don't do another thing, that will have effects too. I try to experience that physiological state that I imagine meditating achieves when I lie in bed. I move my consciousness through my body and check where little glitches might be, and then I fall asleep. It's when I'm running that I can free my mind. When I run my goals disappear. I run to get lost. I run to lose mySelf. I run to run.