Carpe Diem, Gorgeous!

Spiritual Thirst

2012-01-03T14:39:00.007+01:00

It's strange sometimes, isn't it? It's hard to understand. To know. Beyond a doubt, without question, that life...this life...is a blessing, a gift, an undefinable thing. And we're often hopeless at it.

When I sit on a sun warmed rock on a cool fall day staring at the sea, feeling the noise of it pounding in my ears. Chaos echoing chaos. Chaos calming chaos. I know. I want to see the waves break against the rocks, I want to witness more power, and at the core of me, I want to see some sort of glorious unimaginable destruction. It would please me...it would answer some sort of obscure question in me to see it all fall to pieces. It would help me know that things can break outside myself too. And this great hope. This great great great hope is that somehow, I wouldn't be hopeless at living.

I turn calendar pages, scribble out "30" and replace it with "31", watch William's face change from a baby to that of a little boy. I look out my window and see a profusion of flowers and green and wonder how I could have ever lived without these shades of green. But I do manage. For months and months I manage. I look out of my window and see rain and darkness. Snow. New growth again. All too fast. All in the blink of an eye.

I wonder, what am I growing toward? Who am I becoming?

These questions are positive, strength infusing things. They keep me from running in circles, from stagnation, from feeling hopeless.

I want to strip away the useless, the negative, the fear and uncover a dazzling depth of honesty in myself. To confront myself. To grow. To set out upon the most spiritual and life changing of journeys without ever leaving my living room.

I think sometimes it would be so much easier to physically set out on a spiritual journey. To visit a place of solitude and reflection. To take up a backpack and make a difficult pilgrimage across narrow mountain roads. To be taught. To pray and meditate and focus. To go away and come back changed.

It's harder to change in a familiar place. It takes discipline to get out of your own bed each morning and think "Today I am going to learn and grow. Right here where I am. Because this is the option I have open to me right now." Examining the soul is always challenging and often unsettling. It can certainly be unpleasant at times. The alternative is to go though life blindly, always distracted, never achieving awareness or questioning yourself. Never growing. (And yes, I believe there are people who go through their lives never growing or stretching themselves.)

I like myself. I like a lot of things about myself but God forbid I ever get to a place where I feel I have no more growing or seeking left to do.

On a whole other note, my vibrant, fun and life-loving friend Serene from http://elegantbohemian.blogspot.com/ gave me this lovely award the other day:

The deal with this award is simply:

1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
2. Reveal your 5 blogger picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
4. Hope that the people you have sent the award to will forward it to their favorite bloggers.

So here goes:

1. Thank you Serene! (Link to her site is already posted above...if you love color and originality in clothing and character I encourage you to check it out!:)

2: - My brother Kelly at http://kellyjameswilson.wordpress.com/ because he is a great writer and super intelligent and you know, he's also my brother, born on my birthday and I like him. (I'd also like to recommend you drop by and "like" his FB page which is found here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Articles-of-Faith/209796632440184 :)

- Lovely Lidia at http://mla-crownofglory.blogspot.com/ whose writing always leaves me wanting to seek the Lord on a deeper level.

- My sister in law Olga Marie at http://kreativemariet.blogspot.com/ who creates a variety of beautiful things.

- Corinne at http://www.everydaygyaan.com/ because she is one of the most entirely positive and generous-spirited people out there!

- Jane at http://northfinchley.blogspot.com/ because I enjoy her excellent writing and her sense of humor and attitude toward life.

3.) Done.

4.) Hoping. :)

On that note, I wish you all a very happy new year. May it hold love, peace and joy for you all.

"It's Just Not Fair"

2011-12-07T14:43:00.008+01:00

"We have no right to ask, when sorrow comes, 'Why did this happen to me?' unless we ask the same question for every joy that comes our way." Philip S Bernstein

There are certain lessons we learn our whole lives through. Patterns, habits, thoughts and actions we fall into again and again and again and then feel like giving ourselves a smack on the forehead as we think in exasperation (or sometimes despair) "Didn't I learn this last time around?!"

Many of us live under the illusion that life needs to be "fair" to us. When something isn't fair, we experience numerous reactions: childish petulance, outraged hurt, anger or we find ourselves falling into despair, anxiety, fear, a spiral of negative emotions...

When our precious sense of fair is tampered with, we often lash out at others, God, ourselves, in the immaturity of our understanding.

Where does our sense of entitlement come from?

There are many, many things in life, the world and history that aren't fair. Horrendous things happen to good and innocent people and good things happen to misguided, cruel, and evil people. Why are we always surprised anew by this as though the world has always been a haven of fairness and justice and our experience is the first of its kind? Perhaps because we were created with a deep craving for justice? Created with an innate sense of dignity that in a perfect world would always be respected and valued? Or less lofty but worth mentioning, because we are essentially selfish beings who have difficulty rising above a situation that hurts us, looking at it from angles other than "it's unfair"?

It isn't wrong to think things like "Why me?" or "It just isn't fair.". But it can't end there...those thoughts need to be the beginning of a journey toward a broader and more enlightened understanding of the situation. We can choose to step out of the role and mentality of being a perpetual victim and into one of maturity, grace, and acceptance.

I think that overcoming the idea of unfairness is a lifelong battle. I didn't think it was fair for example when shortly after learning my husband and I would never have biological children, I read a story in the newspaper announcing that Karla Homolka was pregnant. (For those of you unfamiliar with the name, she and her husband together raped, tortured and murdered many teen age girls and women, her own sister among them.) That is when the absurdidty of it struck me most intensely. I had been telling myself that I didn't deserve children, I wasn't fit to be a mother, all sorts of hurtful, self destructive things to be able to bear my own feeling of it being unfair. It struck me reading this piece of news that if Karla Homolka can get pregnant and have a baby, then fairness really has nothing to do with it and obviously neither then did the notion that I somehow wasn't fit to be a mother.

Eventually I reached a place where fair and unfair took on different and more perspective definitions. As we progressed in our first adoption journey, I came to understand fair is a bigger picture than what I can see and understand...it's so subjective. Instead of thinking "Why us? Why will we never have children of our own?" I slowly began to think "Why anybody? Why this mother in Sri Lanka who has to give up her child? Why this little boy? Why this hurting broken country?" None of it is really fair. The issue was so much larger than my initial "why me". I believe there are answers and most of the time the struggle is simply to think outside of ourselves. Let go of our sense of fair.

The Joy of Giving

2011-12-03T16:18:00.005+01:00

I want to write about gifts. Being joyful, thankful, appreciative, and gracious in both the giving and receiving that we do.

I was told some rather surprising things about myself during the past week (at least I found them surprising:) and after thinking a little bit I suppose that this is my response. Please read it in the spirit it's written in, which is that of realization and explanation. It is not meant to be snide or the taking up of a private issue publicly, simply my own thoughts on giving and receiving gifts.

Alright, I'll end your anxious anticipation and say it's very simple for me really. :) I always have liked finding gifts for other people. I try to always choose them with thought and care and occasionally a sense of fun. I love when I find that "perfect" something for somebody else or even just something I know I would appreciate getting myself, however small. (Although here I must be careful as not everybody appreciates sparkly, bejeweled small elephants the way I do.;) I truly do believe that it's the thought that counts and that there is a big and quite obvious difference between a gift chosen with love and one just grabbed off the shelf with no thought what so ever. I think things like candles, special teas and coffees or pretty soaps etc make lovely gifts. I think those things are thoughtful even though they are small. I don't stress about buying gifts, I try to enjoy it and generally have fun doing it. It's a genuine pleasure to give gifts to others and I treat it that way for the most part.

I also love receiving gifts so I'm not entirely sure where the idea that I don't appreciate them came from, unless from my own jokes about being a grinch (which I assure you are just jokes, I am not actually a grinch) or from my real desire to live with less materially. The fact that I want to try to own less doesn't mean I don't receive joy from being given a gift. Of course I do. I value the thought and love that went into it when there has been thought and love that went in to it. I don't often say what I'd like but I'm not a difficult or a picky person because I like almost everything people get me. What I don't appreciate though is the idea that a gift must be expensive to have worth. I will be honest and say that means nothing to me. It doesn't impress me or make me feel loved. What does make me feel loved is when I see someone has found something they think I'd enjoy...my sister in law recently gave me a big, cozy mug with a bag of loose specially flavored tea for my birthday and I love that sort of thing. My brother often sends me books he thinks I'd like. Another sister in law has made me beautiful cards. What I'm saying is those are the things that warm my heart to receive. Not large, expensive items. They just do nothing for me. :)

I know this isn't a deep or profound post but I have had all week to consider this and I wanted to clear the issue up for myself and perhaps for others as well. I wanted to do it kindly but honestly. I think we should both give and receive without obligation. With a joyful, thankful, appreciative, and gracious heart.

Much love, C.

An Unusual Fondness For Elephants

2011-09-12T10:04:00.009+02:00

As a woman actively trying to cull her possessions and achieve some sort of transcendent, zen-like, materially detached peace ;), I truly have a problem when it comes to anything embellished with an elephant design or made in the shape of an elephant itself. I loath collections but I have been guilty of buying totally useless items only because they were in the shape of a gaudy, colorful, dazzling elephant.

Take this summer for example. My husband, brother, sister and I went to Oslo. While my husband worked, my brother and sister and I like dutiful Catholics, attended daily mass in St. Olav's which actually was not a duty at all but a serene pleasure as for once William wasn't there wreaking unholy havoc during the sacred celebration of the Eucharist. When mass was finished we got out my brother Sean's laptop and searched out various thrift shops in the vicinity. Unlike North America or the UK, Norway isn't big on thrifting unfortunately but there is the odd shop here and there so each day we walked hours through the city streets in the pouring rain and hit a new one.

When we found them, we would stumble in, dripping water victoriously all over the threshold and go off in search of...treasure. Each day I discovered something elephant related. Each evening I went through buyer's remorse as I agonized over why I had needed a marble elephant shaped ashtray that was heavy enough to double as a murder weapon if the need ever arose. I giggled in alarming hysteria, eyes glazed over as I said in anxious tones..."It's for my guests that smoke! My guests! They'll use it! They will! They'll love it! When they come over and want to smoke, they'll be very happy to see a marble elephant ash tray!" But alas, I convinced nobody. Sean rolled his eyes and asked why any guests that smoked couldn't just butt their cigarettes out in an old beer can like any normal person and I had to concede that he had a point. That and the only guest I have that smokes is in fact Sean.

The next day we again searched out another Fretex (Salvation Army), this time in a more ethnically diverse area of Oslo, where we all searched through piles of garments and after some time paid for those we had chosen. Outside we all smiled at one another and were eager to see what the others had got. Mary-Anne and Sean showed their purchases and then it was my turn. "What did you get Colleen?" Clutching my tiny bag, I can't decide whether to be brazen and confident or self-deprecating... so with a flourish I reach into my bag and pull out a huge necklace with large wooden beads and a massive wooden elephant hanging off it. I try for confidence "It's really cool, isn't it?" They stare at me. Mary-Anne bites her lip. Sean looks at his hands. Awkward silence. Then with what seems a huge collected effort, they both meet my eyes and say "Yes, very nice Colleen!" But I am not fooled by their insincerity, they hate it. I look at it with new eyes. I hate it too. The next few days and purchases remain a blur. Perhaps this is no bad thing. We also enjoyed Vigeland's Sculpture park and the Edvard Munch museum very much. One must throw in a couple cultural delights in the midst of so much mass going and thrift shopping after all.

The other order of business for today is that Karen of the blog Hope, Faith and Life awarded me a Versatile blogger award last week. Karen is a talented writer and artist who uses both her words and pictures to share the Psalms. I read her posts with interest and always come away feeling refreshed and uplifted! Thank you Karen, I appreciate it and graciously accept. :)

The criteria for this award is to share five things that you may not know about me already and to pass it on to others.

Five things:

1) I am not sure if there are five things left you don't know about me.

2) I put spoonfuls of Nugati (chocolate spread for bread) in my coffee and then when it runs out more quickly than usual, I blame it on William.

3) I blame a lot of things on William actually because he can't talk yet and therefore can't say anything in his defense. It's lovely.

4) I like people who can think for themselves and not just murmur mindless cliches for every possible situation that arises.

5) I have a hard time getting rid of books that have exceptionally nice covers, even if I can't stand the book itself.

Alright, these five things are not the most serious five things I could tell you but so be it. This is what you get today my friends. :)

As for passing the award on, there truly are so many incredible, creative, wonderful bloggers out there I have trouble choosing. Therefore am I allowed to just say that anybody who is in my blogroll (and many who are not, I have to add many more people just recently met!:) are worthy of being called versatile! I encourage you to accept this award...one and all! :)

Have a most lovely day!

Much love, C.

We Live Bearing Stories and Secrets

2011-09-08T13:04:00.008+02:00

Sometimes I think about how much we don't know.

How endless stories play out all around us all of the time and we never understand them let alone know they are happening. We live our lives so narrowly, viewed through our own eyes and range of experience and so naturally, colored by our own perceptions.

When William was a year old, we bundled ourselves onto a train heading to the nearest town and there we sat while the rolling hills of Jæren hurtled by. The conductor was a lovely blond woman about my age and when she came to check our tickets, William waved his chubby arms at her and wrinkled his face into a huge baby smile, cooing and chattering with sheer delight. As his mother, it seemed to me that all the joy in the entire world was contained in this precious, eager messy haired small boy. I smiled indulgently at him and then, used to him being fussed and exclaimed over by others, looked up at the conductor, ready to share a smile over his endearing enthusiasm. Instead though, she ignored William altogether. She stared stonily over his head and pointedly didn't acknowledge him. His smile faltered a bit in confusion but each time she passed he tried again, beaming up at her and waving and playfully hiding his face and peeking out at her from behind small hands and each time she walked by with her eyes focused straight ahead. When we reached our stop, she went ahead of us to the door and we waited for a few seconds before the door opened onto the platform. All the while William continued his bid for her smile and she continued to stare somewhere just over his head.

The doors opened and I pushed the stroller out into the clear, cool sunlight feeling slightly stung as I tried to work out why she couldn't even have given him one little smile. Feeling protective and in a strange way in need of reassuring myself, I started murmuring to William "Don't worry Baby, you're so precious. Everyone loves you Sweetheart...".

And in a flash, I remembered life before William. Life that felt as though it was without hope. How in the space of a single August afternoon, I changed from being the sort of person who adored babies, any baby at all...I wasn't picky, and would make silly faces at them and want to hold them until my arms ached to being the sort of person who could barely find the strength it took to look at a newborn baby. Who would perhaps, stare stonily over their heads when they looked at me because if I had looked at their tiny faces, listened to their precious laughter...I wouldn't have been able to make it. I might have fallen apart in front of everyone. It was instinctive self-preservation. Eventually this healed but it taught me to be more sensitive to others. Not to ask casually when someone is going to have children; not to assume someone wants to hold my baby; not to make careless remarks about children in general.

Anyway, I don't know why the conductor on the train couldn't manage to smile at William. Instead of feeling offended by it though I tried, as I walked away, to think compassionately. Maybe she had suffered through several miscarriages. Maybe she sat in a doctor's office one beautiful summer day, much like I did, thinking her whole life was before her and instead had to watch numbly as her world collapsed around her. Maybe she had had a child who died young. I don't know. Maybe none of those things. There is always the possibility that she just didn't like children and I have an overactive imagination. :)

There is so much we don't know about others and the roads they have had to travel in life. I feel that we would get so much further if rather than be offended by others, we would remember that and try to live a life full of empathy.

Leena Paints

2011-08-29T09:30:00.007+02:00

After all of my rantings and ravings expounding the evils of Facebook and modern methods of communication I feel just a touch sheepish. You see, I have decided to create a "small business page" on FB to promote and perhaps if I'm lucky, even sell my art to keen, knowledgeable lovers of the stuff who no doubt be waving money in my face and desperate to snap it up hot off the press. :)

I love to paint using bright, vibrant colors and simple lines and shapes. The colors I enjoy most are inspired by travel and the shimmering vitality and fascinating warmth of other cultures.

So please, if you feel so inclined, pop over to "Leena Paints" advertised at the side of my blog and if you like what you see, I will consider myself honored indeed. :)

Now that I have sold out and engaged in such shameless self promotion once, I assure you it won't happen again. Next post will be strictly back to business...maybe adoption business? Maybe one of my beloved rants on the decline of moral structure in society? A cheery poem perhaps?

But most definitely not a rant about Facebook.

Then again, when it comes to technology, I seem to deal in hypocrisy, don't I? I love and hate it. I bore you to tears with my thoughts about it.

With that in mind, I draw this delightful post to a close now and wish you much love,
C.

Woman In An Empty Room Part Two

2011-08-25T14:20:00.004+02:00

"We can not accept an expensive gift when our hands are full of cheap baubles. We must empty our hands so as to accept the rich gift that is offered." Steve Kellmeyer

Don't worry friends, don't worry. I may be waxing poetic on all of this "imagine no possessions" business but by no means am I about to turn my back on all things material and run off naked into the forest a la St. Francis of Assisi. If you will kindly recall other posts I've written, it has been clearly established that I don't have the makings of a saint. This has been a bit of a blow to me because being Catholic, I naturally would like to be a saint very much indeed. Yes, honestly. But alas, I have a two year old son who tried to eat a rosary yesterday and aside from that, I am digressing from the topic at hand which is quite unusual for me.

So...cheap baubles. We live our lives with our hands full of these and grasping for more, never satisfied, never sated because these things do not satisfy. They do not sate. More creates a hunger for more. We become insatiable. Living a wild-eyed quest to "get". Filling ourselves up until the very last thing we can do is give. There is no abundance, no freedom, in having only in letting go.

And now you are no doubt muttering "Well how very cliche you are today, Comrade Colleen." But bear with me...

We all perhaps have our own interpretation of "cheap baubles" that hold us back from growth and grace. Mine includes possessions, the idea of ownership, all the distractions of the world we live in, labels and definitions, opinions and expectations - both our own and those of others about and for us.

These little trinkets fill our hands and rooms. When I think about "the empty room", I not only think material goods. I think what if we were to also let go of everything else as well...and then simply, quietly and graciously accept the richest of gifts on offer.

The God-given gift of who we are.

Who we are. It has nothing to do with what we have or don't have. It has nothing to do with how other people view us. Who we are is not what we do. What we know. What we have accomplished.

We are who we are even when everything else is stripped away. When we don't have a penny to our name. When we don't have a job that makes it easy for others to label us. When we don't write or paint or draw or have any skill in any area what so ever. We are who we are when we are ill. When people leave and abandon us. When our names are dragged through the mud. We are who we are when every one is against us. When there is not one friendly face to be seen anywhere.

When wealth, beauty, health, and ability have been taken away from us, we still have intrinsic worth. The very fact we are alive. That we were created with purpose by a loving God.

We have worth. It is intrinsic. It can not be added to or taken from. This is why human life in every form is so precious. There is nothing we can do or that can be done to us that can alter our worth in God's eyes.

In my quest to live as a woman in an empty room, I am constantly seeking to remind myself of who I am. Not in the world's eyes. But in God's. Not to seek feelings of affirment and worth from those around me or cultural and societal norms; but to seek them in a deeper place, from a deeper source.

I don't know how I'm doing with this. Better some days than others certainly.

Ah well, if I need to take drastic measure...there is always running naked into the forest to prove my point. ;)

"They Call Us Sick As Though They're All So Sane"

2011-08-24T19:36:00.006+02:00

Couldn't speak. Couldn't ask.
And so came silence.
Stealthily.
Stretching...eternal...ice-tinged cold...
It's death. It's death.
I swear it's death. This thing you hold.

Fighting. Screaming. Let me go.

Silence smiles:
I am precise and patient.
Deadly. Cruel.
I'll shred your peace.
Take away your gentle days.
I'll rip the words
Right from your mouth
Make you beg
If I have to.

Silence nods with grim determination.
All power, abuse and deadly control.
Silence smiles and whispers deathly cold:
I'm going to break you.
In the end.

And then
Where
Will you go?
Where
Will you be able to show your face?
Where
Will you know me again?

I swear after this
You'll never know me again.

You'll never find me.
Among shadows and lost souls.
All white fog laying low over ice covered fields.
Trees stretching out their bare
Skeleton
Arms.

Among pain.
Dull faces marked with empty life and empty gain.
This is the result
Of my destructive reign.

The mystery of it is this:
After I am through with you;
Have ripped and forced and torn your words from your soul
You will never know me again.

It's pain.
A sort of death, a sort of life...
Silence shrugs, apathetic, continues blandly:
...this thing that you now know.

Woman In An Empty Room

2011-08-11T12:09:00.009+02:00

Painting By Albert Reuss

We are made anonymous by too many possessions. Rather than being defined by them, we are overwhelmed by them. Lost among them; uncertain of who we are without them and so, dependent on them for identity and security.

We are socially engineered into believing we are nothing without our possessions. That the clothing we wear or the music we listen to or books we read or even the colors we paint the walls in our homes define us. In all of this sweeping mad consumerism, we ignore that we were made for so much more than to own things. This other side, the more important side...our spiritual, philosophical, searching side is underdeveloped, left un-nurtured in the pursuit of "things".

But our hearts are not made light by owning. We are wearied and worn down and joyless. Burdened by all of our things that we buy to enable us to ignore the deeper, pressing questions of who are we really. Why are we here. Enable us to ignore that we all are born with nothing and we all die with nothing eventually.

My grandmother Leona died with nothing. I don't mean she was a poor woman though; neither was she a materially wealthy woman but she was rich in love and generosity. Her spirit was beautiful and rich. Ridiculously rich in all she gave to others. She lived on very little and all her concern was for other people. All her heart went into loving others. She didn't give from her "extra" store, she gave what she often couldn't manage to give. When she died, there wasn't anything to divide up. It had mostly been given away. Nothing to leave but the memory of the richness of her gentle spirit...what a beautiful legacy.

So, what if we let it all go? What if we allowed ourselves to live as free beings unbound by possessions, money, cultural and societal expectations? Would we know who we are if we found ourselves living in an "empty room"? Would we know how to describe and define ourselves?

I know for myself I don't want to be remembered as "Wow, she sure had a lot of clothing!" or "Colleen sure had a huge collection of books, remember?". I don't want people to smile ruefully and sum me up in these tidy little sentences. I want so much more and so much less. I want to be able to stand in an empty room and know who I am. Quietly, confidently, gently, richly know.

I guess I want to live my life as the woman in the empty room. But also as a woman whose heart and mind and spirit are unbearably, unfathomably, disgustingly rich. :)

How about you?

Much love, C.

In Defense of Love

2011-07-20T10:50:00.008+02:00

Alley by the Lake by Leonid Afremov

Thoughts. Feelings. Sparked and felt. Deeply. In the blood. In the head. In the heart.

Love.

Topic of a Facebook (yes there is that dirty word again.;) conversation/ debate last night.

I have long believed that love is not solely a feeling but a very conscious decision that we choose to make. Or not make as the case may be.

We choose to love. We also feel love. But the problem...the words I wrote that perhaps sparked the conversation last night were that I believe to base love only on a feeling is immature and lacks a certain understanding of what it means to truly love another. I don't consider these words offensive. I consider them true.

To feel love is certainly valid. Worthwhile. Wildly exhilarating and fun. It's a pleasure and a pain. To feel. But feelings fluctuate daily. Feelings can not be relied upon to carry us through the hard stuff. Feelings will fail us in the end. If we place our trust in feelings alone, we place our trust in something that changes constantly. We excuse ourselves from the hard work of really loving.

To decide to love on the other hand, that is powerful. That is the essence of mature love. To choose to take responsibility for love. To wake up in the morning and not feel in love with ones partner; to feel upset, impatient, furious with ones child; to truly dislike someone and yet to decide to love them regardless of feeling. To choose to love through action and word because, make no mistake, it is up to us. Love, the active verb. Love, the challenge. Love, the hardest and yet most rewarding part of living.

Where as if love is only a feeling, nothing more, how very little we have to rely on. We can wake up in the morning then and not feel in love with our partner and so determine based on feeling alone that the spark is gone, it was lovely but now I feel nothing for you, I won't fight for you and our love...I will leave.

Love can be romantic, passionate or calm and peaceful. It can be everything we hope for and long for it to be. But one thing it must be in order to survive, is stronger than whatever we feel it to be. It must be more. It takes the force of will. The determination (sometimes grim determination) to put feelings aside and get down to the gritty, frustrating process of putting love into action.

For our partners. For our children. For our family. For strangers. For those who we genuinely do dislike.

I'd like to share another post with you. I wrote it in when we were in Sri Lanka in the thick of the final stages of our adoption; at the beginning stages of learning to love a little boy who wasn't "ours" biologically. Suspended Time http://thecolorspectrum.blogspot.com/2009/10/suspended-time.html

I believe we all should strive for a broader understanding of love. It's a big issue. :)

Nights Spent Staring At The Sky

2011-07-14T10:08:00.010+02:00

"...I am fully known." 1 Corinthians 13:12

No one fully knows another person. No one ever fully knows themselves.

Yet we are fully known. I am fully known by the One who created me.

I have never had a private moment. I have never had a secret. I have never been able to nurse my brokenness, my pain, the hurt that is always there at the very core of all of us, alone. I've never sat up at night, cold and quiet, arms around my knees, locked in a lonely world of self by myself. Never cried a tear or smiled a smile that wasn't noticed.

I am fully known.

Every: flaw, failing, desire, dream, prayer, hurt, joy, pleasure, thought, ambition, frustration, humiliation, fear, memory, word, secret.

Everything that has ever been done or said to me is known. Everything I have ever done or said or thought is known.

Rather than find this invasive and alarming, I find this profoundly beautiful and comforting. Not because I have nothing I wouldn't wish to be known but because all the many many things I don't understand about myself, the mystery of my own thoughts and actions and fears, the things I don't know...can't remember...even the me I can't remember due to the clutter and chaos of the world pushing it's way into my mind, is fully known.

And despite every imperfection, unkindness, judgmental thought and hurtful word, lack of courage, faith, trust, and even character at times, I am fully known and fully loved.

There is a core me. A perfect me. Underneath the dirt of just living, underneath the lack of innocence, the daily failings, there is a perfect woman. A woman who someday will reach her full potential.

So this is the knowledge that I will carry with me when I feel alone, uncertain, like a stranger in a strange land. When I wake up at night and miss it all; the all enveloping warmth and love of family and friends, a community . When I sit up in the evening and feel unknown, unseen and as though I am not understood and also as though I don't understand this place and tightly controlled culture that I exist in while trying not to conform to it. When I feel alone in my struggles, alone with the worst of myself...I choose to remember I am not unknown or unseen. I am fully known by the One who matters. Fully known.

What a relief.

Colleen On How To Share More Of The Mundane

2011-05-10T10:12:00.012+02:00

I don't use Twitter but I can tell you without shame that I find the Facebook statuses people post about what they had for breakfast or better still, what they are making for dinner utterly thrilling! Don't even get me started on how interesting it is when someone buys something new and expensive and posts that fact along with the price of the aforesaid object on their status! Never do I get enough information about other people! Never! I long to shout, please elaborate, tell me more! So you ate bread and cheese for breakfast but what sort of bread?? What sort of cheese?? In how many bites??? I want to weep and beat my fists against the table in frustration for that information being so cruelly held back from me.

I believe as a culture we simply don't share enough of the mundane details of our lives. Wouldn't you agree? I know that I want my head to be filled up with information like this! I want someone to ask me if I believe in God and my answer to be a parrot-like chirp proclaiming rather that "I know that Susie ate a slice of bread this morning and smoked two cigarettes after lunch." I want someone to ask me how I feel about any currant issue of the day, let's say euthanasia...and my reply to be a blank-eyed "Jennifer bought three new shirts for thirty dollars and is making lasagna for dinner!"

Come on people...let's work together on this! I really do believe that if we try just a bit harder, we can make it to a place where all communication is completely devoid of intelligence! We're almost there! We have but to try a little harder!

Who's with me? Let's go forth and be that change we want to see in the world! And start always referring to ourselves in third person as we do on our Facebook statuses! No...no...that might almost be too much to hope for...forgive me, I get carried away by the thrill of it all...

Now, all joking aside, I will be very surprised if a disclaimer is necessary for this post...I hope you all have a wonderful day. ;)

I Can Only Say These Things To You While You're Sleeping

2011-05-02T20:32:00.013+02:00

William on our second meeting.

William today after being told no.

My little boy, my precious baby.

You feel more like a "baby" to me now than you did when you really were one. I've thought and thought about why and the only thing I can come up with is that at first, although I loved you, I didn't know you. Not really. Does that make sense? I loved you immensely but with caution. With a heart that needed time to grow used to you, to attach properly. Maybe you needed this with me as well. Time. Grace? I often wonder if the reason you never would just sit with me, just lay in my arms, even when you were only a few months old was that you didn't know me either. You didn't know my voice. My scent. My arms. I often laughed at you in the first months after we got you because your tiny face had such a perplexed expression at times...hesitant and alert. Watching me so seriously from your little blanket on the floor, perhaps thinking "Who are you?"

At the convent in Colombo, the sisters told us you were very content, that you never cried. That the other babies lay crying in their beds all day and night but you never made a sound, just lay there silently. Not wanting to be picked up or entertained. When we would visit you each morning, you also just lay there in our hands, staring at us. Eyes huge and wary. Tiny hands clasped on your chest. You were tiny, just 9 pounds at three months old. We'd play with you, tickle you and you would start to laugh and then stop, jamming your fist in your mouth. Like you didn't dare. Like anything might happen if you shut you eyes and laughed with all your heart. Yes, I loved you then so much but with the slightest pain too. Like I didn't dare. Like anything might happen if I opened my heart fully and confidently to you and loved you with all my strength.

After all, what if I failed? What if it...hurt? What then?

I took so much joy in you always. From the first day. That you have to understand. My heart was full of you. I knew the first day I saw you that if anybody dared to say an unkind word about you or hurt you in any way, I'd want to kill them. No question about it. I looked at the soft downy hair growing on your head and I fiercely wanted to protect you.

So I loved you from the very beginning but after awhile the part of that love that felt dangerous to me, the part I was so afraid would have the power to tear me apart, that part I was so afraid to just...feel...because I was afraid of its strength, that part changed and became less cautious. I remember the first night I went to bed and lay there grinning in the darkness thinking about you like a teen-ager with a crush and I thought "Something has changed, now you are my baby." My little boy who I love so much but I can't bear to be one of those gushing mothers so instead I down play it down, roll my eyes, make wry remarks about you...detach, detach, detach...

And my heart aches because I see you growing into a real boy. A determined boy. A boy no longer afraid to laugh. Or cry for that matter. A noisy, lively, busy, mischievous, beautiful little boy. You still won't sit with me or cuddle with me or let me sooth you but sometimes lately you run into my bedroom and pat the bed while smiling eagerly at me, your way of telling me you want me to lie down with you and hold you and sing to you. You lie there quietly, alert, much like you used to lie in our arms in Colombo...like you aren't sure but you kind of like it.

Oh William. I just don't want to fail you. I love you so much I can barely stand to think that someday you won't be a baby, this chubby wild toddler that I can gather up squirming in my arms and whose little face I can cover with kisses. But I am not sentimental. I know you are not mine to keep. You are mine to love and cherish. Mine to instruct and teach and guide. Mine for awhile. But not mine to keep. To think that would be a grave mistake. It would be to do you a disservice.

You are God's. You are your own.

Saint Colleen

2011-04-17T20:17:00.007+02:00

When I say I'm proud, I don't mean in the obviously arrogant or haughty, high and mighty sense.

How can I explain it? It's more like a sort of rather ridiculous vanity which is why I try to work on being humble which to most people may seem rather pointless in today's world of mad self promotion.

Like I'd like to be holy. Like a saint, you know? (Or maybe you don't, maybe I'm insane and the only person who instead of wishing to be rich or famous wishes they were a saint.) I like to laugh and joke though and I am a rather enthusiastic, smiley, chatty sort of person. I am too fond of ridiculous humor and very often find things funny that others may not. Still, who's to say there weren't saints with this very same trouble?

I want very badly to be a silent, humble and wise person. Like in my imaginary life, people would whisper together in little awe-stricken groups about how profoundly wise and deeply self-sacrificing I am. It's a weird sort of pride, I admit it.

So today in mass as I sat quietly in my pew, I was thinking "God? Today can you help me be really humble?" (I always get myself into this sort of situation during mass I'm afraid.) After I finished with these words I sat silently, smiling in what I felt was a calm and wise manner at the few people gathered in the seats around me and wondered to myself if my face was perhaps already glowing with a humble yet holy radiance. I knew my hair was quite shiny and that my lip gloss was freshly applied and thought perhaps that people would admire my gentle humility even more because of how very lovely I was. You know, like they would glance admiringly at me thinking that that girl has no need of humility looking like she does. (In retrospect I think God hasn't quite changed my heart to one of true humility just yet, wish it as I may.)

As you may know, today is Palm Sunday and though I joke about many things, I actually am very reverent when it comes to my faith. So I held William as I listened to the priest read the Passion of Christ and the most horrifying thing happened. At the most somber moment, the moment of silence as I bowed my head William began to belch. I say began because it must have lasted almost the entire moment of silence. The entire time we were supposed to be reflecting on the death of our Lord. It was loud and atrocious and worst of all, at such a terribly inappropriate time that in my embarrassment, I absolutely dissolved into a shaking heap of stifled giggles. Not that I am so immature that I find that sort of thing funny but you know when you know laughing is forbidden and that very fact makes the urge to laugh worse? So I stood there, shaking with laughter, or hysteria, hiding my bright red face in William's hair praying desperately that the other people thought I was crying. It was awful. I was so ashamed of myself. But I simply couldn't stop giggling. Honestly it was so inappropriate. Once I got my hysteria under control I sat there quietly, head lowered, blush fading, simply mortified...suitably humbled.

At this rate, I'll never be a saint. Never. And at some point I'm going to stop praying for humility as well if this keeps up.

You may read here if you are curious about the first time I asked God to help me be more humble during mass. http://thecolorspectrum.blogspot.com/2010/03/be-careful-what-you-pray-for.html

For some reason He always chooses to answer this particular prayer in a timely manner. ;)

The Knower of Hearts

2011-03-24T11:21:00.013+01:00

,Adoption.

Since we began our first adoption process, the initial reactions we have been met with, both those we love and those of strangers, have been wildly varied.

Everything from simple curiosity to genuine joy and happiness on our behalf to tentative, resigned acceptance to actual menacing and hostile harassment which I wrote about here for those of you who'd like to read something really crazy: strangers-on-plane.

When it comes to adoption, people want you to explain yourself. Some people want you to excuse yourself. To fall all over yourself saying you're sorry. Some people want to exult your decision to adopt into something almost saintly. Some people are genuinely happy and some are suspicious. Some, obviously insecure people, want to make sure you know that your choice to adopt is inferior to having biological children and some make subtle references to their idea that you will never be a real mother or father. Then again, some say you are even more of a mother or father for how hard you have fought for this child.

My point is, depending on who you talk to, it all varies. There are as many opinions on adoption as there are people. :)

I've been told I've had it so easy. "Imagine just hopping on a plane to a tropical country for a few weeks and coming home with a sweet baby! You sure chose the easy option!" and my mind wandered back through all the months of heartbreak, darkness, self-loathing, not leaving the house, all the prayers that felt like they were wrenched out of my gut, all the despair and thoughts of death, (that by this stage were healed by the joy of our little son in Sri Lanka whose picture I held clutched in my hand), and blinked and ignored the sharp, quick pain in my heart and smiled while my mind reeled from it all being dismissed so blithely. I wasn't offended. It just helped me realize that if you're counting on understanding from people, you are bound to be occasionally disappointed.

After all, who in the world understands adoption? Not a one, I imagine. Not the adoptive parents, not the biological mother, not the people in positions of power who decide a child's fate, no one.

Adoption is beyond comprehension. It has it's good sides and its bad. It has its stories of success and failure. It uproots a child and gives them new roots. Sometimes deep and secure ones. It binds and severs. It causes confusion. Heartbreak. Joy.

I think of this sometimes, maybe especially as we begin the process again. Also because I read a book a while back that said something to the effect of no one is able to understand a mother's love except a mother. A real mother. Not a step-mother or any other sort of mother. But a woman who has actually given birth.

I read that and while again, wasn't really offended as we are all entitled to our opinions, however stupid they may be, it reinforced my own belief that giving birth doesn't always make a mother. There are women who give birth who are incapable of loving a child, who abuse children, etc. Blood ties can certainly bind but they don't always. As for who is a "real" mother, I don't really think anyone can judge that.

As for me, I don't struggle with this question. I don't doubt I am a real mother. I am. No ones opinion can change that.

Second meeting with William.

So as we embark on this second adoption, I think I will choose to remember that people can think whatever they like. When I want understanding, I'll take it to God. He understands what I can not.

People Who Talk About Other People

2011-03-22T12:44:00.004+01:00

"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss other people." -Eleanor Roosevelt

There is almost nothing I find so tiresome as listening to someone talk about another person. It isn't engaging. It isn't enlightening or attractive. It isn't interesting.

It shows no imagination. No wit. As the above quote says, all it takes to discuss other people is a very small mind.

I don't trust people who continually talk about other people. Even if it isn't outright slander or gossip, I still find it terribly indiscreet to divulge the small details of another persons life to others as though one had the right. Why bother?

It makes me tired. Bored. Silent.

Talk to me about yourself. Tell me what you hope for. Your dreams, your disappointments. Tell me about your childhood, your travels. What you love and hate. What fascinates you. Tell me silly stories, things you've done that make you laugh, times you shocked yourself. Tell me what sort of food you like. Where you go shopping.

Talk to me about religion. Faith. Lack of faith. Talk to me about art and beauty. Chaos and despair. Talk to me about mysteries, the world, science.

Share your own opinions with me. I might not agree with you but I am not threatened by that.

Talk to me honestly, openly. Communicate with me.

So tell me about yourself. The only person you have a right to talk about.

So Terribly Beautiful

2011-03-16T20:24:00.007+01:00

Your smile.
I love your smile.
It knocks me out.

Sometimes I try not to smile when you do. Not to laugh when I hear you laugh.
But it never works.
Never.

It's like innocence. Fresh. Powerful. Infinite innocence.
Like play and hope and spring sunshine.
Like dreams and a certain breathless fear and the all the far, far future smiling back at me.

It's love, that smile.
Ease. Mischief. Movement.

Privilege too.
A gift.

To sit on a cold beach in harsh sunlight.
You watch the sand thread through your fingers.
And smile.
The brightest gift.
Shining eyes. Bright with fun.

It's wonder at that moment.
Laughter the next.

Some days your laughter follows me.
Everywhere.
Silliness. A breeze of joy. Whipping around the house.

Water poured over your head in the bathtub and you laugh
So hard it sounds like you're crying.

I look at your wet hair clinging to the back of your chubby neck.
Bent over a toy in the water.

And I feel vulnerable.
Like anything that hurt you would tear right through me too.

Suddenly you don't look as strong as your smile or the sound of your laughter.
Will you be alright someday out there in that big, big, crumbling world?

It alarms me.
The idea that you might not be greeted with love everywhere you go.

And She Spent Her Years In A Convent School

2011-03-08T21:28:00.006+01:00

When I was around 13, I decided that I desperately wanted to go to boarding school. I had seen a movie that took place in one. It made me idealize and romanticize life at a convent school. Don't ask me how I managed to romanticize life in an all girls Catholic boarding school taught by Ursuline nuns in the forlorn, somewhat cheerless wilds of the Saskatchewan prairies but you see, I had a great talent for optimism.

My parents wisely encouraged me to work toward this goal and I worked, prayed, saved money, was accepted to St. Angela's Academy and at the age of fourteen found myself on a day long journey by car across the vivid prairies to what was to be my new "home" for the next two years.

While I very quickly came to truly love the people and the life there, I remember feeling homesick the first couple of weeks. I remember the first night in the dorms, (which that year was really just a huge room with a small area partitioned off for each girl). The first night after "lights out" was filled with the muffled sounds of sobbing and crying and I remember not crying but lying there listening to the sounds of loneliness. I called home after a week and then I let myself cry to my mom on the phone. It was harder than I'd expected to be 14 and far from home after all. And really, to be honest, it wasn't terribly romantic either which was quite a let down.:)

Anyway at this time I received two excellent pieces of advice that have remained with me to this day.

The first came from my mother. Her response to my homesickness was "Colleen, after you get off the phone, go and ask one of the girls to go for a coffee with you and ask her all about herself. Her family, her home, her life, everything. The quickest way for you to feel better is to show an interest in someone else."

The second was from the mother of a friend, passed on to me by my own mom. They had met one day and my friend's mom asked how I was doing so far from home. My mom answered "She's alright, a little homesick, maybe finding these first few weeks harder thank she thought but it is what she wanted. It was her choice to go." The response to that was simply "Well, doing what you choose to do is never easy."

Being only fourteen, I puzzled over that for awhile. How could doing what I had willingly chosen for myself not be easy? Finally I understood that doing what we choose to do leaves the burden of responsibility for that choice solely on our own shoulders. How much easier if I could cry to my friends that my parents had forced me to go away, leave home and come to this place, but I couldn't because I wanted it. I worked for it. And if I was unhappy with my decision, I had only myself to blame. And accepting responsibility for your own choice is a difficult lesson to learn.

But I did learn it and within a couple of months, I loved St. Angela's Academy. The weak coffee, the curtained partition that was my room, the gardens of the convent, chapel every morning, studying subjects I loved, the poetry I couldn't stop writing, the desolate countryside and most especially, the girls I was there with. They became my home from the years I was fourteen to sixteen. They became my replacement family and the laughter in my days.

Now I am thirty years old and have time and time again found myself pulling out those simple yet profoundly wise suggestions and truths that helped me grow into the woman I am. They're still good, they still work. :)

Have you ever been a staggering piece of advice that you later appreciated and that you have carried with you through life? Good advice. Not staggeringly bad. Of course, I have been on the receiving end of that sort of advice as well but that's a story for another day.

P.S. Now I may be strangely silent after tomorrow because my husband and I are going on a weekend trip to Aberdeen to browse the book shops and have some time just the two of us.:) Have a lovely week and weekend everybody!

UnlovelyThoughts

2011-03-02T09:02:00.010+01:00

I think I used to have a gentler heart.
Used to be more compassionate. Kinder. More generous.
I think I used to be less quick to irritation and far quicker to laugh.
More optimistic. Less grasping.
More willing. Less selfish and self absorbed.
More trusting. Less anxious and concerned.

I think I used to have braver heart.
A warmer heart. A more loving heart.
And a far, far more open heart.

Shouldn't it be the opposite? Shouldn't the words I set down here be words that contemplate my character and spiritual growth? How my heart has become larger and better rather than somewhat colder and better protected? Shouldn't I be able to look back at the laughing girl I was ten years ago and see that ten years have brought me closer...
... more clarity
... more charity?
I don't think I should look back and think that that girl somehow knew more without even knowing she knew.

But I seemed to understand then what it was that made me matter. That showing love to others was the most important goal I could strive for. That it all mattered, especially the little kindnesses.

I want to get back there.
I want.
An unclouded mind.
A purer heart.

My "One"

2011-02-15T18:57:00.012+01:00

Earlier today I read a link that was shared by a friend and there is something about the way this post is written that really reaches my heart, makes me sad. For those of you who speak Norwegian, here is the link: Barna Som Ikke Får Hjerte

For those who don't, I translated the gist of it. I hope that I have done so correctly. If not, please just put it down to my imperfect Norwegian. :)

The article deals with children that attend what we would call daycare but can also mean pre-school or kindergarten depending on where you come from. (Bear in mind that these children can be anywhere from around one year to around five years old. Also this assignment was given with the intention to draw attention to areas that needed to be worked upon.)

"I heard about an interesting assignment that a day-care/ kindergarten gave their employees. The employees were asked to be honest about whether they had favorites among the children. The task was that they were to attach a heart to the child's name. The size of the heart would show how much they liked each child.

Children that they liked passably well got a small heart.
Children that they loved got a big heart.
Children they didn't like got no heart beside their name.

So the employees were honest and many hearts were given out. No one found it difficult.

But the task showed something unpleasant. Two of the little children received no hearts at all. Not even one tiny little heart by their name.

Not one of the adults working with them liked them.

So I am curious, how does an adult act toward a child that they don't like in daycare? How does an adult speak to this child while changing their diaper for example? How do they sooth the child if the child has been hurt and is crying?

How many smiles do these two "disliked" children get from the adults working with them in a day, month, year?"

The original post was thought provoking and well worded. And as a mother, it made my heart break for those little ones out there who "no one likes".

This post isn't meant to be a judgment, I wanted only to share the first thought that came into my head when I read about these two little children. What if it were my baby, the precious, laughing, light of my life, who had no hearts beside his name at the end of this assignment because none of his teachers or caregivers "liked" him?

And what if it were yours?

Every child deserves to think that they are the center of somebody's universe...that if it came down to it, there would be so many hearts after their name, there wouldn't be room for them all...

What If We Didn't Know?

2011-02-10T23:37:00.009+01:00

What if one didn't know how to be happy?

What if one chased restlessness and discontent through long, long years full of grievances and discord?

What if one had every good thing, perhaps not the thing, that nameless, elusive thing, but still, every good thing and couldn't find a reason to smile?

What if seconds, minutes, hours, days disappeared in the blink of an eye? If the bottom of one's heart collapsed and all these gifted days...memories that should have been cherished or worse, people who should have been cherished...fell out and spiraled into a deceptively rich black nothingness?

What if the world we live in is less conducive to happiness than it ever was before?

And even if that last question were true, would the fault still not lie with ourselves? I have to confess that I see the promotion of this idea of a perfect, idyllic life everywhere and it causes me to wonder. For example, if I am truly secure in my happiness, secure in the quiet joy my life brings me, why would I need to make sure everybody knew it? Why would I need others affirmation?

It's like desperation. Like protesting too much. I find it interesting.

I remember reading about a woman who couldn't look at a certain image without deep sorrow. In fact she couldn't bear to look on it at all. It humbled her so much. I don't have a problem with that sentiment, it's very admirable. My admiration disappeared though as I read on and this thought was presented again and again. I began to doubt her sincerity. I began to doubt that looking upon this particular image really humbled her at all. I started to think that in fact, it was a great source of pride to her that she couldn't see this image without weeping. Maybe that is judgmental of me but that is how my mind works. I always become slightly doubtful when somebody feels the need to overemphasize something.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that lately we overemphasize happiness.

I think we overemphasize what we don't have. I think it's a tactic born of desperation. A product of the superficiality of our times.

Much love, C.

Resting On A Limb Too Slight

2011-02-04T13:17:00.012+01:00

"Be like a bird,
That halting in its flight,
Rests upon a limb too slight
And feeling it give way beneath him
Sings
Knowing he has wings." -Victor Hugo

I know she smiles glancing at the faces of those collected in her little set of rooms. I know how to sing you see.

Strength. Determination. Willpower. she shakes her head and sighs. I have so little. So little strength inside of me. But the little I do have, she brightens suddenly as though sharing the best, the happiest of secrets, well, I positively drench myself in the stuff. I drown in all that lonely strength. I cling to it at the cost of everything else. Everything. She finishes ruefully.

She glances down, and I judge. I have so much judgment in my heart. Like a brittle, thin-lipped smile...you will never catch up with me. Your strength will never match my own. I am so burdened by this stubborn strength. It just won't leave me alone.

It makes itself more than it is! It tries to convince me it is my life line. The only thing anybody would throw to me if I were drowning. Struggling for breath in its lonely sea.

The faces around the room nod sympathetically.

She takes a deep breath and continues it wakes me up at night! I can't sleep when it's around! This strength it ruins everything, grinds beauty and freedom into the dirty ground! It leaves me feeling panicked. I know how quickly it could disappear. And I cling to this pithy bit of strength...

Cling to it with all my fear.

She is so quiet. She continues in a voice no one can hear, it's far too slight, this branch, this limb. I can't possibly stay here. I know I knew once how to sing. How to sing without this fear.

She lifts her eyes. She lets it go. It doesn't matter that no one heard.

She gets up. She leaves the room.

Leaves it with out a word.

And all the vacant faces nod in silence, they are devoured by their fears. Their eyes are lost and empty. Their wings are long since clipped.

Outside, she stands in quiet solitude as morning colors slash the sky. Rip it apart with violence, shred it like a strangled cry.

There is no one else about. She tentatively lets one foot slip off her slight and fragile branch. She bites her lip, refuses to cry out.

Instead she sings,

Oh God, my Strength, I am stepping out in faith, off this fragile branch into nothing but thin air...please remind me I have wings.

\

A Truth Revealed

2011-02-02T15:35:00.030+01:00

Yesterday I came across something that left me dumbfounded. Dumbfounded.

Now, I view most information found on the internet with the same level of wide-eyed trust I view Facebook quizzes with (you may refer to this post),Colleen On How To Be A Modern Day Bombshell , and there are times I stumble across something that is simply too important not to share.

I regret profoundly that I can't find the site I read this on but at least I can share it here. With utter dismay and a brow wrinkled from trying to understand the words before me. I'm afraid I puzzled in vain for though I believe the words wholeheartedly because I read them on the internet, I can not claim to understand them.

The site I was on proclaimed that C.S Lewis was not a Christian at all. (This was underlined and in bold letters.) You know what he was? He was a Roman Catholic Anglican. Yes my friends. A Roman Catholic Anglican.

Now aside from the fact that there is no such thing as a Roman Catholic Anglican (or so I believed until yesterday at least), both the Roman Catholic and Anglican denominations are in fact Christian (again, or so I believed until yesterday). It then went on to say that C.S Lewis was also of the Devil as well. I was mightily perplexed. A Roman Catholic Anglican of the Devil.

Well, just thought I'd let you all know. I'm now off to research this "Roman Catholic Anglican of the Devil" denomination.

Thank goodness for the internet. I would have absolutely hated to be in the dark about this!

(Disclaimer: I felt that it was unnecessary at first to include a disclaimer but I shall none the less lest I be taken too seriously, my writing in this post is satirical. The site in which I found the "info" about C.S. Lewis is real and my post is mocking that site. In reality I only trust 97 percent of what I read online.;)

The Spotlight Is Now On...YOU!

2011-01-26T18:00:00.014+01:00

Winston Churchill is quoted as having described a man he knew as "a modest man with much to be modest about" and while I certainly have more to be modest about than I generally think, it is still a lovely feeling to be appreciated by others. Today I received a lovely award from Ellinor, a woman who I genuinely admire even though I haven't met her in "real" life. She and her husband are adopting from China and I am always amazed by the absolute patience and the grace with which she waits for her child. Her optimism, even in the face of waiting many years, is inspiring!

The part I love most about awards is passing them on to others and of course, I enjoy answering the questions. (No false modesty today I'm afraid.:)

But today I think I'll change a couple of the standard questions so that I can learn more interesting things about those who choose to answer.

1. What was the last movie you saw and what did you think of it?

"La Dolce Vita" and it left me troubled and perplexed.

2. If time and money were no issue, where in the world would you travel to?

Everywhere but I especially want to travel to India and I would never tire of exploring Italy...

3. Would you ever consider living in a foreign country?

Yes. Obviously. :)

4. Where do your ancestors come from?

My great grandparents on my mother's side came to North America from Iceland.

5. What historical figure, (it can be recent history as well), would you meet if you could and why?

I would meet like to meet Sigmund Freud and be psychoanalyzed. :)

6. Which historical figures (again, can be recent) are you fascinated by?

Vincent Van Gogh. (I actually did meet him in Madame Tussauds in Amsterdam.;) Sigmund Freud. Marie Antoinette. Lucrezia Borgia. St. Maria Goretti. St. Francis of Assisi. Emily Dickinson. The list goes on and on and on...

At Madame Tussauds in Amsterdam.

And so I pass this on to:

Kelly at Musings, my brother who has just started a movie review blog. Absolutely excellent.

Carmody at Utter Prattle, a friend of mine from boarding school who has a wicked wit and writes genius character sketches.

Alicia at A Little Time to Share, who writes so beautifully and has such a peaceful and lovely soul.

Lori at My Life Interrupted, who has a hugely generous heart and always a kind, uplifting word for others.

Marianne because her little boy's smile lights up my entire day whenever I see a picture of him.:)

Lidj at Crown of Beauty who never fails to touch my heart with her incredible writing about faith.

Serene at Elegant Bohemian, who I just LOVE! Beautiful, funny, smart, I could go on and on!:)

Felisol at The Far Side Of The Sea, I really appreciate the thought she puts into what she writes and her honesty and I like the way she sees the world.

There are so many more that I genuinely like and enjoy reading so I hope that you will make me smile and answer the questions! Even if today is your first visit here, please feel free to. I would love to know what you think.

Love, C.

Small Things

2011-01-20T11:54:00.022+01:00

(Mandal Norway)

I never really knew what to do with myself.

At around 8 years old, I wanted to be an artist and wear straw hats and live in the south of France. At 16, I wanted to be a writer and a poet and only achieve fame long after death. Lead a tragic sort of life but the problem with that was that I was irrepressibly happy most of the time so there went that grand ambition. At 21, I toyed very briefly with the idea of being a nurse but at the age of thirty I still cry when I have to get a needle and pass out cold when I get a vaccine and just last week I screamed when I was at the chiropractor's so physically, I'm a wimp and nursing wouldn't suit me. In between all these great career plans, I worked many jobs in several countries. I have a good work ethic but there was no job I did that I wanted to do forever.

Except travel which isn't really a job I suppose. At every age, I wanted to be a globe-trotter and at that at least, have been somewhat successful. (But not very because there is a lot of the world left to see.) When my husband first suggested buying a house, I was dead against it because "Then what would happen if we wanted to go travel the world for a year or two?". Thus spake the voice of maturity, responsibility, and logic. ;)

I won't say I always wanted to be a mother. Not that I didn't want to be a mother, it was simply something I never doubted so there was no need to want it too badly and I didn't really think about it aside from enjoying the reaction I got when I would tell people I wanted to have seven children. Of course, I desperately wanted to be a mother when I found out that my husband and I couldn't have biological children. That is when I really discovered what I wanted. Everything else paled in comparison after that. I had an excuse to feel tragic. (I'm not making light of it but it is amazing how mourning the loss of something you can't have gives you a sense of purpose.) So we pursued adoption with purpose. It became our goal, our hope and our dream. The transformation was incredible. I went into adoption with an angry heart, with words destructive and ugly, with huge, encompassing sorrow that we would never have a little boy with my husband's smile or a little girl with my eyes but also with a lot of desperate prayer. Very gradually my heart changed until I could say honestly that I wanted nothing different than what I had. That even if given a choice between pregnancy and adoption, I would still choose adoption and choose it joyfully. I still feel this way.

So now I am a mother. I spend these days with William. Sometimes they are lovely, full of laughter and fun, sometimes they are frustrating and feel far too long. Many days I wonder if I'm any good at being a mother at all.

Sometimes that question of what should I do now winds its way back into my mind, plays havoc with my peace for a short while. The quiet, persistent "Yes you are a mother, but what else Colleen? What else?" And I sit and think "So much else. Leave me alone."

I don't have a career. I don't even want one. I know how unfashionable that is today. I don't care. I am still trying to figure out what I want to do and probably always will be. (At least I always have wearing straw hats in the south of France to fall back on.:)

Sometimes the things that matter are very small things, "to do small things with great love". Last week I wrote about William having such trouble sleeping. I was so frustrated and impatient because I didn't want to spend hours helping him get to sleep. I wanted to do other things. Important things. Like watch "La Dolce Vita". So as I sat in his room, rocking him and feeling slightly resentful, like I was really getting a bad deal, this wasn't what I signed up for when I thought about being a mother, all those sorts of thoughts...I looked at his small, beautiful face, his eyes closed and listened to him breathing softly against my chest and felt the Lord press words on my restless, impatient heart.

"This is what I want you to do Colleen. I want you to rock him to sleep. Your job just now is to love him."

Dreams And Beatific Vision

2011-01-16T17:12:00.004+01:00

A moment of perfect understanding, beyond what our minds are capable of. The moment our soul leaves our human body behind and suddenly we know. Things we've always known? Things we have forgotten? Concepts never fully understood. Reasons, decisions, our history, our parents histories, the history of the entire world. Why the things that happened had to happen. The fullness of our spiritual nature. The ways we have been hurt and hurt others. The ways we have loved and been loved. The mystery of God. The Trinity. Forgiveness. With the passing of one moment to another, an instant, an immeasurable second, we understand eternity. The confusion is forgotten. Our blinders removed, our souls aware. For the first time. In a way it never was during life. The mundane falls away and we simply know. This is my imperfect understanding of beatific vision.

A conversation overheard in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome while admiring a beautiful mosaic of the Transfiguration:

"But how did they know that the prophets who appeared there were Moses and Elijah? Nobody there had ever seen them before! There weren't photos back then! How did they know?"

"Maybe they just recognized them. I don't know. Like you know in dreams when you dream about a person and they look nothing like their actual selves but you still know it's them?"

I listened to this conversation with interest. I also listened because I'm nosey of course and no qualms about eavesdropping on private conversations.

Though a simple conversation, it fascinated me for days. Well, actually years since I overheard it about two years ago and still think about it. :)

I ponder it. Really and truly. How in our dreams we sometimes just know a person even though they appear nothing like the actual person, sound nothing like them, etc. Is it because our spirit sees more than our eyes? That what we recognize in a person isn't their physical appearance but rather their essence? Their spirit? The eternal part of that person?

The other night I dreamed about my grandmother who passed away a couple of months before I moved to Norway. I was walking in a city, loaded down with shopping bags and suddenly, I felt my heart lighten and fill with quiet joy and I grabbed the arm of the person I was with and exclaimed "Look! There's my grandma!" She didn't see me, she was moving away from me up an escalator and she was young in body and spirit in a way I had never seen her in life. Her face was unlined and her smile beautiful and radiant. I watched her go and woke up with a deep sense of peace.

(My Grandma Leona and Grandpa James)

When I dream like that I wonder what it is my soul knows that my waking mind doesn't.

A Security Blanket of Sorts

2011-01-14T21:14:00.013+01:00

(I know that's a cake beater but if you mentally replace it with some sort of medicine you at least have a vivid image of his fierce ways.)

We do have a number of stuffed animals for William but he isn't really a stuffed animal sort o' guy I'm afraid. If I give him one to cuddle while he's watching a movie or going to sleep, he throws it on the ground in disgust.

What he does like when he's settling in to watch his daily dose of Aristocats is to have his soother in his mouth (it's manly and tough) and in one hand he clutches a bottle of Dentinox (teething medicine) and in the other a tube of zinc cream (for diaper rashes).

And when he hurts himself and cries there is no surer or faster way to calm his little soul than to murmur "There there William" and deftly slip his bottle of Dentinox into his hand. The crying subsides almost immediately. So darling.

He also likes to sleep with the Dentinox as well and really and truly, his fist is still wrapped around it in a death-like grip in the mornings when he wakes as well.

It just warms a mother's heart.

;)

The Saint Of Impossible Things Or Hopeless Cases

2011-01-12T08:32:00.011+01:00

William is stubborn.

Imagine if you will, a four and a half month old baby not sleeping a wink on the flight from Colombo, Sri Lanka to London. Eleven hours, his dark eyes wide and staring, not shutting for even one blissful second. I imagine it would have been blissful at least. We longed for sleep but sat there zombie-like instead murmuring nonsense and cooing to the small bundle of a boy in the cot in front of us.

This was only a dark foreshadow of things to come. Alright to be fair, he has been a very good sleeper up until now so I guess that's why it's a shock for me the nights he does choose to lie in bed screaming fit to wake the dead...for hours and hours amen.

Of course I go to him...feed him...change him...rock him...but he is not the sort of child who tires himself out crying. No. Not for William you see. He can scream with the best of them from ten in the evening until almost five in the morning so there is no option here of "letting him wear himself out". It's we who pay dearly for his lack of sleep. What does he care? He can nap the next day. :)

Fast forward to Saturday, he is 18 months old. I tried all the things I listed above. He is awake until well after five in the morning. I feeling like screaming myself, tearing my hair out, running away...

Sunday, he sleeps fine.

Monday, back to the same old tricks. I do cry in frustration, tear a bit of my hair out but not so much that it hurts and plan what I'll take when I run away to camp out in the woods across from our house.

Tuesday. I begin to dread the evenings as one does something awful that happens to them repeatedly. I feel a growing sense of panic in my chest. Sure enough as I sip my peppermint tea a piercing shriek splits the air. "No God...please..." (And this is a prayer not taking the Lords name in vain. :) as I put my head in my hands and begin to rock slowly back and forth at the mere contemplation of another night like this.

I go in, determined to be patient. I wrap a little blanket around my own shoulders for comfort and speak quietly to him. But every time I think he's asleep and try to leave, his eyes fly open and his shrieking resumes. Finally I remember. I'm Catholic. We have patron saints for everything! So I run out to the living room and grab my rosary and go back in and make a solemn vow. I will pray it until he falls asleep. I prayed it two times and finally...his breathing becomes heavier and lo, the child sleeps. I don't dare breathe. I get up as quietly as I can and flee the room only pausing at the door to offer up a last, desperate "St Jude, please intercede for us! This is a potentially hopeless case and I need sleep tonight! You are the saint of impossible things! Have fun with this one!"

And he must have because William slept, I hesitate to say "like an angel" but I will, all night.

;)

Simple Abundance

2011-01-09T13:24:00.004+01:00

I want 2011 to be a year of getting back to basics. Simple pleasures. Truly enjoying the small things. An alert mind. A compassionate heart. A patient spirit. I know that striving for simplicity is a popular, (with very good reason), theme lately and I believe we desire simplicity because our world is complicated and crowded. Distractions abound and simplicity is hard won.

I want a simple life. But it must be an abundant life as well. I don't want my soul to be dormant, my eyes dulled to beauty or my heart to feelings, genuine pleasure, and love.

There is so much to take stock of. I want to consider the ways that I can grow spiritually and emotionally. I want to lessen the distractions in my day to day life and do "small things with great love". I want to enjoy my morning coffee, laugh more with William, take more pleasure in the world at my fingertips, write more, paint more, pray more. I want to learn to contemplate and appreciate solitude when I have the opportunity. I want to learn kindness again. I sometimes feel like I've forgotten simple qualities I used to know so well.

I want to take certain things out of my life and replace them with more uplifting ways of living.

This post isn't particularly original or well written but that's alright today. Today I just want to make a beginning.

I want beauty to blossom like the first flowers of spring in my heart. I want to plant the seeds that will probably take more years than an entire lifetime to develop. I want to be better tomorrow than I am today.

Today I will begin. Imperfectly. Clumsily.

But it's better than nothing.

I would love to hear from you if you have any particular things that create a spirit of simplicity in your own life. What brings beauty to your days?

Happiness

2010-12-31T12:48:00.009+01:00

(Me and the sea.:)

"With arms wide open
Under the sunlight
Welcome to this place
I'll show you everything
With arms wide open
Now everything has changed
I'll show you love
I'll show you everything

With arms wide open..." -Creed

Is there a more fitting way to greet life? Experiences? Each other? Love?
What if we weren't afraid? What if we acted on our joyful impulses more? Our childlike spontaneity? What if we didn't put these things aside to become "respectable" adults?

"This "strength", this autonomy, this...adulthood...
It's such an unremarkable, lonely feat.
To sacrifce your joy, your wonder
For social regulations,
Society's expectations.
And it is all of these senseless limitations
That leave the truth of who you once were, broken at your feet." - (C.W. 2000)

Growth is beautiful, difficult, and necessary. We must actively strive to never stop growing in who we are, in faith, in belief, in our love and relationships. In maturity. But maturity has nothing to do with laughing less or settling more or being what others expect you to be. Maturity has nothing to do with having matching towels and a perfect home and being a certain age. It has to do with wisdom, with recognizing pain and disappointment exist but choosing to seek joy. Maturity is assurance, a striving to become. A love of self and others. Kindness. The ability to look honestly at oneself. To enjoy simple pleasures. To look for the good in others. Being gentle with yourself. Recognizing the fragility of people, of life. Cherishing, treasuring, and perhaps greeting the world around us with arms and hearts wide open.

If there is one thing I want to actively seek in the new year, it is joy. Joy, regardless of circumstance. Even if things around me seem all wrong. Joy when I'm hurting, lonely, offended, angry. Pleasure in everyday life. Joy in who I am and in others. Joy that is unshakable. I want to grow in it, to have it fill my heart...I want to give it away. To be able to smile not only when things are going well when I loose 10 pounds and everything is going my way but to keep that same joy in hard times as well. To understand it is not dependent on anything outside myself.

I wish you all the same. That 2011 is a year of growth, of healing what needs to be healed and letting go of what weighs us down. I wish you peace, love, meaning, adventure, fun, laughter, beauty, strength, courage, and of course, joy. :)

Carpe diem, Gorgeous.

Love, C.

Singing In The Night And Crying On The Elevator

2010-12-30T13:29:00.010+01:00

Here are two tales from me to you. Do you believe that they are true?

Singing In The Night (Norway):

You know the sort of feeling when you wake up feeling as though "something" woke you? That the waking was too unnatural to simply be your own body telling you you've had enough sleep?
Eyes fly open, heart beats quickly...startled into a stillness that is as alert as some ancient instinct that we've mostly long forgotten.
I don't move a muscle. I quiet my breathing.
There is a woman's voice floating down the hallway. High and unusual. Singing steadily in a language I don't understand.
My body tenses and then relaxes and I tell myself "it's only your imagination...a fragment from a dream you just had..."
But a chill settles over my body despite the warmth in the room and I actually feel each individual hair on my arms standing on end and there is no pause in the singing from down the hall.

Crying on the Elevator (Sri Lanka):

There were two elevators in the elegant hotel. I could see by the bright red numbers changing rapidly on the panel on the wall that both were on their way to the floor I waiting on. One reached the main floor and I waited for the doors to open. They didn't. I heard pounding from inside so I leaned into the door and asked "Are you alright?" as I pressed the open door button on the outside. Nothing. The pounding continued along with frantic crying now. It sounded like a child and there was no comforting adult voice speaking reassurances so I assumed the child was alone. "It's ok, just hang on a second...the doors will open." The crying continued, broken and afraid. A man walked up to where I was waiting and I asked him "Do you hear that too?" He listened and said "Yes, that's very strange." While he waited with the elevator I ran to the front desk and explained "The elevator must be stuck, it's been on this floor for several minutes now but the doors won't open and there is someone screaming and crying inside it." The man behind the desk stared at me in disbelief but came with me to the where the other man was waiting still. "It's this elevator" I said pointing "Do you hear the crying?" The hotel worker pressed the button to open the door (as I had done several times to no avail), and for him the doors opened immediately. There was no one inside. The worker turned to me and smiled condescendingly as though I was just another demanding, hysterical customer to indulge. I shrugged awkwardly "I just thought I heard someone..." I said as he walked away. I turned to the man who had been waiting with me..."You did hear something right?" "Yes" he replied "that was definitely weird."
And it definitely was. ;)

Grace in the Going

2010-12-18T12:47:00.021+01:00

Mandal, Norway

Do you know something? A secret? Something yours alone?
That you can hold loosely in your open palm? Or tightly in your fist?
A memory you can cherish, smile at, then let go of and send up into the chilly, distant sky?
Watch it scatter and flutter down around you like snowflakes caught in the blue-shine of a glittering December night?
Like tears too perfect to not be treasured?
Something lost temporarily that whispers to you of light?

Or maybe you know something the whole world knows too.
At its most vulnerable.
In the depths of its heart when it closes its eyes to sleep.
Maybe you see there is something fragile
...unutterably, unbearably, unimaginably...
Beautiful in each soul that will close its eyes tonight?
That will close its eyes and begin to leave a world so white with snow.

As if each snowflake were a gift.
Were a secret.
Tossed with joy by a careless hand into the air.

As if each soul were beloved, treasured and cherished.
Were created by an artist-God.
Tenderly, with the greatest love and utmost care.
As if each soul were a great work of beauty and art.
As if each soul were rare.

Rest in peace, dear Nils.

Nothing You Can Measure Anymore

2010-12-08T23:11:00.007+01:00

Leonard Cohen. For his voice alone, I could love him. But for me it's much more than that. It's his honesty. His courage in saying the things that too many people dare not say because it's uncomfortable, because it isn't the mindlessly accepted and repeated cliches that we so favor in our mindless and cliche society. His words can sometimes be brutal, sometimes vulgar, sometimes humorous, sometimes so achingly profound and deeply beautiful that I catch my breath. It is not an exaggeration to say that musically and poetically, he is a balm to my spirit. I can listen to him, totally absorb his lyrics and heal because I know that someone out there in this reality-TV-loving, shallow and vapid conformist's world is still alive. Still searching. Still noticing. I love his music. His poetry. His way of seeing.

Culturally I consider the Western world faint of heart. Spineless and silly. Vicious and vulgar and largely uncultured and unrefined. A culture of overexposure. A culture where nothing is sacred or private. A culture without depth or measure. A culture in decline.

Conformity is the order of the day. We don't speak to one another, we nose about on Facebook to get the latest. We dress alike. We share the same sense of outrage at anything remotely unique or different or challenging. We take a new picture of our own face everyday for...who knows why? I venture to guess because we are vain and have very little to concern ourselves with.

I have just one question. How many people do we know who truly are themselves? Can you count them on one hand? Two? Three fingers maybe? I'm lucky, I know many but perhaps that's because I actively seek them out. I have never settled. When it comes to friends, I want the best and I will have that or nothing. I don't mean the prettiest and most popular, or the ones with the best wardrobes or most money, I mean the "good souls", the people who are honest and seeking what's right. I don't mean perfect people, I mean real people. People who understand life is more than celebrity gossip and crude jokes, more than casual sex and formal dinners. People who journey through life and grow...whose eyes I can look into and see they also understand...who I can laugh with, talk for hours with and with whom love is an unconditional term.

Although it's true I want more than most people offer, I am not asking too much. I don't much care for society's moral compass, but there again, I'm not going to lower my expectations. If I am "different" or "old fashioned", well when I consider the alternatives, there is nothing I would rather be.

"Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul." - The Future (Leonard Cohen)

Colleen On How To Be A Modern Day Bombshell

2010-11-30T16:30:00.011+01:00

Christmas 2009

Ah friends. We know by now that facebook quizzes are unequaled sources of knowledge when it comes to telling us that little bit about ourselves that perhaps we are blind to. In their extensive wisdom, they are treasure troves, a wealth of information about ourselves. They are eye openers. The determining factor in discovery of self. We need only click on the right answer to questions like "Wutz ur fav color lol" and with that one click, light is shed, revealing the darkest places in our psyches. Pieces of the puzzle of who we are begin to fall into place.

I've had several epiphanies this way. And several disheartening shocks as well but if a facebook quiz says so, then who am I to doubt it?

I was shocked at one point to learn through one such quiz that I am at least "97% sociopath who delights in destroying people's lives for the sheer pleasure of it". And see, I always thought I wasn't really a bad person at heart. How wrong I was.

Today yet another faucet of my personality was revealed to me thank goodness. I never before have considered myself a 1950's style bombshell. But I am. That's why I included the above photo because it shows I've been a bombshell all along without realizing it. But yes, today I learned that I am the sort of girl that one doesn't want to take home to meet their mother and I'm a gold digger to boot. Well Facebook, what can I say, right again. That's me. Dead on.

Now I don't do quizzes ALL the time. I've only done about four actually. They've been so illuminating that doing more has been unnecessary.

Grinch Extraordinaire

2010-11-30T01:15:00.008+01:00

Please don't pelt my home with rotten tomatoes after reading this. (You may however raise your eyebrows in shock, since I can't see you, I don't mind.)

Now first things first, I am quite a happy person. In fact, I am often downright cheerful. (Annoyingly so perhaps?) I won my highschool's "Miss Congeniality" award two years running. I sing when I get up in the morning and chatter non-stop to my cats, William, my plants, (which are mostly dead by the way although I don't think from boredom).

(I'm including the above information only so you can see I am not normally a crotchety, grumpy person.)

But there's something about the time before Christmas that puts my back up. I always want to ignore it all. Just go along on my merry way not getting caught the blind, cold, glittering sadness of a world trying to fill its empty heart with anything and everything available.

I don't listen to Christmas carols. I am not really a huge decorator. I can't stand the claustrophobia and rampant materialism of the "Christmas rush". I don't care at all for "tradition". The sort that must be upheld whether you like it or not. I don't care for heavy expectation and obligations.

So advent arrives, a time of contemplation and preparing the heart for the eventual joy of Christmas and I grit my teeth and light the first candle and reluctantly pray that God truly opens my heart to the joy of the season...

What I do like is Christmas itself. I like low key. (I'm a "low key" sort of person.:) I like relaxed, joyful, meaningful celebration. Easy, flowing conversation and laughter. I like mass on Christmas Eve, pajamas all day long on Christmas day. I like vivid and beautiful reminders that this is Christ's birthday we are celebrating. I like the magic of Christmas Eve and the excitement of Christmas morning. I like being surrounded by love and happiness. I like peace and joy. And well, quite honestly, if I like all these things then really I like what matters. So, I guess I'm not all grinch after all...;)

So that's what I'm off to create and discover peace and joy this advent, this coming Christmas and from the bottom of my heart, I hope you all find the same. God bless.

Love, C. (AKA: Grinch Extraordinaire;)

In Limbo

2010-11-22T14:11:00.030+01:00

In the great scheme of things a camera being broken isn't really worthy of despair, so I won't exaggerate, (you know how I loath exaggeration after all), and say I've been despairing over my lack of photo documentation from the past month, but I have been...I don't know...antsy, fingers itching, going through a photo withdrawal of sorts. William on the other hand, ham though he undeniably is, has seemed to relish waking up without the flash of a camera going off repeatedly in his face. Or it could be he is just grateful for even one month in which his bad hair days (everyday) aren't scrupulously documented and filed away for future blackmail, er, enjoyment I mean.

So William at 17 months is a talkative little thing, never mind that aside from a few words I can't make out what he's trying to say at all. I think they call it baby talk. He adores his daddy. ADORES. Daddy can do no wrong. Everything good has the honor of being called "dada". He also loves the cats who he also calls "dada" as he yanks their tails with joyful abandon. He is quite generous to me in his way, trying to forcibly feed me pieces of lint and cat hair that he finds on the floor. He loves books and the movie Aristocats which I now know off by heart, and his meal of choice is cat food. He is quite funny and terribly dramatic. Goodness only knows where the dramatics come from... *shakes head*

(Disclaimer: Although I occasionally do a post on William now and again, I think it's fairly obvious that that this is not a mommy blog. That wasn't my goal when I started it, in fact slacker that I am I had no goal or aspirations at all when I began this blog aside from the therapeutic release of my own feelings in regards to the ups and downs of adoption. I certainly enjoy reading mommy blogs, but it just isn't me I'm afraid. If I'm going to write, I'm going to write my heart and soul and if not that, then I'd prefer not to write at all. And since writing is like a grand affair de coeur for me, I shall do it as I feel so inclined. ;)

So, my husband and I had this plan. When one year had passed, (and it has, incidentally), we would begin a new adoption journey. It would definitely be Sri Lanka again and if on the off chance Sri Lanka wasn't available, we would choose the Philippines. All would be well. Well, all will be well but the best laid plans of mice and men, right? :) We have our papers spread out before us and fresh enthusiasm for the venture ahead but it turns out we must choose a new country. Sri Lanka is presently not accepting new applicants and Norway has stopped (I hope only temporarily?) working with the Philippines.

When our list of possible countries is narrowed down further due to other rules and regulations, the countries that we can choose from are: Ethiopia, China, India, Chili, or Columbia. It is very possible that during the entire process, any of these countries could suddenly refuse to accept new applicants and yet other countries could begin to take in new ones so once again, it's all in God's hands. We have dealt with this before. Last time we had chosen Ethiopia for many months, been approved for it and then at the last minute told we had to choose between Sri Lanka and the Philippines and rather than being an inconvenience, it worked out wonderfully for us.:) So we don't know yet where we will choose. If it were possible we would wait for Sri Lanka to open again but that may be impossible so before we redo our social report and all that jazz, we may need to make a decision here!

Anyhoo, no matter where in the big world Adoption Journey 2 leads our small family, we're up for it! Open hearts, arms and minds and we're just settling in to enjoy the ride. :)

Stumbling Over Lost Children

2010-11-16T14:42:00.020+01:00

I see myself walking in a hot and dusty place. It's almost dark, I stumble over something and fall hard on my knees. My hands hit earth. Dry dust flies and dances in the air around my face. I choke and shake the hair out of my eyes. Look down to see what it was I stumbled over. Gently move the earth away. Something bright and beautiful lying unnoticed in the dirt.

You! I laugh in delighted dismay. What are you doing there?! I've been looking for you everywhere but never thought I'd find you here! Still laughing at my good fortune, I reach a hand down to pull you up, wipe my fingers across your dirt-streaked face...oh! But you're so beautiful! I shake my head in wonder. Sink down again until I reach your level. Gaze with a smile into your eyes. I couldn't find you, you know. At first, I cried and called and called. But you were gone! Just disappeared from me...my life... I shrug my shoulders and trail off helplessly. ...I gave up, it looked so bleak...they said I'd never find you... I lift my head to your small face, will you to understand what even I do not about loss and living without and choices made and mourned.

You pull your small, thin hand from mine. Look at me so scornfully. Say:

You're far too late and now you have no claim on me. I'm not your child. Not yours to keep. I'm a dream. I am a ghost.

Exile Part 2

2010-11-14T11:30:00.006+01:00

When I wrote my last post on exile according to Kahlil Gibran's prophet, I desperately wanted to include something more at the end. Verses about exile taken from another source, the Bible. But for the life of me, I couldn't find the particular verses I wanted. I searched, hastily turning pages and even typed the bits I could remember into Google, but got all the wrong verses. So as it was late (well, late for me as I am no longer the night owl I used to be and now greedily lust after all the sleep I can get.:), I gave up gracefully and went to bed.

The next day I picked up my Bible again and as so often happens, turned to the very chapter that the previous night had eluded me. I want to share it because the words give a fuller explanation of exile, a fuller view, an idea that whatever sort of exile we are in can be embraced.

"Promote the welfare of the city to which I have exiled you, pray for it to the Lord, for upon its welfare depends your own." Jeremiah 29: 7-9

"For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the Lord. Plans for your welfare , not for woe, plans to give you a future full of hope. When you call to me, when you go to pray to me, I will listen to you. When you look for me, you will find me. Yes, when you seek me with all your heart, you will find me with you, say the Lord, and I will change your lot. I will gather you together from all the places to which I have banished you and bring you back from the place I have exiled you." Jeremiah 29: 11-15

I never viewed my own sadness as an exile until my mom sent me those verses one day in a message. One day out of many when I absolutely could not find the meaning in any of my sorrow, when every day seemed hopeless and my depression and resulting anger, eternal. I read them and cried, not because they suddenly made everything better but because I began to see that someday all the pieces of myself would be gathered together and returned to me and I, whole and strong, would be allowed to return to the life and the joy and hope and promise that I had been exiled from.

A promise of restoration. A promise I was not ever alone. A promise of incredible beauty and a future full of hope if I could just hold out for it.

Exile

2010-11-11T22:06:00.014+01:00

Aside from the occasional quote or lyric, I don't normally copy out other people's words on my blog. In my infinite modesty, I find my own quite sufficient. ;)

But these words...they absolutely took my breath away when I read them.

(They are from the book "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran. An exiled prophet is waiting to return to his homeland and when the day comes that he can, he is filled with first joy and then sorrow."

"How shall I go in peace and not without sorrow? Nay, not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city.

Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret?

Too many fragments of the spirit have I scattered in these streets, and too many are the children of my longing that walk naked among the hills, and I can not withdraw from them without a burden and an ache.

It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands."

I can't claim to have been in physical exile before although occasionally, in utter exasperation with a country not my own, I have felt as though I was. :) But more seriously, I have experienced somewhat of an interior exile...a time of brief but extreme isolation from myself, others, joy and even I felt at the time, God.

I think that the returning to a place you have been exiled from, whether a tangible country or your own precious self and life, must be very similar in some ways.

I know my observation isn't terribly profound but then, who am I to compete with Kahlil Gibran in the space of just a few moments and paragraphs? I'm better off retiring gracefully tonight...

Good night and sweet dreams.

It's A Cold And It's A Broken Hallelujah

2010-11-04T20:55:00.013+01:00

"Love is not a victory march,
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah." - Leonard Cohen

Tomorrow is November fifth. (You see how cunningly I avoid the "one-year-since" posts that I have fervently sworn to turn my back on by simply writing it one day ahead? So clever, I can hear you whispering behind your hands to each other in hushed tones with perhaps the faintest touch of reverent awe as well. No? Ah well, I can dream...)

Well, I am right, tomorrow is November fifth. And November fifth, 2009 was the day we sat in the sweltering court room in Colombo waiting to be called into the judge's private room. Sat with beating hearts and sweaty hands in our formal attire, while behind us William sat in his biological mother's arms and beside her sat one of the sisters from the convent, eyes closed, silently praying her rosary in the midst of the noise and heat and crowd. We were called, one by one to answer questions. Each answer was to end with a small bow and the word "Sir". I was afraid I would forget my name, my age, my reasons. It proceeded with an air of unreality. We all answered what was asked, it was translated, transcribed, the symbolic act of William being placed in my arms by his biological mother in front of the judge was somehow managed.

I felt so clumsy. Inept.

Several more minutes passed. We were done. It was done. It was really, really done. We walked out of the private room. Couldn't meet anyone's eyes. Down the stairs. Out the doors. Into a heat that suddenly felt oppressive. We took William, were told by someone, no, no, no, not here...wait until we are farther from the building. Down the street. We walked. Per and I, our guide, William's biological mother and William and the kind nun. "Now." On the side of a crowded narrow street. I met her eyes. Held out my arms, wasn't sure what to do. Nothing felt as I thought it would.

(I don't want to write about William's biological mother's grief or try to imagine what she may have felt at that moment. I don't want to cheapen it with my words and interpretations.)

But I will remember.

Taking William in my own arms. This time not symbolically. The nun reaching over and making the sign of the cross on his forehead. His screams as I took him. The sight of his mother walking away, bent over, the nuns arms around her. Mohan saying "let's go". The people on the street stopping whatever business they were busy with and watching. The car ride back to the hotel which only lasted minutes. I held William in my arms in the backseat. Cried. Cried. Cried. "I'm so sorry baby. I'm so sorry. So sorry."

There were no outside the court building pictures. This was love on all sides but it didn't feel like victory. Not at the moment it occurred. It was gut-wrenching heartbreak. It was incomprehensible. It was life in an imperfect world.

I couldn't write about it then and I find it very hard to write about it now. This day was agony. This day was joy. An end. A beginning. A changing of hands. An answer to prayers. An uprooting.

So no, love is certainly not always a victory march but somewhere under all this pain, there were strains of a cold and very broken hallelujah.

It Has To Be Enough For Me

2010-11-02T15:19:00.006+01:00

It's a good day for musing.

It's only 3:20 pm and the sky is dark, rain is shattering itself againt the windows from which a soft golden light shines against the gathering darkness outside. The kind of light you see in other people's windows when walking along busy streets lined with cozy houses, rain pounding the pavement all around you...the kind of light you see in someone elses window and long for, assuming their home must be filled with peace and quiet happiness...contentment...beauty...laughter...the kind of soft glow that for a moment, you envy as you trudge past it in the cold. Even if you have your own window from which gentle light spills out illuminating the rich life within your own home that perhaps other people pass by on dark, cold, lonely nights and envy.

I'm not so certain as I sounded in my previous post. Don't think that my words on who I am mean I have it all figured out. Not by a long shot I'm afraid.:) The words sound confident and I know that they are true...but knowing doesn't make it easy to live in such a way and knowing is not the same as understanding.

I'm not certain but I'm not confused either. I am aware. I am searching. I always want...

Maybe I want soft light to illuminate my soul. To spill out of my heart and give beauty to all I do. Maybe I envy anothers light, a more obvious light, without cherishing and tending to the light in my own soul. Without understanding it.

Whatever the answers to my questions, I am who I am. I have my own gifts and light. They have to be enough for me.

"Five great enemies to peace are found within us: avarice, ambition,envy, anger, and pride. If these enemies were to be banished, we should without doubt, always enjoy peace." - Plutarch (Greek moralist)

Peace be with you then on this rainy night, I hope your unique light keeps the shadows and monsters away.

Turkey, Pumpkin Pie and All That Jazz

2010-10-11T10:27:00.007+02:00

Thanksgiving is a beautiful and uniquely North American tradition and celebration and as today is Canada's Thanksgiving Monday, I wish you all a very happy one!

Now, down to business, how does one write a list of the things one is thankful for without giving the appearance of bragging or gloating about and over ones own good fortune? For example, if I say how thankful I am to have the sort of mind that can remember the lyrics to about 86 (billion) children's songs that play through my mind constantly and add music to my everyday activities so that I walk about the house and even the grocery store singing "Itsy, bitsy spider" and "The Wheels on the Bus" I'm afraid you will all be overcome with jealousy and wish that you too knew so many catchy little ditties instead of rock or alternative or country or whatever grown up music you listen to. It's a tough dilemma.

Seriously though, I am not attempting to either brag or gloat so I do hope my list of things to be thankful for will be taken in the spirit intended...

1) I am thankful to be healthy, both in body and mind. When I took up jogging in August and it felt like a sort of torture at first, I just kept thinking "At least I can jog...I may be embarrassingly slow and disgustingly sweaty but my legs and heart are strong so thank God for that". Well, ok, I didn't really think that. I thought a lot of swear words and curses actually but it would have been quite noble of me to think the former. As for being healthy in my mind, I love learning and reading and discussing things, I'm certainly not an intellectual but I have a healthy (that word again) interest in so many different topics I just boggle my own mind.

2) I'm thankful for family. First, thankful that I grew up in a loving, close and quite hilarious family. Thankful that we laugh, share, are very silly and loud, and yet also pray together and talk seriously about anything on our hearts. Thankful that our hearts are connected by bonds that are very strong and secure. Second, I am thankful for my own little family: my husband and son and dog and two cats. :) Thankful that we are in the process of building our family, building strong bonds, building our faith and home and choosing and creating the sort of relationships we want to encourage between ourselves and the sort of culture and life we want to create within our own walls. Third, I am thankful for my in-laws and their generosity and helpfulness to us. Fourth, I by no means believe that family is made up of only those who are related by blood, so I am grateful for my family around the world, my friends who I cherish and love. For all the coffee, laughter, adventure and conversation we've shared. The part of me that they are responsible for shaping. All in all, I'm so thankful for the people in my life.

3) I'm thankful for the ability and opportunity to travel, the desire to understand other cultures and people and the willingness to try strange and sometimes disgusting local food.

4) The incredible beauty of the Earth. The seasons which each have their own charm.

5) My sight. (Which I have often been afraid of losing considering the serious problems I have had with my poor eyes but they haven't failed me yet although they have been the cause of some embarrassing situations, like the time I waved for about 20 minutes at "someone" in the back seat of a parked car while people walked by me with puzzled expressions on their faces...the "someone" waved, I waved back, they wouldn't stop waving and being the polite Canadian I am, I continued as well for fear of being thought terribly rude...and on and on it went until I walked closer to the car and saw I was waving and smiling at a dog's tail.:)

6) My sense of smell. (Alright, considering I am the mother of a small child, I'm not always thankful for this actually.) The scent of freshly cut grass, pine trees, the ocean, lilacs, fresh air, delicious food, scented candles, gasoline and I am loath to admit this one but even though I don't smoke myself I love the smell of a freshly lit cigarette (I know I am strange, I know!!).

7) My faith in God. This isn't a small one for me, this is everything and perhaps that's why I write the least about it. It is what my entire life is based upon. I'm thankful for the example of love that Jesus is and thankful that God is a loving father.

8) I'm thankful for myself. That I am exactly who I am. I like myself and always have. (This doesn't mean I have nothing to work on, that list is extensive and shocking, believe me, and most likely will never be written here.;) It means that I accept myself for who and how I am. I cherish and protect my own spirit. I am aware of the need to change daily but am also aware that deep inside myself, the core of who I really am remains the same and untouched by the madness of life.

9) Freedom, peace, a home and safety.

10) My experiences, both positive and negative. The part they have played my ongoing learning process.

And there is so much more but I suspect now that this list is becoming rather tedious as what I am thankful for differs very little from what anybody else is thankful for.:)

Happy Thanksgiving! I'd like to sit around a big table with you and eat turkey and potatoes and gravy and hear what you are especially thankful for this year!:) May you all be blessed with much to be thankful for in the coming year!

What Were You Thinking Wearing Jeans, Scarf, and Sweater to a Tropical Country?

2010-10-07T13:39:00.008+02:00

(At the Sola Airport waiting to take off.)

Lately I have been indulging in rather a lot of "exactly one year ago" or "it has been 5 years a 64 days exactly since..." sort of posts. My goodness. I hope you don't imagine this is because I don't have anything new going on in my madcap life to post about! Nothing of more magnitude than wistful glances backward to "last year at this time"! *shakes head* If you believe this, then you are sadly, sadly mistaken. For example, today, I baked blueberry muffins. Yes, I really did. I will go snap a quick picture now if you'll excuse me so that on October 7, 2011, I can sit her and smugly write that exactly one year ago today I baked blueberry muffins. (That is if we don't all die of food poisoning later tonight.)

Seriously though, sometimes I don't know what comes over me when I write. I just get started on nonsense and then it just flows so freely. It's a gift. The sort of gift that in school, enabled me to get weary comments from my teachers on my essays like "Very well written Colleen. Perhaps next time you can stick to the facts a little bit more though."

No but really, back to the point, exactly one year ago today something did happen! We woke up in the morning, got dressed in a hurry, gagged on that medicine you're supposed to take several weeks in advance of traveling to a tropical place (Well, I actually poured mine down the sink, it was too disgusting!), and went to the airport, and all a-tremble with excitement, got on a plane for Colombo, Sri Lanka to meet our little boy for the first time! And that, my friends, is HUGE.

:)

Check back in in exactly one year for a picture of those muffins.

The Age of Spiritual Machines

2010-10-05T11:50:00.009+02:00

It's no secret that I harbor a deep and startlingly dark antipathy toward many modern forms of technology. (Yet hypocrite that I am, I quite enthusiastically make good use of them anyway.)

It's no secret that my cell phone lies gathering dust on my bedside table and any incoming calls go unanswered and most messages unread and ignored. I'm not even going to lie and say I appreciate the thought behind these things. I really don't. *Sigh* I'm sorry but there it is my friends.

It's no secret that I kind of loath, (yet still like a very teensy bit), Facebook.

You see, deep down where it matters, I'm really rather old fashioned. I like heart to heart conversations in cafes or pubs over steaming cups of hot chocolate or coffee. I like sitting on the couch, pillows piled up high and laughing with my friends over something ridiculous. I like long walks with people I love in any sort of weather where the secrets and feelings just spill out of hearts and mouths and into the warm, frosty, biting, clear, sparkling air all around us. I like stacks of exciting mail and piles of letters decorated with colorful stickers. Letters that are meant just for me. I like writing in such a way that makes it seem I am practicing creating a personal ad. No, just kidding, I'm happily married.

I've heard so many times that all this technology just makes communication easier and of course, in so many ways it does. It can unite, it can bring people together, it can introduce friends and lovers, it can give a sense of community that is perhaps lacking in real life. (In my case it's lovely to have daily contact with my family who are worlds away.) But the flip side to this is that it can also make communication cheap and careless, devoid of discretion.

(If interested, further rantings can be found here: All These Flying Supermen).

So while I will probably never get around to using my cell phone, except to send the occasional blank message to an unknown number when I press a button accidentally (apologies to anyone who has been on the receiving end), and while I will probably never totally abandon Facebook though I do so try...and sadly for anyone reading, I may even decide to rant hypocritically about this topic again from time to time...

I still really, really like you! Ok? Don't imagine otherwise. I'm just hopeless at technology and thus have decided to make it my enemy and go back to the days of pen and ink and fun, cheery letters in the mail. Anyone who wants one, you need only send me your address. :)

Love, C.

P.S. Do you know yet not to take me too seriously? I hope so. I do hope so.

Last September 25th

2010-09-23T14:05:00.003+02:00

It was almost exactly a year ago that we learned of William's existence. Imagine that this tiny boy had already been in the world three months without our having had the faintest idea. Imagine that each day of those three months that we struggled and grew weary of the lethargy waiting created in our lives; when our patience began to wear extremely thin with ourselves and others and everything around us; when getting up in the morning felt like a dreary chore and the day that lay ahead seemed long, contentious, grey and boring; when we though that our prayers would never be answered: he was already alive!

A couple of days after we got "the call" we received the above picture. The first picture of William ever taken. He was exactly three months old. I remember looking at it and not being able to comprehend it all. I remember showing it proudly to everyone, carrying it in my pocket until it was crumpled and smudged with finger prints and kisses, until it was covered in wonder and excitement and anticipation. I could feel his soft skin, smell its freshness. I memorized the curve of his cheek and the sweet expression on his face, the color of his skin. I hid the picture away and then couldn't resist it and pulled it back out again to look at and giggle in giddy excitement. A hundred times a day.

It was like the most delicious secret to have this blurry rather unexceptional photograph, except it wasn't a secret at all, everyone knew. It was the highest of emotional highs.

Beaming...radiant...joyful...grateful...

What did we ever do to deserve such happiness?

Home Sweet Home Sweet Home Sweet Home...

2010-09-15T15:56:00.054+02:00

Katie, Thank You So Much, It Works Now! (The Previously Elusive Link)

If you click the above link (which I have been informed doesn't work so never mind) you can see pictures of our home that officially went up on the market today. I do solemnly promise that this is the last post in which I will indulge in this sort of sentimental nonsense...

It just makes me much sadder than I would have expected. I normally am quite stoic (even somewhat hard-hearted in fact) when it comes to leaving things and well, I thought I would leave here without batting an eyelash. Not so I'm afraid. :)

I love "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D Salinger. And so I leave you today with the following quote by the teen-age narrator of the story, Holden Caulfield (quote found on pg. 4):

"What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by. I mean, I've left schools and places I didn't even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don't care if it's a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place, I like to know I'm leaving it. If you don't, you feel even worse."

Luckily, this isn't a terribly sad or an exceptionally bad good-by, it's just one I seem to be feeling intensely.

I definitely know I'm leaving.

(...and I kind of just want a hug and to be told it will all work out fine...even though I know it will...;)

So, let me show you around:

Notice the Carpe Diem mat? Yes, I am a loser.:)

That poor plant so badly wants to die, I'm thinking it might need light or water or something...

A place to read and talk:

The dining area:

A bit old fashioned but it has its very own charm. :)

Where all this mad blogging goes down:

There are more pictures of the bedrooms and bathroom of course but I think I'd better stop here or you'll begin to imagine I'm rather full of myself or that I have a ridiculously inflated idea of how interested you actually are in my every whim and thought and we couldn't have that now. :)

Blown Wide Open

2010-09-12T23:49:00.016+02:00

"The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body. After all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind."
- Francois de la Rochefoucauld

I wrote a post last year, What Happened In Italy, in which I described a process of pain experienced so deeply that I lost a great deal of my confidence and my sense of security in pretty much everything. I felt like I changed overnight; changed in the seconds it took for the doctor to say a few words. This post describes how finding out we would never have a child affected me then.

I've grown past this and even though I have been blessed with so much goodness and joy, the memory of the pain hasn't entirely gone away. If it makes sense, it isn't not being able to have biological children that I mourn now because I have truly moved past that sorrow, rather it's the memory of the feelings, the hopelessness, the huge betrayal I felt, the memory of the overwhelming anger that hurts me. That I felt the way I did. That I spewed out the words I did. That the anger filled me with a cold, cold fury I didn't know I was capable of. I have scars inside that I now barely think of but they pulse with distant pain sometimes when something sparks a memory of that period in my life.

I'm reading a beautiful book about a woman who finds out she can't have children and so adopts from India. I read it and I relate because it takes me back to when my own pain was strong in me. My heart beats out my understanding. I almost hold my breath thinking "How can anyone know this? How can they know what it felt like?" I understand what it's like to wail out my grief, to be set off at the most unexpected thing, (in the book the woman is tying her shoes before a run for example), so that the pain rushes up and takes over before it can be stopped. I've been there.

For me, it was a mild stomach ache. I sat at the table and said completely calmly "it hurts" and the next thing I knew I was screaming and pounding the table and sobbing "it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts..." in a frenzy of incomprehension. Why God? Why, why, why are you letting me hurt like this?

Yeah, for me, it was a million things...

I understand what it feels like to be powerless and incapable and stand helplessly on the sidelines watching my plans and hopes shatter. But God is so faithful and so I also have seen those hopes built up again over time, old dreams replaced with new, the pieces picked up off the ground and put back together more unexpectedly perfect than before. I've had my laughter and peace handed back to me.

I don't wish for anything different than what I have. I have come a long way in healing. Every so often though, I think about that bleak, sad time we struggled though and how it knocked me off balance. I'm content and I'm thankful but sometimes I don't think I'm fully recovered.

Maybe I'll never be the same again. Maybe I'm not meant to be.

Let Me take You To New Heights Of Boredom! (In Which She Drones On And On)

2010-09-10T09:31:00.016+02:00

May I present my own version of the Blair Witch Project......just kidding, it's really just our yard on a bright September morning. Sorry to disappoint you.

I hope you enjoy this mini-documentary that I have painstakingly put together for your viewing pleasure. Narcissist that I am, I do think you'll like it. And me being me, of course I don't add any unnecessary little details or anything, I just stick right to the point, the bare bones if you will, like I normally do in both real life and my writing.

I must point out that this video has several glaring flaws.

One being that I formally introduced one of our two cats and yet completely forgot to do so with Lily, our dog who in the background in several scenes is making a desperate bid for attention by doing some fancy little tricks with her rotten old ball, like biting it and tripping over it, that only she has really mastered. So, forgive my bad manners and allow me to introduce Lily, Boarder Collie extraordinaire.

You perhaps notice at one point I make a blowing sound that makes me sound like the slow steps on flat land have left me gasping for breath. This isn't so...there was a bug on my hand and being a great respecter of life, I chose to blow the bug off me rather than squish it.

I think other than that, you'll find this to be an instant classic that you'll watch for years to come with your families. With no further ado then, may I present: "Our Yard". Yeah, the title is inspired, I know. ;)

+

(Please don't be envious of the evident skill with which I use the camera, my smooth filming and my witty, intelligent commentary. ;)

A Bungalow Near The Beach

2010-09-07T11:00:00.005+02:00

We are downsizing: selling our charming, spacious home that is surrounded by green rolling hills on the outskirts of town and moving to a city approximately three hours away into a much smaller bungalow within walking distance of the ocean. (All to fulfill my dream of being a beach bum you see, I stop at nothing...;)

For four years, this house has been a home to us. It's been exactly what we needed and for the most part we have loved it here. It's a good house, a home in which I've felt secure and safe and at ease. It was a wreck when we bought it and we've made it lovely and inviting, colorful and peaceful. I've lovingly planted every single flower in the garden.

At first it offered us a haven from pain and the privacy we needed to work through our hurt and disbelief at how different God's plans were for us than our own. It became a home we poured our energy, excitement, sadness, and love into. A place of privacy and of healing. I admit to an overactive imagination, but I always have felt that houses have their own life, apart from us. And this one seemed to be like a gentle grandmother, wrapping soft loving arms around me. A place to curl up and hide when I needed to. There have been several times when I've caught myself saying "Don't worry, we'll take care of you..." to this house. :) It's been a good home and we have had many very happy times here with friends and family but I suppose when all is said and done, it is just a home and it's time for us to move on now and live and laugh within other walls.

We are happy and excited to move as well! There is a wonderful sense of newness and fresh beginnings in a move and we are excited to see what this one has in store for us. Perhaps less privacy than we have out here in the boonies, that's ok, we're ready for that and welcome it. A smaller space but that's also ok, there's something in me that finds it a bit funny and fantastic to be downsizing before we turn 30!:) The excitement of renovating the new house to suit us and the pleasure in meeting new friends to add to the old.

We have a perfect mix of convenience and privacy where we are going...it's right in town, near the town center and in a peaceful and child friendly neighborhood and yet directly across from our home is a forest filled with beautiful walking paths that almost all lead right to the ocean. It will be good.

I know though too that it is always slightly bittersweet. I've lived in Rogaland since I came to Norway six years ago and there are many people I love and care for here. I've been blessed with a job for the past five years that has suited me perfectly in an English kindergarten with staff from all over the world and I have had fun there. We have also been able to attend an English mass in Stavanger each Sunday which is also a very international environment which I love. I can't help it, I'm Canadian...it's just in me to love multiculturalism. ;)

But it's all good. I think the blessing is to be able to recognize and appreciate how good we actually have always had it here but also to anticipate and realize that life is full of goodness, good things and good people are everywhere.

We are very adaptable. And since life and circumstance are constantly changing, I thank God for that.

So please, wish us well and if you're ever in Mandal, do come by and we can drink tea from my huge stash and look for shells on the beach. :)

Physical, Spiritual and Psychological Decluttering (A Tongue In Cheek Look At My Obsessive Behaviour )

2010-09-04T20:03:00.030+02:00

I am generally a relaxed sort of person but there is one thing that I can't abide. Like truly can not stand. Stuff...extra things "just in case"...junk...drum roll please...CLUTTER.

Please note: I am only referring to my own home, you may fill yours with as much clutter as your heart desires and I promise you I won't even bat an eyelash much less notice. This is strictly a personal battle, my own personal demon if you will. ;)

It isn't just a mild pet peeve, it's an obsession with a capital "O" I'm afraid. Like a lying in bed- not being able to sleep at night- mind and heart racing- panicky- got to get rid of it now- dry mouth- wild eyed obsession. I grow tense at the thought of keeping things and have even been known to cry about something that for some reason I can't get rid of. (Disclaimer: Regrettably, I must admit this has nothing to do with generosity and everything to do with certifiable, yet hopefully mild, insanity.)

I do wonder why though. Why can't I rest easy when there is something I feel doesn't fulfill a necessary purpose in my home? It can't be normal. Most people must just ignore it but I can't. It haunts me until I get rid of it. I declutter with a fiery passion. Except that oddly, I love thrift shopping so this doesn't bode well for my peace of mind...

Lately I have begun to wonder if this manic decluttering that seems to control me rather than the other way around is psychological. Yes, it is good to clear of homes and lives of useless items but...but...but...

I see a direct connection between the decluttering of my mind and that of my home. Maybe what I am really after is a quiet, steady internal calm. A clean interior. A mind decluttered. Maybe what I would really like to get rid of is distraction, confusion, fear, anxiety, restlessness, dissatisfaction, competitiveness, internal chaos and darkness, stubbornness, pride, envy, unkindness. Anything that is holding me back from contentment and peace.

Here's to pushing my way through a crowded mind, one cluttered with useless information and brimming with a million distractions, to a mind that clean and pure. A clear, restful mind and a relaxing, uncluttered home.

This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz...

2010-08-25T13:14:00.011+02:00

When I dance with William to silly childrens songs we whip around in circles on the floor. He throws himself back in my arms, trusting that I will catch him and laughs with sheer delight or if we just sway slowly to the music he stares intently at me and smiles, his nose all wrinkled up and his lips pursed in a funny little way as if he just never imagined that this much fun was possible and wants to make sure I feel the same. I always laugh too of course, I can't help it.

At The Good Shepard Convent in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where William and his biological mother lived from sometime before she gave birth until the day she handed William to us in the courtroom, the nuns told us that every Friday evening they played music for the women there and the new mothers would clasp their new babies in their arms and dance the evening away.

I think about that a lot for some reason. Strains of Sinhalese music filling the warm evening air, a roomful of women in colorful skirts carefully holding their little ones to their chests as they dance, probably some laughter and chatter shot through with the heavy weight of grief for the mothers who know they won't have many more chances to dance with their babies like this.

They have three or four months of Friday evenings...

Some pictures of the peaceful, beautiful gardens of The Good Shepard Convent where we spent a good deal of our allotted daily two hours walking with William:

Free

2010-08-19T19:24:00.003+02:00

I have a deeply rooted fear. It's this: I am afraid to become complacent, to chant mindless cliches as life-truths instead of thinking for myself, to narrow the walls of my existence to such a point that nothing worthy or fresh can thrive within them. To become stagnant and stale. To not strive to grow and change daily. To not know myself and far more important than even that, to not strive for a richer faith, a deeper prayer life, a thriving vibrant inner life. I fear walking through life ignorant of the depth I desire and need. I fear someday not realizing this is a fear of mine. Of these thoughts not even crossing my mind.

At least when I struggle or rage against myself for my shortcomings and flaws, there is hope. When I smile blandly, sacrifice honesty for comfort and speak nonsense words that don't begin to skim the surface of life, when I become content to settle with less from myself, then there is none.

I struggle. I muddle through things. I fail a lot. I get disappointed with myself and I move on.

A human being can be so many things. It is impossible to be just a one word description. I am not only "kind", I can be rude and thoughtless. I am not only "selfish", I have moments of generosity as well. Characteristics can be learned and unlearned, practiced and suppressed.

I question. I do a lot of night-thinking, soul searching. I write things out to help myself understand my own feelings. I hope to remake myself daily, hourly, by the minute actually. To not point out that flaw of someone elses that I just happened to notice; to not judge others so quickly, in fact to not judge them at all; to try to be more humble; to define myself less and less by the world around me but instead by my faith and by God's standards.

I believe in a God of mercy. A God of forgiveness. I wonder at the love of Jesus who stands by an adulterous woman surrounded by a crowd of angry men who want to stone her to death for her sin and says "Let you who are without sin cast the first stone then." The crowd disperses and He says something to the effect of: they do not condemn you and neither do I so go and sin no more.

What I mean is that faith, rather than limiting me and narrowing my mind, makes it in fact more open. I feel free in the knowledge that every day I can fail. And every day I can try again to be better. That this is acceptable and human. Free in the knowledge that I have a God who understands this.

The Mystery

2010-08-18T13:22:00.006+02:00

No.
You've got it all wrong.
It has nothing to do with me my dear.
I'm not speaking of some great, soul-searching mystery like:
Who am I? or Why am I here?

Rather, it has to do with you.
Why, why, why
By a river on a cold early evening,
In autumn-heavy, dull-dark air,
At that exact moment at that exact hour of that specific day...
Why were you exactly there?

I know it is a mystery but still I think the question fair.

Let Them Eat Cake Not Um, Other Stuff

2010-08-12T10:20:00.018+02:00

Today the "negligent mother" award goes to me, please don't judge me too harshly...

But honestly, in my defense, is there no end to what a little boy will eat? The things he rushes to stick in his mouth and swallow before I can catch him? You'd think I'd be faster. Or smarter. But how could I have ever guessed that today his delicious bread and cheese wouldn't hold the same appeal for him as the cat's litter box? I'm sorry, but I simply can't stay that many moves ahead, my mind doesn't work like that. He's like a master player while I am left guessing at his next move like an uncertain beginner. But oh, the cat's litter. Someone tell me it ends here. :)

Stay away from the litter William and I promise to give you all the chocolate cake you can eat. Ever. Litter, grass, dog food, and other things I don't even want to guess at will never make you as happy as gooey chocolate cake will my darling. I swear I'm right.

(William after a delightfully gooey chocolate mess of a cake)

The Quietest Of Times

2010-08-11T09:41:00.014+02:00

"Such evidence I have of indifference
Were surely enough to break the coldest heart.
But this heart is not cold, it has never been cold.
It never, never, never has been cold."
- Stevie Smith (Voice from the Tomb 3)

Sometimes we need quiet. Sometimes we need to step back from the world, to pretend to ourselves and to others that we don't exist. We think: You may see me, but I'm a ghost. I'm not here. My heart is breaking. My pain overwhelming. I can't stand up. I can't be a part.

Sometimes we need isolation. To be alone in a room. To be alone to mourn. To be able to hear our true selves; to hear God in silence. To allow ourselves to scream silently the questions to which there are no answers. Questions children cry when they've fallen an scrapped their knees. Why does it hurt? Isn't there anyone who can make it stop? There are times we need to experience all this.

And when you become a temporary ghost, it's convenient for others not to notice you just as you hope (and as you secretly don't hope) they won't.

But after awhile you begin to fall in love with your own intake of breath again. You begin to look in the mirror and see you are tired, that you need to be taken care of. You begin to smile again at strangers but when they don't smile back you think: maybe I have been a ghost for too long, maybe no one sees me. But you don't lose hope so easily anymore. You begin to see magic and loveliness in your life again, sometimes for days at a time. You cry when you remember how you allowed yourself to tear your own spirit apart with sadness, with words calculated to destroy. You begin to heal and take baby steps, clumsily moving into your own waiting arms. You could laugh with relief. You can stand on the edge of a group at ease with each other and call out cheerfully, with confidence: can I join you? See? Here I am! I no longer love isolation! Then you smile at the wonder of the passage of time and the way a soul becomes strong and giddy on hope.

You begin to understand that isolation and solitude are not the same. And with this understanding comes a freedom brought about by the pleasure found in being both alone and in the company of others. There. You say: I've found my way back to life. I'm rich. I'm content. I'm living.

(Grace's Parasol by Janet Hill)

A Baby Raised By Wolves (Portrait of a Thirteen Month Old Boy)

2010-08-08T11:42:00.008+02:00

Or bears for that matter. Or...us.

I admit there are days that I think William acts like a boy raised by a pack of wolves. Yes, his manners are sometimes just that bad: loud belches and other noises best left to the imagination at the table or spitting on the priest when being blessed at communion time in church. He is by far the loudest child I have ever encountered. That being said, these things are all done with great enthusiasm, wild laughter and a spirit of silly fun. I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse though. He certainly delights in his mischievous behavior and seems quite oblivious to the excellent manners that I, being a good Canadian, am eager for him to learn.

He has mastered the fine art of guttural growling for a few months now but more recently has begun to growl in response to the word "no". He understands no but something in him rebels against our daring to say such a thing to him. For a while every time we said no in a firm voice, his eyes would narrow and he would turn what he imagined an intimidating glare upon us and a deep, churning growl would come from his throat. Then he would settle back satisfied he had made his point. But we bravely persevered. Now when we say no, he seems more resigned but still gives a quick sullen low growl and more often then not, stops his offending behavior. Hey, we'll take whatever small victories we can get around here. ;)

What else? Ah yes, he has added another excellent piece to his conversational repertoire. At the table over breakfast one morning in a state of high excitement over the taste of jam on bread, he slammed his fists down on the table, eyes blazing fearfully and shouted out what sounded like "Mother Calcutta". I can imagine that by using that along with "hyena", "mama", and "dada", he will be able to create a marvelous sentence. Maybe he'll be a creative writer or a charismatic speaker or the dictator of a small country when he grows up. We can only dream...

I should add though that even in the midst of the craziness his waking hours entail, there are quiet moments of absolute sweetness as well. Soft baby boy sweetness, with his small head resting against my shoulder as he wakes up slowly from sleep or watches his mentor, Mowgli from the Jungle Book, on TV. Sweet little songs he sings while playing or sitting in his stroller. His beautiful, crooked little smile and the way his face lights up when he sees Per or me. Chubby little arms around my neck. So you see it isn't all wildness although some days it feels like it.

And this William, is a silly, tongue-in-cheek, imperfect attempt at describing your energy, playfulness, stubbornness, and sweetness. This is you at 13 (and a half) months old.

And I Could So Happily Be A Beach Bum For The Rest of My Days...

2010-07-30T10:23:00.039+02:00

Yes, a beach bum living in a little beach hut who goes out every morning searching for bits of driftwood and beach glass and lovely whimsical seashells. Feet splashing in the cool water, sand between my toes. Sun shining radiant beams of light and color on the endless, stretching water. The smell of salt and sand in the air. Dried starfish. Waves lapping gently at the shore. Eternal. Insignificant. Tiny in a huge world. Meaning and art instead of business and money. Ah, I could have been a marvelous hippie...

Or a gypsy queen. A wanderer. A traveler. Eyes shielded against the sun. The exotic jingle of an arm full of bangles. Sleeping under the stars, catching trains to unknown destinations. Not knowing where in the great wide world I'll end up. Wild colors and irregular patterns of life. Free and powerful in that freedom. What if I would have been born a gypsy queen?

Or a writer. A poor, penniless writer. Sitting in dark, smoky Parisian cafes. Like Ernest Hemingway. Indulging in my own movable feast. A gormet feast of people watching and words...sights and explorations...I'd certainly wear a dreary hat and have a steaming cup of coffee before me on the scarred wooden table if I could afford it that particular rainy morning. I'd watch. I'd write. I'd wander the city streets in deep thought. Serious and obscure. I'd buy baguettes and drink too much espresso and wine and create my own world view and never buy into society's norms...

Ambitious undertakings, all of the above. Ah well, somewhere inside myself, I'm a little bit of all those things...and a little bit of an artist as well. ;)

And now to say thank you to Lidj from
Crown Of Beauty for thinking of me when it came to the following award:

I appreciate it so thank you dear Lidj!

The rules of the award are:
1. Link back to the person who nominates you for this award.
2. Pass it along to 7 other inspiring bloggers
3, Share 7 things about yourself.

2. Here are seven very diverse blogs that I enjoy. They express interests as varied as the sharing of adoption stories and the struggles and joys of waiting for the "big call" to the expression of self through lovely and creative dressing to creative work with scrapping and card making to just incredibly inspiring and uplifting writing.

Ka Du Trur?

Life With Kaishon

Modesty Is Pretty

Ellinor's

Totaxidi

Hobbyresultater Fra Playa del Sviland

Crown Of Beauty

3. Seven fascinating tidbits about myself you'd probably live quite happily without knowing:

- If you're assuming this part is difficult for me because I only speak/ write about myself with great reluctance as is obvious throughout my blog, you're quite right...;)

- I have a collection of flavored teas that has grown so huge as to be a source of great embarrassment to me.

- I love brightly colored scarves, shoes, bracelets...etc., etc., etc.

- I wear glasses every waking moment and if for some reason I don't have them on, not only can I not see, but I can't hear or walk or speak either...or at least it feels that way.:)

- I have an aversion to TV. It's often mindless, dulls the senses and generally I feel it's a case of "Garbage in, garbage out".

- My language of love is communication. I don't care much for big, fancy gifts, give me conversation any day. :)

- I always prefer that people talk to me and find out who I am and what I think rather than make incorrect assumptions based on well...nothing...;)

See? I'm just so shy when it comes to these things. ;)

I'm Sure My Make-Up Wasn't As Perfect When I Landed As It Was When I Set Out

2010-07-16T15:32:00.013+02:00

(2004)

Six years ago today, I stepped off the plane in Sola airport, clothing wrinkled from the long flight from Winnipeg; hair in disarray from catching brief moments of that sleeping one does on flights that isn't really sleeping; feelings all a jumble, an uncertain mixture of excitement and nervousness. Somewhere inside I knew I wouldn't be going home again. Maybe that sounds more ominous than I intend it to. What I mean is that I was sure, confident in fact, that I had arrived at a threshold and found the door to my future wide open. I had no choice but to walk on through.

Even so, I delayed awhile collecting my bags, loitered suspiciously around the customs desk. Took a deep breath and walked out into the public part of the airport to meet my future husband.

You may well think I was a mail order bride from Canada but in fact, I wasn't. I was however, a 24 year old traveler meeting my best friend, my very soon to be husband after three years of going our own ways in the world. I had spent a good portion of the flight wondering how to take friendship turned gradually to love gracefully: "How will we greet each other? Will we hug? Will we just shake hands? Or...maybe we'll...kiss?!" It was a bizarre scenario for which no rules of proper etiquette had been written.

Matters were confusing at best. Here goes: We'd first met when we were 18 in Iceland, became good friends, traveled by train far and wide with other friends through Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland together during several summers. Per eventually came to Canada. I traveled several times to Norway. And all the while we remained friends. A couple years later I was living in Germany and he in Australia and we decided to see if our relationship could work as something more than "friends". We hadn't seen each other for a couple years at this point but hey, why not? Not everything has to make sense, right?. So after my year in Germany was finished, I hopped a plane back to Winnipeg and stepped out into a February night so cold I couldn't breathe and Per left Australia for Norway several months later. I worked for a few months and set out for Norway on July 16th, 2004. Per met me at the airport. (We kissed by the way.;) and we were engaged by August 27th and married on October 2nd.

I've never really been a big planner. It's served me well. :)

So today is my own little anniversary. Let's have the clinking of glasses and a resounding:

Cheers Darling! ;)

(2010)

Forever Capturing Castles

2010-07-14T19:54:00.016+02:00

(Southern Manitoba)

"I decided then that beauty was sad
And always eluding us
Because we don't know how to care for it
Or cherish it as we should.
I decided none-the-less that I would wait for beauty
Because it was worth waiting for." (Verse 3 from a poem I wrote in 2003)

"Perhaps he finds beauty saddening--I do myself sometimes. Once when I was quite little I asked father why this was and he explained that it was due to our knowledge of beauty's evanescence, which reminds us that we ourselves shall die. Then he said I was probably too young to understand him; but I understood perfectly."(pg. 147, I Capture the Castle)

I love beauty. I struggle with beauty. With its transience. Its brevity.

Where I'm from:

Occasionally where I'm from, there's a quality of light on a summer evening, soft and silvery, ethereal. When I sit outside in the evening, it speaks to me of childhood and purity. It's the same sky overhead. The same sounds of insects chirping in the fields. The same scents of the prairies and lakes that breathe stories to me of the days when I was closer to the earth. All around me, land. I can breathe so freely here. It has always made my heart ache.

Sometimes I struggle with sadness because I miss these things. Easy laughter and soft conversations into the night. A gently creaking porch swing. A different depth. A different way of living and being. I breathe so freely here.

Where I am:

I search for different beauty here. I must seek out different joys. I have to put more of my soul into my faith because breathing freely doesn't come as easily for me here. Some days I have to remind myself to breathe, to be who I am without apology. I have to remind myself of what I wanted, the life I sought and how blessed I am that it in fact is the life I've found.

There is wonder in the sound of the horses hooves pounding the earth as they race each other in the field beside our home for no reason other than joy. There is beauty in our lush green garden in which the sun dances on a beautiful Northern summer day like today. There is contentment in those I treasure...the family God has blessed me with. Who make this slightly shabby, charming house on the outskirts of town a home. I can love this life. I can do my best. I can bridge two worlds and be at peace in both.

How can I not be thankful for that?

Maybe I Could Snap Her Up In A Butterfly Net?

2010-07-08T11:55:00.005+02:00

I am horrified at myself. And slightly amused. But mostly horrified.

I confess, (chances are that many of you have long suspected this), I have an active and well, imaginative, imagination. When I walk with William, I make good use of this time when he is most relaxed: I think profound thoughts, I make up wild, impossible stories and scenarios in my head. Some days I get a lot of looks from people I pass on these walks. I usually smile brightly in return, putting these looks down to the fact that I'm just absolutely irresistible in my crocs and baggy brown shorts and tee. Today though I realized that they're looking at me because I'm actually mumbling my thoughts, in all their profoundness, aloud as I walk.

My goodness, they might say, there's that nut from Canada again. Children, if she comes close, just come inside and shut the door quietly...

And in the shop today I couldn't find diapers. So I asked the cashier where they were. Like this (except in Norwegian): "Excuse me could you please tell me where to find diapers? Childrens diapers?"

Sigh. Why in the world did I feel that question needed to be added to? I'm not yet 30, I doubt they thought I meant diapers for myself.

Ah well, a day in the life, huh?

Strangers on a Plane: A Little Brush With A Lot 'O Crazy...

2010-07-06T09:29:00.018+02:00

There's a woman across the aisle from us, she's maybe a few years older than we are, mid thirties perhaps. She's watching us from the moment we take our seats and and sit William down snugly in the space between us. She gets up several times, walks up and down the aisle slowly.

A few hours into the flight she leans over, asks us, "Where are you going?" "We're going to visit my family in Canada." "Oh?" she turns her lips down and asks in an intimate tone "Out of duty?" There's a pause while we consider what that even means. "No, not out of duty, for a visit." "Where do you live?" she continues. "Norway." "Oh Norway! Lovely! And tell me, how do you feel living in Norway where it's so rich when there are so many suffering people in the world? And have you seen the Northern Lights?" "No, not where we live..." is our puzzled reply. Her eyes widen and she stares at us and says in an innocent voice full of disbelief as though we were lying, "But...I thought you said you live in Norway! Oh! What a beautiful child you have!", she continues in a flash smiling sweetly at William, "Where is he from?" "Sri Lanka", we reply cautiously. Again her eyes widen, this time in exaggerated delight, "Sooo...how did that work? Did you just go there, pay his mother a lot of money and take her child away from her? How wonderful that you did that!", she says in a bright, falsely sweet voice.

Obviously something is very wrong. (We probably should have stopped the conversation dead in its tracks but easier said than done.)

"No, we adopted him legitimately."
She puts her hand under her chin and leans forward as though we're old friends sharing secrets over tea and asks in a voice dripping with honey and sarcasm, "But how did that feeeeel for you? Taking him away from his mother like that? What a good thing you've done! How selfless you are!" She shakes her head in a parody of exaggerated admiration.

I sigh. This feels overwhelming and is made all the more difficult by the fact that she is so manipulatively sweet and not blatantly hostile which is a world easier to deal with.

After about an hour of conversation in this vein, we turn away and begin to feed William, hoping this will signal an end to this bizarre, invasive and dark conversation.

But nothing deters her and she stands up and comes over and sits down beside Per, almost clapping her hands together in mock pleasure and says in a bitter, cloying voice "I just had to come over here and witness this beautiful little moment of perfect family happiness!" She carries on "So what was wrong with you anyway? That you couldn't adopt a child from one of your own countries? What sort of marriage do you have anyway?" Finally I say "I don't want to answer those questions. Why don't you tell me what sort of view you have on adoption because you sound very negative about the entire issue." She gasps in surprise, as though entirely taken aback at my rudeness and answers sweetly "No, no, no! It's only that I admire you and what you've done so much!" And then she mumbles something that sounds as though she is asking me if I am religious. So I answer hesitantly, "I am religious..." And she looks at me with such naked dislike and says in an ugly voice "I didn't ask you if you were religious but since you feel the need to talk about it, go ahead then, tell me..." I reply, "Actually I don't want to tell you anything. We need to lie our son down now, would you please go back to your own seat?"

My heart is pounding and my hands are shaking in my lap and I'm hoping she doesn't notice. She stands up and says very loudly "Well, it's just that I think your little boy is so beautiful and that what you've done is so wonderful...imagine that, ripping a little child away from its home and its mother! It's so absolutely wonderful! Look!", (she says while gesturing to people in the seats around us), "Everyone's smiling at what you've done, they're just so happy you've taken a little baby away from it's mother!"

I reply, "We didn't do it for anyone else's approval."

She smiles condescendingly "I know, I know, you're so purely selfless! Such a good person! Well let me just tell you one thing before I sit down and that is that there is no one, absolutely no one on this plane who cares at all about you and what you've done. Alright? No one cares."

And that was that. This went on for well over an hour and there was far more to it than I want to write but that was the gist of it. I think it's the only time in my life where I have genuinely felt harassed and it was so overwhelming that all the logical responses (as in, stop talking to her altogether, ask a flight attendant to intervene, etc,) just flew out the window.

But live and learn, right? If we ever have to deal with such an atrocious person again, we'll be much better equipped. ;)

An Animal They Don't Have in Sri Lanka...

2010-06-22T08:08:00.006+02:00

William said his first real word today.

Many a time he has shouted out an enthusiastic "mama" or "dada" or even a simple "yaya" (which can come in handy if one is conversing in Norwegian:), but aside from that, actual words have eluded him. Until today.

He may have been saving this little treasure of a word until his first birthday because I picked him up this morning and out it came.

It was "hyena". Clear as day.
I'm so proud.

;)

A Joyful Soul

2010-06-21T11:32:00.007+02:00

Joy is the great mystery of our time.
It's rare but
Some people are born with a spirit of joy.
Like you.
You aren't just mildly content or blandly happy.
You are exuberant and wild and sweet and mischievous.
Laughter dances in your eyes and bubbles up from your belly.
You wake up most mornings with a smile and joyful shrieks.
Life is exhilarating, hilarious, and exciting.
The world is wonderful for no reason other than that it exists.

I'm so thankful for you.
Thankful because you are a gift of light and hope.
A blessing of promise and goodness and more laughter than we expected.
An example of the power of prayer.

God bless you as you turn one year old tomorrow William. You are cherished. Your life has worth and beauty. Your spirit and heart are precious to the Lord.

Thank you beautiful boy for your great gift of joy.

Happy first birthday Baby. If angels danced the day you were born then you can bet they're still dancing now.

Thank you...tusen takk...merci beaucoup...danke...grazie...

2010-04-29T09:29:00.006+02:00

If anybody else knows "thank you" in any other language please feel free to enlighten me.:)

Tomorrow a whirlwind of activity begins! We fly to London (Heathrow), then Ottawa, then Winnipeg where my dad, sister, brother, and very soon to be new sister-in-law ,(who I haven't had the pleasure of meeting yet!), will be waiting to greet us with dozens of roses and a plush red carpet which they will roll out before us as we arrive. Celebrities that we are.

I'm not too sure if I'll be updating my blog or if I'll be commenting much on other blogs while I'm in Canada for the next 6 weeks so please don't be alarmed if I am absent for awhile. What I do want to say though is a very simple and heartfelt thank you to those of you who read my blog, those of you who comment, and of course, those of you who don't as well! There are so many times that I have been so touched by the knowledge that family, friends, and sometimes people I don't know, (which by the way is a very pleasant surprise usually), take the time to read what I write and leave caring words. I appreciate it.

I love writing, it's my creative outlet and also the best possible therapy I can imagine. I try to capture moments in words. It's a beautiful art. When I began this blog, it was because I was anxious about our upcoming interview with the social worker at the very beginning of our adoption process and since then I have continued it somewhat erratically. It isn't meant to be informative or a daily record of events. I just write what I feel like writing. But it's valuable to me. I will always be honest in what I share here.

I would write even if nobody else read it, but that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate those who do. So again, thank you very much. I hope the next six weeks contain so much happiness for you all. God bless. And please pray we have a safe journey home.

Much Love.
C.

P.S. I said I would always be honest so I guess that means that I have to amend what I said earlier about the dozens of roses and the red carpet. (I have delusions of grandeur...) But they will be there to greet us, so that was true at least. ;)

Talking To Strangers

2010-04-27T09:45:00.004+02:00

Strangers seem to talk to me a lot. I don't know why but they always have and what they've said has ranged drastically from the kind and caring, to those who are seeking desperately to be understood, to the very sad, to the downright bizarre and unfathomable.

Sometimes they say things that make my heart smile and my hope in humankind is temporarily renewed. Other times they say things that are so rich and thought provoking that I ponder their words for days and then there are those other times that they say things that make me smile nervously, nod in a placating manner and edge slowly backward until I feel I can safely break into a full blown run to escape them.:)

I think when you're out with children, people tend to speak to you even more and I'm sure everyone who has ever been out with a child has heard from strangers how lovely their baby is. I hear it every time I'm out with William and while I can't take the credit for his beauty, it still fills my heart with pleasure that others also see what I know so well. Even if they say it about every child they encounter, it's still music to my ears!:)

I was browsing in a shop yesterday when a woman smiled at me and said "You have an exceptionally lovely baby." I smiled and thanked her and said (rather absurdly) "We adopted him from Sri Lanka" as though that explained everything. She smiled back at me and said "All children are beautiful aren't they? But there are always some that are exceptionally so." Since I can't come right out and answer "Well, he gets his beauty from me." as I could if William were my biological child, I said simply "We're very blessed." She nodded and said "I know. I've been there myself...my husband I tried in vitro fertilization 10 times and just as I was about to give up, I fell pregnant with my daughter. I am so lucky."

And as she said it, her eyes filled with tears and I felt so honored that for whatever reason, she shared that with me because even though she didn't know me or the reason we chose adoption, it was as though she truly did understand the waiting, the hopes and the shattered hopes, the uncertainty, and finally the beauty of the gift of a long awaited child and for that moment, understanding that surpassed whether we knew each other or not, passed between us. It's those moments where my heart responds on a deeper level to the soul of a stranger that I can't help but wonder if that is what humanity was meant to be like before we, for the most part, became to afraid to share with others.

She Rode There In A Tuk Tuk

2010-04-22T08:17:00.007+02:00

We don't know the exact moment William entered this world. We don't know what sort of labor or birth his mother had. We don't know what she felt when she held him for the first time.

But 10 months ago today William, (then Darshana), graced this rather shoddy world of ours with his brand new, pure little presence! I wonder how it feels to hold something so fresh in your arms. It must feel like a miracle, like you have just been showered in sparkling grace...it must feel like awe and power and weakness all at once.

And 10 months later, here he is. Half way around the world with us, riding in cars with car seats rather than in wildly careening tuk tuks held in someones arms! Beautiful baby...he is growing quickly and already has a fabulous sense of humor and playfulness. He delights in silliness. His eyes are as huge and glossy as ever and he has more hair on his head that I thought possible at such a young age. People are still his favorite things. ;)

He has a lot in store this month...meeting all his Canadian family for the first time...next week!!!! Imagine that! Imagine how incredibly far reaching the absolute joy of our William is! It stretches from Sri Lanka to Norway to Canada!
It makes the world small. It makes the world beautiful for us.

10 months old today. I'm sure we're not the one ones who are thinking about you today, William. Somewhere in Sri Lanka, there's a woman who is remembering that it was 10 months ago today that she held you and kissed you for the first time.

Adoption can bring so many hearts together in hope.

Travels With My Brother (Sketches)

2010-04-16T09:33:00.017+02:00

Beautiful Munich

Sketch One:

Munich is a beautiful, exhilarating city of lively beer gardens, ornate buildings and churches, and fascinating historical significance. It is a warm and friendly place and crowded with tourists and travelers, (yes there is a difference.:), especially in the heady summer months. I like to think that as we sat, drinking our coffee at an outdoor cafe late at night with a waiter hovering over us wringing in hands in what appeared to be anxious despair, that we were of the chosen few...that Kelly and I were travelers. We took a Third Reich walking tour and murmured appreciatively at all the truly fascinating bits of history that we had never heard before. Imagine what happened in this particular square, this uninspiring building here, that beer garden, these streets and homes and lives. Imagine the grief this beautiful city has seen.

On our own walks through the city we came upon a statue of a giant warthog. It was impressive and in fact, it had the dubious honor of being the only thing on our entire trip that Kelly actually asked me to get his photograph with. The stuff precious memories are made of I suppose...

There was one instance in Munich that I wish I would have witnessed but I chose just the crucial moment to go off in search of a restroom leaving Kelly waiting on one of the narrow, one way streets in the downtown area. What he saw was a unique example of the horrors of road rage. Two tourists were ambling down this narrow cobblestone street, guidebook and bottled water in hand and at the same time a car was trying to make its way down the street as well. The car horn honked loudly. The tourists perhaps absorbed in their book didn't notice. The car stopped and an angry man got out and stomped his way over to the unsuspecting couple, yelling and gesturing and as the piece de resistance, the ultimate lesson that they should never dare do this again, he thrust out his hand, grabbed the man's water bottle and heaved it mightily into the air and stalked off back to his car. As the water bottle fell, lets imagine in slow motion, back to the ground and broke, water droplets flying every where, this poor couple stood open-mouthed and staring in wide eyed surprise. I'm sure that day they learned a lesson that will never leave them. :)

Sketch Two:

A sunny afternoon in Mainz. Relaxing on a bench in the beautiful old city. It's lunchtime and many business men and women are sitting outside, talking quietly and enjoying their break from work. All of a sudden a group of giggling children appear from nowhere armed with spray bottles and begin to shriek with delight as they spray these business people who react with quiet embarrassment as having been the center of such unwanted attention, eyes downward, ignoring these small hooligans. That was perhaps the best reaction. Kelly and I watched and snickered because well it was funny. And then with exceptionally bad judgment, I called over to them as they made their way around the city square spraying everyone in sight and asked them what they were doing and what was in the bottle. They came over to our bench and sprayed us both mercilessly as we laughingly protested and got up, edging our way backward, down yet another cobblestone alley, hands out in front of us to ward these little demons off. They followed us and I have to admit that they actually chased us out of the the city square while we laughed helplessly. It felt a little bit medieval. Well, except the laughing part.

Sketch Three:

Things that happen on trains. Most trains in Germany are sleek, fast, and among the most modern in the world. But occasionally for the more local journeys between smaller villages and towns, the more charming, old fashioned trains pull into the stations. On one such train, between Bacharach and Koblenz, we sat in an almost empty compartment. There was only us, an elderly man, and a group of people across from us. The group of people across from us opened the window as it was a stifling day and the breeze blew in fresh and clean. The elderly man became alarmed, sat up straight in his seat and began patting his hair frantically and glowering. Finally after no one took whatever hint this was intended to be, he marched over to the rebel window openers and demanded they shut the window all the while brushing his hair down and exclaiming that he couldn't possibly keep it neat with a breeze like that blowing in. Everyone suffers from vanity occasionally I suppose. :)

Sketch Four:

Trier is the oldest city in Germany and boasts some really incredible Roman ruins. We arrived on a seriously sweltering August day and set out to find these ruins. Now I'd been in Trier before but my sense of direction is sketchy at the best of times and I don't generally use maps. So we wandered. For hours actually. I began with a positive spirit "Roman ruins, can you imagine? How wonderful! I can't wait to see them! think of all the history here!" and as the hours stretch on and we seemed to be no closer, my mood changed "Kelly...do even want to see the Roman ruins because I'm starting to think I don't...I mean, what's so special about them anyway?" (Kelly was very patient and didn't complain I might add.) We walked a bit more. "Ok, look let's just go to our hostel because I can tell you one thing and it's that I don't want to see those ruins. Stupid Romans. Think they're so great. Forget it, let's go back."
We went back, had a rest and then went out for a coffee late at night. On our way back, a mere five minutes away from our hostel, there rose before us, these brilliantly lit, massive ruins and well in all honesty, they were quite amazing after all. I guess that the Romans can think they're pretty great if they want...

We did have excellent luck though finding the Karl Marx Museum. Sadly neither of us bought a coffee cup or stone bust of the man though. :)

These are just a couple of sketches out of many from gallivanting in Germany with my brother. I hope you enjoyed them.

Bacharach, Germany

Kelly exploring the ruins of a castle on the Rhine

Me posing in the ruins of a German fortress (clearly not all ruins are "stupid", some are actually quite lovely and fascinating.;)

Editing Yourself

2010-04-12T10:55:00.007+02:00

When we were in high-school, we believed we were pretty original thinkers...you know...poets, philosophers, and artists. (Alright, maybe not everyone's high-school years were spent like this but I was kind of an idealist, what can I say? I still am in some ways and that's probably why I get scammed so much when I travel but whatever. That one there? Easy target.:) I loved history, religion, art, drama, and literature and hated math and physical education. I used to skip my math classes and spend them lying sprawled in the sunshine instead. I liked it better and it felt like a better use of time to me.

Two of my three high-school years were spent at an Ursuline convent school in a tiny, tiny town in Saskatchewan approximately a ten hour drive from my hometown. It was an exciting, challenging experience. To be 14 and away from home.

After two years I returned to Manitoba and kept up with my friends far away with a lot of long, fat letters and bizarre packages in the mail. One of my more artistic friends sent me a clay ear in honor of Vincent Van Gogh and in this puzzling package was a bunch of words and sayings hastily cut out of magazines. I pulled each one out of the envelope and read them. One appealed to me then at 17 years old: "You can't edit yourself for fear of others reactions." It isn't very poetic. It isn't really that original. But at 29 years old, it still appeals to me.

It appeals to me because I have never been overly interested in catering to the masses. Although it is certainly much nicer to stand with the support of others encouraging and reinforcing your ideas and beliefs, there are times when you must have the strength to stand alone. It also appeals to me because I believe in honesty and being true to one's convictions. This can cost us though. Friends, family members, jobs and in the worst and most frightening circumstances, it can cost your life.

We all begin our lives with tiny sparks of truth in us that are just waiting for us to acknowledge them and delight in them and fan them into flames but these can be so easily quenched; every time that we edit ourselves for the sake of what others might say or think we are damaging something true within ourselves.

It is possible to be a quiet rebel. Leaders come in all personality types. Some are loud, charismatic, persuasive, and brilliant. Others are quiet and humble, leading in their example and steady belief in themselves and their convictions. A leader can be afraid to speak up sometimes, afraid to attract attention, shy, aggressive, peaceful, or bold. A leader is simply a person who doesn't follow.

We need to know what we believe and live our lives in such a way that those beliefs are apparent. We need to be honest people.

We never know who is watching and who might be following our example.

"Another Planet's Hell"

2010-04-07T12:07:00.010+02:00

The news has been full of cases of sexual abuse within Roman Catholic church the past couple of weeks. People are justifiably outraged and distressed and much of their anger is directed toward the Catholic church itself. Sadly, most people's authority on the Roman Catholic faith appears to be Dan Brown and that really isn't terribly accurate.

I'm neither qualified nor educated enough to explain the ins and outs of my church well but my opinion is this: When an individual has committed a terrible act, that individual is to blame. They and they alone are responsible for their actions. People who place the blame on the Catholic church rather than on the men who actually hurt and abused these children, are lessening the guilt of the individual. When abuse occurs, the fault lies within the mind/brain/heart/soul (take your pick) of the person who commits such acts. The priests who abuse children do not speak for God and they do not speak for or represent the Catholic church.

The second issue I have is that the abuse is often blamed on the celibacy of Catholic priests. I feel it has little to do with this. A man whose mind is disturbed enough to abuse a child will do so whether he is supposed to live in a celibate state or not. A man who abuses a child is a pedophile not a man struggling with his celibate state. (If it were only his celibacy he was struggling with, a normal man would go out and find a consenting adult.) Unfortunately, there are married teachers and coaches who also sexually abuse children. There are so many children abused by family members within the "safety" of their own homes. I think to blame celibacy is to oversimplify greatly.

I hope anyone reading this understands where I'm coming from. Abuse should never happen. I wish with all my heart such a world existed. I wish people cherished and protected innocence with all the strength they possessed. I wish God was more present in the world today.

I find the abuse of children so horrific, so appalling that it fills my soul with shuddering fear and great, great sadness. There is nothing that can justify or excuse it. I believe that the destruction of a child's innocence causes God and His angels to weep. A Heaven, this world most certainly is not.

In fact, to quote Aldous Huxley, "I sometimes wonder if this Earth is another planet's Hell."

There's A Wild Thing Upstairs...

2010-04-05T19:24:00.007+02:00

This wild thing seems an expert in wild ferocious sounding shrieks and roars; low, rumbling growling sounds that come from the bottom of his throat (I swear I didn't teach him these); and joyful gales of giggles that erupt from his bedroom and float down the stairs long after he's been put to bed and to be totally honest with you, the best word I can think of to describe his actual laughter is all out "guffaw".

There are two things that this wild thing finds unbearably awful. The first is having his face wiped, which he finds the very height of presumption on my part. The second is when I put a hat on his head. He doesn't cry or fuss when I do this. He scrunches up his eyes and glares at me, clenches his fists and shakes them in the air and roars with outrage at me. I think he thinks it's a fearful sight to behold. But you know what, he's smaller than I am and so I laugh, which obviously just rubs salt in the wound, and that hat goes on.

There is one thing the wild thing loves above all else. In Sri lanka we bought him blue dolphin chimes and he is entranced by them. When he wakes up, after giving an encouraging, cheerful little yell, (there are so many sorts you see), to let us know he's awake and we can come get him this very instant, he twists his head in the direction of the chimes. So we go over to them and give them a nudge and as they make their soft sound and the dolphins sway back and forth, a look of blissful awe comes over his face. Then a slow, slow smile. And then he starts hitting me in excitement and squealing in delight and frantically twisting his head between me and the chiming dolphins to make sure than I find this as wondrous as he does. How could I find it otherwise?

He kicks constantly in his crib with all his might and every time I enter his room after a nap, he is in some bizarre position. But even with one arm and one leg poking through the crib bars, he offers up a huge smile like this is the most normal way to sleep in the world.

He has a great sense of his own self worth and self importance. He simply is charming in his own opinion. Yogurt splattered all over his face? Oatmeal dribbling out of his mouth? Huge belches at the table? Appallingly stinky diaper? No, he feels none of these things detract from his innate charm. He beams at the camera just the way he is and is suitably outraged if anyone tries to make him more presentable. Why tamper with perfection after all? :)

So William, my sweet, silly little boo, with your huge brown eyes and beautiful smile: this is a tiny, woefully incomplete glimpse of how you were when you were in the ninth month of your life.

Who Will Pay For This Uprooting?

2010-04-04T23:15:00.011+02:00

Night seems a good time for confessions.
I'm sure that more secrets have been whispered into the darkness than ever were into the light.

In darkness there are no distractions, we are just essentially ourselves. We are a quiet voice, a searching soul. We hesitantly whisper our feelings, recall things too deep for daylight. We can speak the gut wrenching truth. I wonder if this truth is there, at the core of our beings, always. What we wonder in the darkness, the things that pierce our hearts, the things that haven't healed or been resolved.

Who are we? What do our souls consist of?

Sometimes at night, there is something inside me that cries at the dishonesty and the shallowness of life. Why do we never speak to one another? Why do we never say what needs to be said? Why are we content with so very little from ourselves? Why do we not seek out things that nourish our souls? Why can't we see how fragile we are? How truly beautiful and worthy? Why do we ignore our souls?

Sometimes at night I think about the soft sound of bare feet walking on sun drenched sand. A baby's arms around its mother's neck. I think about the feeling of wondering if I was instrumental in pulling someone's world apart. In my heart I know what we did was the right thing to do, I really do know it...yet I am still sorry in ways I don't understand fully. Not sorry for the result which is pure and beautiful and most definitely right, but sorry for another person's pain. I'm sorry the world is such a mess.

Why are we content with so very little in our lives? What are we sacrificing in order to be so unimaginative, unquestioning, and placidly content? Why is examining our thoughts, minds, lives, actions, and souls not something we do often?

What does it mean to be uprooted? Who is responsible for such things and who will pay?

Sometimes at night I think these things. Then I go to sleep and in the morning they have gone. My thoughts, feelings, and questions...uprooted by the light of day and I am all smiles and joy because that is life's beauty and complexity as well.

When morning dances in dispelling the darkness of night, I gladly meet her there.

Our souls are infinite and vast, they allow for both night and day.

Going Home

2010-03-27T09:47:00.034+01:00

Per and I in Gimli Summer 2007 Isn't this absolutely surreal?

I come from the prairies, from the "land of the big sky" as the Natives called it. The prairies of Canada are vast and seem endless. They stretch on for days with no apparent variation. Most people not from the prairies find them difficult to understand and they fail to appreciate the beauty of the space and sky. The violent thunder and lightening storms, the sun rises and sunsets that absolutely gush flaming shades of red, orange, pink, and purple all over the sky, the golden wheat fields, the heavy scent of the sun scorched earth in summer, the unbearable whiteness of winter when for months on end, you see nothing but the glare of sun on snow and pale green northern lights moving across the star filled sky at night. There is no where in the world like it except parts of Russia.

I need space around me, it's how I feel most comfortable. When I was 21, I spent six months living in Banff, Alberta, a mind blowing town/ national park in the Canadian Rockies. It's a fantastic, unbelievable place. I remember walking at night there, seeing the dark shapes of the mountains rising all around me and knowing in my head they were beautiful but feeling in my heart a slight tug of frustration because I couldn't see anything. You know, those cold, aloof, glorious, STUPID mountains weren't my view, they were blocking my view. :) (Now I realize this must sound like madness but thus are the inner workings of the mind of a person from ridiculously flat land.)

My parents now live in Gimli, Manitoba which isn't really the prairies but an interlake region. It has a statue of a large viking and a wonderful beach and about a million ice cream stands and boasts the largest Icelandic population outside of Iceland. For real. It's an artsy little place with live music on summer nights and diverse cultural paintings decorating the long pier. It's cool. It's where I go home to now when I go.

Now enough rambling for one day.:) I am thrilled to say I'm going home on April 30th for six weeks! I haven't been home for very close to three years now! I have seen my mom and sister in that time but it has been just shy of three years since I've seen my dad and my brothers. I need to be home in a friendly open place, I need to relax with people I love and miss, I need to let the tension of the last three years ease gently out of my bones! Three years ago we weren't even in a place where adoption had ever crossed our minds, now we've been through the entire process...having our hearts broken and pieced slowly back together...probably aged visibly...learned to trust and wait...found the courage to move well outside our own hopes, expectations, and comfort zones...journeyed to Sri Lanka and back again...so we simply must introduce William to the rather wild, silly, and loving, Wilson side of the family who are eager to meet and squish and kiss him.

So...two years and ten months...yeah, it's time!!!:) *breathes a big sigh of relief*

Sean and Moi on the Gimli pier:

Gimli's enviable viking:

Mary and I pose like tropical goddesses with a fake palm tree. That's what Manitoba's all about Baby.

The Straw That Broke The Camel's Back Really Wasn't All That Dramatic Actually

2010-03-21T15:01:00.014+01:00

Do you know what I remember about September 24, 2009?

Waking up to a lovely fall morning, throwing on my old green hoodie (and something else I assume, though I don't recall what), putting the leash on Lily (our dog) to take her for her morning walk, not being able to put my shoe on without untying it first and that little struggle with my shoe just sent me over the edge, into a full blown fit of frustration. I kicked the cement wall in our entry way. I screamed (in vain I might add) at my red running shoe. I opened the door and slammed it again just to hear it rattle and bang. I threw my hands up to my head and began to gulp back big, noisy heaving sobs of irritation and probably more than a touch of self-pity as well. When I caught my breath I brushed the tears roughly off my face and threw a defiant challenge out into the still, sun-dappled air of our little entrance way: "How long are you going to make us wait God?! Huh??!! HOW LONG??" And then I started crying in earnest because it was going to be one of those days. I just knew it.

Then Friday, September 25th rolled around. I woke up and felt better, serene and calm. My husband was going to Aberdeen for a business trip for the weekend but that was alright. I was just reading over my Facebook status' for that day and they were:

6:40 am: Colleen feels happy that it's Friday and positive it's going to be a great weekend even though she is alone until Sunday...that just means lots of hot chocolate, cozy candles, and reading...it could be worse!;)

8:30 am: Colleen thinks someone must have been praying for her because she woke up this morning feeling wonderful, full of energy and confidence and the knowledge that everything is in God's hands! Thank you!:)

7:20pm: Colleen heard today that far away in Sri Lanka on June 22, her baby boy was born!

I don't recommend temper tantrums. I certainly don't recommend kicking cement walls. I absolutely don't recommend yelling at God as though He actually owes you an explanation but quite honestly, as far as answers to childish, defiant challenges go, that's really not too shabby.

So:

September 24th, 2009: Feel like I can't take even one more day of uncertainty and waiting without going out of my mind and causing serious damage to myself, my shoe, my rattling front door, my sanity...

September 25th, 2009: God shakes His head, smiles, sighs and says "Oh Colleen, you silly, silly child, I've had this perfectly planned for so long...I haven't forgotten you...just you wait and see what happens today!"

Empathy

2010-03-18T13:56:00.037+01:00

For me, one of the most enlightening scenes in the movie "The Passion" is when Jesus, weak from being tortured and beaten, falls with his cross and his mother Mary watching him suffer with a mother's horror, sees him fall to the ground and as she tries to run to him, she no longer sees a grown man struggling under the weight of a heavy cross but her little boy, her beloved innocent child who she watched grow, who she played with, laughed with, loved to distraction. She sees Jesus with a mother's eyes and loves him with a mother's love.

Is that how it is for most parents? That age is insignificant, your child is always your child? That you would bear, with relief and without hesitation, their pain if you possibly could? That you would offer yourself in their stead gladly if it meant they would be spared anguish and suffering?

Especially after William, I have struggled with this question of how must it have been for Mary. To watch her son grow from a chubby, gurgling infant to a strong sturdy, playful boy to a grown man with what were considered revolutionary ideas, and to know he would be killed. How was it for her to watch her son condemned to die a horrible death, to see him whipped and humiliated, and finally to stand helplessly below his cross and watch him die.

Who can imagine watching their own child die at the hands of others? It's beyond contemplation. Whatever your own beliefs about Jesus, still he was Mary's child. Personally I don't think that you need to be Catholic to feel her pain or to try to understand what a terrible atrocity was committed by His death. Or any other christian denomination. You need to be empathetic. Human. Respectful of another's suffering.

Imagine seeing every single tragedy, outrage against humanity, every sorrow and suffering of another, every physical and emotional agony through a loving mother's or father's eyes. Practice empathy. Even when it's unpopular.

"After the deposition from the cross
She held her son again
Like she had held him as a child.
Tried to kiss better
His hands and feet and side
As she had done when he
Came crying home from play."
- Tim Cunningham (Shared with me by Brian.)

A Blatant Disregard For Authority

2010-03-15T08:44:00.011+01:00

The authority being me. The one blatantly disregarding it: William.

Yes, he's sweet. Yes, he has a smile that lights up the room but...BUT...
this rebel-child, this tiny soon to be nine months old... renegade, has somewhere learned a charming little trick while eating that I wouldn't mind nipping in the bud. I shovel a spoonful of porridge of dubious taste I admit, into his eagerly opened mouth and smile a goofy smile at him saying "mmmmm, yuuuuuuuummmmmmy" in an exaggerated voice and he...well..here's where his behavior turns shocking I'm afraid, so at least you've been warned and won't faint dead away when you read this...he spits it backs out at me in all it's slobbery, messy glory. And as slimy brown threads of his meal hang from his mouth, and as I wipe them from my own face, he has the audacity to grin at me.

But that's not all.

I take a deep breath and give him a very stern look. Yes. I don't call myself "authority figure" for nothing! So I turn this stern look on William and say in a voice that I flatter myself brooks no argument "No!...nei!...stop!..." All the while I continue to look at him disapprovingly.

And to my surprise, he opens his mouth and shrieks with wild laughter! Forget my last post, this is the laughter of a maniac! Not just small giggles but peals of it, a devious grin wrinkling his face.

Now, I work in an international kindergarten with toddlers. I am used to disobedience on a large scale. :) But at the end of the day, as much as I always have loved the little ones I care for at The Children's House, they don't come home with me. I don't actually have to deal with their charmingly ill-mannered behavior anywhere but at work so it's all good.

But this is like bold, bold civil unrest in my own home. Unapologetic, I tell you. A mutiny of sorts. He has an angel on one shoulder and a wickedly grinning little devil on the other!

So...please...can anyone tell me...
How in the world do I go about reclaiming my dignity with gooey brown muck dripping off my face? Actually, how do you deal firmly with pesky yet absolutely lovable, baby boys without...laughing?! Is this impossible? Because if it isn't, I just want to know now and then I can give in quietly.

;)

Heart And Soul

2010-03-11T10:27:00.009+01:00

“Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” -Elizabeth Stone

Whether the child you decide to have is biological or adopted this holds so true. I am not entirely my own anymore. My future doesn't seem measured in my own years now but in William's. My heart smiles when he does; his laugh is irresistible... infectious and the most beautiful sound I've heard. He laughs so hard he collapses into a small shaking heap and tries to stuff his whole hand in his mouth to stop himself as though he's afraid of what would happen if he really let go. The house is full to the brim of angels and light when this little boy laughs. His laugh makes me laugh, but it also makes my heart ache with fear sometimes.

There is so much I am powerless to prevent. I have so little control. I know I can't always protect him and that thought is almost unthinkable. How could I bear it if something happened to him? If someone hurt him? How would I stand it?

This little boy. This pure soul. Our treasure, our joy and blessing. Entrusted to us as he grows.

Dear God, please surround him with your protection every day of his life.

"Depths"

2010-03-10T09:29:00.009+01:00

I love reading because I love written words. The way they evoke and express, capture and create and spark thoughts and tell truths.

I just finished reading "Depths" by Henning Mankell. It isn't so much a mystery as it is a character study of a deeply disturbed man. The two reviews on the back of the book are more accurate than anything I can think of to say:
"A terse gripping dissection of a broken man whose private morality is as barren as the frozen wastes that betray his destiny." and
"An atmospheric and chilling portrait of a disturbed mind."

I began it. I didn't like it. I know people like this man exist and I used to be fascinated by reading about psychologically disturbed people, serial murderers, abusers and the abused...not the gory details but the why. What warps a human's mind, pushes it past its limitations, creates chaos of the mind and an inner landscape of emptiness and fear, damage and violation. What wounds the soul, kills its inherent beauty, and makes a staggering inner mess of a human being. I used to be entranced with my desire to find out.

Anyway, I finished this book and found it wasn't a waste. Henning Mankell is such a skilled writer that it is worth reading. In my opinion, for this paragraph alone, it was worth it:

"I could not endure it anymore.
I can describe what is really impossible to describe, things that even words try to escape from. Some things happen that even words are frightened of, That words do not want to be used for describing.
I have dreamt about words running for their lives..."

When I read that, I had to stop. I couldn't believe the absolute beauty of that paragraph. It made me catch my breath. It really touched me. I would never, in all my life, have envisioned on my own what that paragraph says.

But after reading it I thought of all the children hiding in closets or under beds, horribly abused and used by adults and parents the world over; the children who never play, never laugh, never get to be children really; the soul destroying business of pornography; the industry that makes it possible to buy a child for sexual purposes; the fact that most children in these industries die very young because their small bodies simply can't handle such abuse. I thought of abortion; war; starvation; torture; rape; suicide; the atrocities of history and of today...(the list is unending)

And I could cry for a world in which words must be used to describe such things. I can now visualize words running for their lives too.

The Old Woman On The Steps

2010-03-06T13:46:00.010+01:00

"Who are you and what do you want?"

"I am nobody. I want nothing.
I sat here on this very spot. Years ago now. It was November and cold. Remember?
My bones ached in the chill air and my breath made clouds in front of my face.
You saw me. I know you did.
I saw you look and then look away. I made you uncomfortable.
I was hoping someone would see me.
As a person.
As someone's daughter. Someone's mother.
Someone worthy of, if not love, then worthy at least of a small, the smallest really, act of kindness. Charity.
Out of all the people walking up the steps, I saw you after all.
And when I saw you I hoped...
But you ducked your head and passed me without smiling.
It was November. It was so cold.
I needed to be seen. I thought I'd come to the right place. It was the only place I could think of where I might have had a hope.

But when nobody in the crowds filing by me would meet my eye,
I began to believe they didn't see me.
It was an uncanny sensation.
Like I didn't exist. Like I wasn't there.
I couldn't stay much longer.
I was dying of the cold.
Everything was grey and biting and the cathedral steps were hard.

By the time you came back out again, I was gone.
You saw God in the dark beauty of the cathedral. You saw God in the stones and the statues and the artwork on the walls.
Yet you could not see God in me.

Who am I?
Your sister. Your mother.
A chance to show love that you didn't take."

- Mainz, Germany -

Sunflowers , Big Picture Frames, and Van Gogh

2010-03-04T20:09:00.030+01:00

"The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the most."
-John Ruskin

I won't be so narcissistic as to claim that I have a "pure and thoughtful" mind but I do love color to distraction. In a way I believe that for some people this must be true though. Vincent Van Gogh for example. I don't believe that there was ever a man who saw like he did. Who really saw. Color, humanity, life stripped of its tarnish and left innocent and beautiful. He didn't just see color, he felt color in his soul, loved it and the pureness and thoughtfulness of his mind poured out into his writings, paintings, and actions.

There are not many people from the past I would choose to meet, but I would have loved to have met him. The other person I would have liked to have known was Sigmund Freud, but that's a digression. I'm not even certain if he liked color after all and though he had quite a thoughtful mind I'm not sure if "pure" is a word that can be applied to him.

Me though, I love color. I crave color. I can't choose between them. I went a little bit mad I confess when painting our house. I splashed turquoise on one wall, kiwi green on another, sunshine yellow, jewel tone blue, various shades of purple, and rich chocolate brown on the rest...

I was once asked what the color scheme in my house was. I had to bite my lip and answer evasively that it was eclectic...as though that had been the thought in my mind while choosing colors.:)

So with this love of color naturally comes a love of nature. Spring in particular. I am waiting for the world to come to life again. Delicate stems shooting out of the ground. A million shades of green in the land around me. The scent of sunshine soaking into brown soil. Flowers of every color. Flowers in disarray. Nature in disarray. I'm dying for some color.

I looked out of my window this morning and there is no denying the snow is beautiful. It glitters like finely cut gems in the cold winter sunlight. The bareness of the trees and the bleak landscape certainly has its own desolate beauty. I enjoy it too. But now that March is here...I begin to hunger for my colors. I want to take a paintbrush and splash some blues, greens, yellows, and pinks around. I want to hear nature singing with joy. I want Spring to wake up and send Winter packing.

I'd like to see some global warming in action. ;)

Sunshine Sketches of a Sri Lankan Spice Garden

2010-03-03T11:09:00.012+01:00

(Pepper Tree)

I was actually fascinated by the idea of visiting a Sri Lankan spice garden. You see I have delicious peppermint and fragrant thyme plants in my own garden and so see myself as something of an expert on all things herbal.

Upon arriving, we stepped out of the car into the sweltering mid-day heat and were greeted with tiny, delicate glass cups containing only a sip or two of the most delicious vanilla, cinnamon, and spice tea. The taste was heavenly. Because I am an enthusiastic tea buyer, I asked eagerly if this was for sale. I was solemnly assured that everything was for sale and I would have a chance to peruse a large quantity of items at the end of the tour. Our guide was a very smooth, urbane man with a level, cool stare and imparted his knowledge of various spices to us in such unsmiling, dispassionate manner that it was almost alarming causing me to overcompensate by smiling and nodding like I wasn't quite all there and exclaiming with amazement at everything he said. (Per said afterward that he had the manner of a mafia boss and at the risk of being cheeky, to adopt a word my grandmother used, I have to say that the description was exactly right.;)

He showed us thick, fleshy aloe vera leaves and broke them open so we could smell the sharp scent, pineapples with spiky green leaves shooting up from the ground, clove, sandalwood, pepper and most fascinating due to where we were, curry leaf trees and much more. Everything was very fragrant and had fascinating, unexpected uses. It was a beautiful place.

After we had been shown the gardens, we sat down and a couple of men came to demonstrate the uses of each plant, herb, and spice while our guide issued grim- sounding instructions and stood off to the side with his arms crossed in front of him. After this flurry of description, we received a face and neck massage. We didn't really have much choice about it actually...they didn't ask us if we wanted a massage, we were just suddenly getting one, being manhandled if you will, whether we liked it or not and call me crazy, but I did not. I like being asked before people touch me and rub oils into my skin so pungent, that even with three long showers don't come out...kind of weird, I know. Alas, gentle, yet very insistent forcefulness was the name of the game when it came to trying, buying, tipping, etc.;) I found this entire segment of the tour bewildering that when the time came to look in the shop in which a wealth of very expensive healing and beautifying lotions, creams, and medicines were sold, I was so overwhelmed and slightly flustered by our unflinchingly smooth guide that I bought...of all things...

Hair removal lotion. My goodness, of all the things I don't need! Why didn't I just buy a little bag of the vanilla spice tea I enjoyed so much? I'll never know for sure, I'm afraid. All I can say is I wasn't myself really when I pulled it off the shelf at random, paid an outrageous price and tried to explain in my most forceful voice to our disapproving guide that no, I really didn't want to spend several hundred dollars more on their remedies, smiled shakily like I'd been through a war and turned to Per and whispered "Let's get out of here!"

And so we made our escape through sandy, winding paths with the scent of the spices hanging in the tropical air all around us to the air conditioned car and onto the beautiful city of Kandy.

So went my adventure in a Sri lankan spice garden.

When am I going to learn to just say "no"? :)

Be Careful What You Pray For...

2010-03-01T11:06:00.016+01:00

This is lent, a traditional period of fasting, restraint, contemplation, prayer, and charity.

One area that I really seem to struggle with in my daily life, in almost every situation, is pride so I have been focusing more effort and prayer on becoming more humble. But humility is so difficult because probably more than anything else, it absolutely has no place in human nature or in the world we live in for that matter. Humility isn't respected, sought after, encouraged or desired. Self promotion is.

So I have been praying for help in this area. Even in church yesterday, before communion, I again asked for help in being more humble. I was the last one in the line walking up to receive communion and my thoughts which had been so noble and earnest only moments before began to wander...I wonder if these boots go with this skirt...yeah I think they do...they're black after all and black goes with most things...they're kind of nice boots actually...come to think of it, everything about me is kind of nice...in fact you know, I think I probably look pretty good today...yeah...

Then it was my turn to receive communion and as I was walking back to my seat my thoughts wandered yet again...mm, let's see if I can walk like I'm on a runway...that's a good idea!...one foot in front of the other...oh yeah I have definitely missed my true calling...what am I doing working in a kindergarten when I could be "Colleen, Supermodel Extraordinaire"?... (Ok, perhaps this isn't exactly what my thoughts were but you get the general idea.:)

Ok, what is wrong with me?! Honestly! Why can't I focus?! And no, this isn't humble-talk now, this is sheer exasperation at the idiotic musings of my mind!:)

So on the way home I remembered I needed milk so I asked Per to stop and I ran in to the little grocery shop to grab some. When I came back to the car, Per was smiling and he said "You have a big hole right in the back of your skirt you know." I was mortified! Simply mortified. "What?! I do?! How long has it been there? Was it there in church too? Oh my goodness!! Noooo!"

And there went my daydreams of looking like some suave, graceful supermodel extraordinaire. Really, they were gone just that quickly.

Maybe this is an example of God's sense of humor. Or of Him not answering a prayer exactly the way we envision. (I had kind of envisioned that I would become more humble and everyone would notice and remark upon my saintly manner quietly among themselves with a sort of reverent awe.;)

Whatever the case, for at least the remainder of yesterday, my embarrassment certainly assured that I was more humble.:)

Ahhh, the spirit is so willing but the flesh is so weak...

Iceland: Part One

2010-02-26T08:46:00.014+01:00

When I was 18 I applied for something called the Snorri Program, which in 1999 was just an experiment. Basically this was a six week journey to Iceland for people of Icelandic descent in North America with one week in Reykjavik attending language school (I think it was on the second day of our very relaxed Icelandic classes when we were handed our sheets of necessary phrases to know while going about our daily business in Iceland. One whole page consisted of pick up lines and where to find birth control and alcohol and the likes. Unfortunately a week isn't nearly long enough to learn such a unique language nor such lofty ideas.)

At the end of the first week we were all given a secret assignment, an envelope which upon opening, we would see where and with whom we would be spending the next four weeks. We were also given a summer job for that month.

The last week consisted of an adventure tour throughout Iceland...whale watching in Husavik, white water rafting and Icelandic pony riding, magnificent hiking and geysers, waterfalls, lava fields and sulfur deposits, snowmobiling (I am ashamed to admit that I was the only one that managed to tip the snowmobile over into a snowbank while driving about 10 km/ hour and as a result the only one that the instructor seemed to think maybe didn't need their own snowmobile and told me I could ride with him.), and hiking (with little ice hammers and spiked shoes even:) on Vatnajokull Glacier, natural hot springs and all that jazz. When it comes to uniqueness of geography and almost mystical, fog-shrouded beauty, Iceland really does have an embarrassment of riches.

So you can see why this 6 week program appealed to me. It didn't just appeal to me, it filled me with wonder and fascination and romantic notions at the idea of walking where my ancestors had. I am told by Europeans that this is a distinctly North American trait.:) But coming from North America, it does make sense. We are all displaced, our country of origin is elsewhere and we hear about it constantly from our parents or grandparents, we have multi-cultrual days in school to celebrate it and in Canada at least, you are German-Canadian, Irish-Canadian, Japanese, Italian, Icelandic, Whatever-Canadian, it always comes first...so we long to find it so that we can reach a better understanding of who we are. It's a way of identifying ourselves if that makes sense.

I loved Iceland at first sight. It was summer, grey and cool. I stayed a gloomy bluish white color the entire time I was there.

After that first week in Reykjavik, I discovered upon opening my mysterious envelope that I would be sent to Isafjordur in the Westfjords, the region where my great grandmother Rannveig came from and where I had relatives still living with whom I would stay. I would also be spending my days working in a hospital, which was great fun for the most part and consisted of many interesting experiences. I worked in the kitchen first with a free-spirited middle-aged man named Reynir Ingason who took a refreshing delight in all he did, and who incidentally turned out to be a relative of mine.:) He loved to laugh and was full of mischief, the sort of man who grabs your arms and sweeps you along the floor doing exaggerated ballroom dancing moves which probably look quite ridiculous while wearing the white hospital uniform or who tells you to shut your eyes and hold out your hands and then places a beautiful garden grown rose in them that he brought back after his lunch break at home. There was no romance in it, just joy at being alive, he was lovely and treated me like a friend and I was very sad to hear that he died of cancer just four months after I'd left Iceland.

After the kitchen I went on to work in an elderly person's unit and even spent one day working in the morgue, a small cold room with sunlight slanting through the windows, making the all the metal in the room shine and me think that death is such a strange way to end life.

As it turned out I only worked three weeks in the hospital because the family I was staying with, my family actually though I have no idea how we are related as it all gets so complicated in Iceland:), were avid scouts and going to take me along on a camping trip, an international scouting jamboree, for my first week with them. I kind of shrugged and said ok although I hadn't camped before and didn't really understand why exactly people would want to camp in Iceland. Outside at that.

We arrived at the huge camp and I remember shivering with cold, dressed in like three Icelandic wool sweaters, huddled up in my sleeping bag writing furiously in my little diary about how exactly was this supposed to be fun?! The Icelandic group that I was with didn't really want me with them to be honest. In fact one told me quite clearly that I would have a very hard time making friends with them because they had all known each other for a very long time so I shouldn't expect too much. It was charming really.:) I am pretty friendly and have mostly just encountered other pretty friendly people, so at the time I was quite dismayed by these words but I am also quite independent so I thought eloquently "Eh, who cares?" and determined to enjoy myself anyway...

First I met the Americans. I hugged them and almost cried with happiness at hearing English after so much Icelandic. (Remember it was my first time overseas.:) I became quick friends with two guys in particular, hiked with one of them to the top of a small mountain where we sat down and looked at the view and he interrupted my appreciation for the beauty before me by asking "So...like...do you ever watch porn?" I sighed inwardly, turned to him and said "I'm done, let's go back down now." And by my own doing, I never encountered him again. Then I met the Canadians and the Scots (who also wore make-up while camping in the wild, the girls at least, and it bonded us together like nothing else.) and...Janet who is a confusing mix of nationalities. Janet and I were friends immediately and went off in search of more friends.

One night, very, very, very late although it was still light because in Iceland in the summer, darkness doesn't fall, I saw a group of loud, crazy, rowdy people howling like wolves and they looked like a lot of fun. And I wondered what time it was. In other circumstances I might have passed them by but I really had to know so I stopped them and asked "Excuse me, but could one of you tell me the time?" There was a lot of noise and commotion and I discovered who they were and I went with them and we talked and laughed until almost morning.

I had met the Norwegians. My future husband among them. It was 2:18 am.

I'm so glad I asked.;)

All These Talking Supermen

2010-02-25T09:24:00.009+01:00

"All these talking supermen just take away my time,
Just to get it away." -Counting Crows

Unfortunately my time isn't actually being stolen by talking supermen. It is however being stolen in a manner of speaking by small, petty things that occupy my mind at all times, by tempting yet mind-numbing distractions. By...facebook! There, it's out! I said it.:) Aside from the actual communication, (and sorry no, but actual communication doesn't mean I "like" your status or write "haha" or something equally eloquent under your photo.:), that goes on between family and friends there is nothing that I really need to do on Facebook. I have often thought (usually rather indulgently because I love it so) that it is one of the greatest time wasters out there. Maybe I feel toward facebook like some people feel toward their relatives: I love Facebook but you know, try as I might, sometimes I don't... *long hesitation as though admitting something shameful and unthinkable*...well, I don't...like it very much. *Shrugs apologetically*

So, just as I would with anything that I felt was exerting too much control over my thoughts and willpower, (Please note that in no way does this include chocolate or coffee), I am going to limit my access to it. It's important. My thoughts need to be elsewhere, my mind needs to be on whatever activity I may be engaged in, rather than wondering idly if anyone wrote "LOL" under my profile picture. No one actually ever has but with my taste in clothing, it's a possibility...:)

So my grand plan is to deactivate my account on weekdays and activate it on weekends but I will be available by email, texting, here on my blog, and for parties as well.;)

I think that we live in the "age of communication". We have MSN, email, Facebook, Myspace, forums for every topic imaginable and yet I think people say less to each other than they ever have before. We barely scrape the surface. We are satisfied with less. We read someone's status and decide we have a deep, intimate knowledge of who and how they are.

Yes, I'm old fashioned but I miss letter writing.:) Opening the mailbox and seeing a big, fat envelope filled with pages of scrawled information on it. Some of my best friends and I first communicated like that...actually Per and I spent years communicating like that after we first met.:) It was lovely. You can get to know people through letters. When what they write isn't written because they think that 100 other people will be reading it.

Just thought I would try to offer an explanation for my on and off, love-hate relationship with Facebook. So send me a message or write me a letter for heaven's sake!!:) I can't wait to hear from you.

Love, C.

One Woman's Rights

2010-02-23T15:48:00.009+01:00

Since Sri Lanka is one of the countries where meeting the biological mother of the child one will adopt is a pretty likely event, we were encouraged to prepare beforehand for this possibility. Of course, this is a wise thing to do as it is perhaps one of the most poignant meetings a person can experience. I try to imagine it from the biological mother's perspective but I can't, except that if I were giving William up, there is so much I would want, no beyond "want", that I would just be desperate to know about the people in whose hands I was placing my child, my heart and world.

I think I would tuck the answers away in my heart and memory like secrets, so that regardless of what my life consisted of, I would have that hope and knowledge that he was loved and cherished.

Yet we were the ones encouraged to prepare. To make a list of questions for her. As though to interrogate her was our right. As though she somehow, along with everything else she was giving us, owed us information about herself as well. As if we had a right to the private pieces of experience and pain and joy that made up her life.

To be honest, at first I didn't question that we did have this right simply because it didn't occur to me to question it. It was only later, when we were told that we would be meeting the biological mother the next day that I began to genuinely consider what we should ask her. Lying on the hotel bed, I thought and thought and with every question that popped in to my inquisitive brain, my immediate response was " but that's none of my business". None of my business may be true, but what about William's business? Doesn't he have a right to whatever information I may be able to glean from his biological mother's answers?

Here is where some people may disagree with me, (or maybe I flatter myself to assume that disagreement comes so late in the post and you've really been fiercely disagreeing with me all along?:), but I don't believe it is William's right either. Not now at least. Most of us have a natural curiosity about those who came before us ingrained in us and if William does, then I will encourage that one hundred percent. I hope he does. I hope so much that he decides someday to meet his beautiful biological mother, a woman of quiet strength and grace. Then she can share her story with him and it can become his as well and he can choose to ask questions and she can answer them if she chooses, but for those involved, the seeking and imparting of intensely personal information is a matter of choice and not a presupposed right. It should be treated as such.

After a lot of thought, Per and I could only think of two questions that we had a right to ask. First, if she had anything she wanted to know about us, anything that might help put her mind at ease, that she could remember and draw strength from in the future, even just anything she was curious about. And second, if there was any message she would like us to pass on to William when we is older.

All the other details that make up a life...all the questions and answers...everything, both huge and small that love encompasses...every sacrifice made...there's time for everything. And while lives may touch, intersect, join, meet, or separate, every person's journey in life is always their own.

I see William, Per, William's biological mother and I as a circle. Our lives and hearts and hopes are now connected for eternity.

When the Sun and Earth Collide

2010-01-27T10:42:00.047+01:00

Nostalgia. I woke up this morning to it humming and singing in my mind. All the bits of precious memory that accompany it, the things you swear at the time you won't forget. A voice, a feeling, a scent, a play of light or shadow, a rare moment. The things that leave their mark on you.

We spent five weeks in Sri Lanka and while it wasn't necessarily a vacation, it was probably the journey that so far has made the hugest marks on our hearts and lives. Every day, along with the absolutely unreal beauty of this small island in the Indian Ocean, we were faced with challenges. There were many mornings when we sat over breakfast, smiled at each other and said "We can get through this or that, we've lived through worse things already." It didn't stop the butterflies in our stomachs but along with the challenges, was so much joy. So much. And also along with the butterflies was excitement as well, anticipation, and adventure. I'm sure there is nothing really worth doing that doesn't throw your mind into some sort of turmoil of emotions.:)

Because of this feeling of nostalgia I thought I would do something I never do, add a couple of photos for those who are curious and who haven't seen the absolute legion of them I have posted on facebook. So, here I sit, drinking peppermint tea while William sleeps, trying to avoid looking out the window at the miserable rainy/ snowy/ icy (Yes, all three seem to be possible here in Norway at the same time.:), day and remember warmth of both people and place; beauty and chaos; Colombo where stunning mansions were side by side with bombed out homes and buildings, where the churches were surrounded with cement walls with shards of broken bottles and glass stuck in them, where flowers were fragrant and vibrant; Buddhist temples and shrines; and my own feelings while there as well.

Drinking in the beauty. Trying to make sense of the differences all around me. (Which were numerous and extreme and sometimes mind boggling.) Eating too much fish curry and bakmi goreng and fresh mango. The relaxing of the spirit and body that the tropical warmth inspires. The wonder at seeing elephants and monkeys (and thank the good Lord, no spiders) in the wild. Taking advantage of the moments. Every last one.

So, carpe diem and enjoy.:)

In Nine Months Time...

2010-01-25T08:37:00.008+01:00

I was reading this morning about sorrow. The heavy hopeless sort that seeps into your limbs, bones, heart and soul, weighing you down so that you can't see any "light at the end of the tunnel", any goodness or meaning in your days, any purpose in getting out of bed, setting one foot in front of the other...in being alive. The sort when you wake up and leave the lights off all day long, leave the blinds drawn and the door locked and curl up on a corner of the couch praying no one will come over, that no one will know. When you believe you shouldn't live. The sort where nothing moves you, not the sun shining in the sky, the softness of a summer day, a child's smile or embrace. When you turn your back on all of this as a sort of punishment to yourself for that things that you are not.

It was a prayer actually. A prayer about working through clinging sadness. As I read it, I thought, I have prayed this prayer, (variations there of at least), so many times before. Prayed it not really believing it would be heard, prayed it in hopelessness, despair, anger, sadness, lethargy, apathy...all the emotions that crowd into that great gaping wound despair creates inside a person. This time though I read it and if I cried it was with relief. I am over the worst. I have been over the worst for a long time now actually but somehow reading this prayer brought that home to me in a way nothing else has yet. I almost laughed with the freedom of it, thinking that this prayer isn't for me anymore, not today at least. Whether I believed I was heard or not, I was. Whether I believed I was alone or not, I wasn't. If I felt I was unworthy of anything good or beautiful before, it wasn't true.

How astounding the way life sweeps so dramatically from day to day, year to year, how nothing is ever the same for us. And also how astounding the quiet times are when the moments move by at a steady pace, all fullness and grace and small daily changes that are so subtle as to be easily missed. How beautiful that faith is a thing that even while it wavers and feels nonexistent, can give us hope. How constant God is even while we doubt.

My answer to prayer is here now. He has a sturdy, chubby little body; deep, chocolate dark eyes; perfect rich brown skin; a ready laugh and smile and a funny little dimpled face. Not to sound glib, but that is the way my prayers were answered. And in so many other ways as well. Smaller, less obvious ways...a million of them...a million dancing fragments of light, joy, peace, and hope all around me that were perhaps always there, but that I forgot for awhile and now am choosing to see.

And the most amazing part is that my husband and I were talking last night and discovered that in only nine months time we can (and will) begin this life altering, exciting, and unique adoption journey again. Whether we choose Sri lanka again or somewhere altogether different like Madagascar, Ethiopia, The Philippines, Vietnam, or India remains to be seen. But somewhere out in the huge, wide world we will find yet another of God's small miracles and answer to our prayers.

And thank God for that!

An Angel

2009-12-20T10:50:00.005+01:00

Well, actually, he is stubborn, determined, full of character and a tiny social butterfly rather than silent, shy and submissive little angel. He lights up around crowds of people. In a hospital waiting room for example, he'll harrass anyone else who happens to be waiting with sly glances and little smiles and gurgling noises until they look at him and smile back and then it's on to the next one until he's worked his way through the whole room. When he really smiles, like full-blown-scrunched us nose-chubby dimpled cheeks-wide open mouth-sort of smile, he looks more like a little...ok, not quite like a little devil, but definately like a very michevious, fun-loving little boy rather than a little angel to be honest. Lately he has taken to smiling with his lips sucked in which makes his cheeks flop down and his eyes like tiny slits. While this may not attract too many ladies when he's older, it certainly is charming now. ;)

And I feel like I want to stop time. I want him to grow. I want him to stop. I want to capture every moment on film. Not even photos are good enough. I want to remember his voice when he was this small and his funny little movements and the multitude of faces he makes. His laugh that just seems to come from nowhere at the oddest times. Mostly while looking at me...but I don't take that too personally. ;)

"The Murder Of One"

2009-12-17T21:15:00.011+01:00

I am not sure yet if I'll let her die. Or maybe she already has ceased to exist. You never know. I can't seem to find her anywhere. I look and look. I know the way she was, I know where she would be if she were still here. I know her so well but I don't recall the exact time she began to disappear, the moment she started to leave me. Was it in gradual degrees? A distancing so slight that it isn't even noticed until it is a wide, gaping void where once something bright and lovely existed? Was it in baby steps and silences never addressed? Words never spoken? Thoughts never shared? Was it when the courage failed and the daring stopped? Was it then that she left me? I don't think she would have liked to see me like this. I don't have much courage anymore. Maybe I compromised what I felt, believed, what I was, too many times until it was a compromise no longer and simply all that there was left. Maybe that's what it was, why she couldn't stay. Maybe I let her die already. Maybe I was responsible for something bright and lively receeding and diminishing until it couldn't possibly survive untarnished.

Tonight these are my thoughts on the nature of being human. On discovery and knowledge of self. On the beauty and pain of living.

She left me. She wouldn't recognize me now. But she will come back. She knows where to find me. I'm waiting. I'm actively hoping. Somewhere deep inside myself I know I haven't changed...I'm here still. There's nowhere I can go.

Smelling Of Milk And Tears

2009-12-16T13:20:00.011+01:00

The other night Per came downstairs after putting William up to bed and casually asked "Do you think you can throw his sleeping bag in the laundry tomorrow because it kind of smells." Being an excellent conversationalist and seeing definite potential in this topic, I politely inquired, "What does it smell like?" "Umm, it smelled like milk. And tears."

I sat stunned, in horrified, guilty silence. It must have been the saddest statement I ever heard! To think that my sweet little baby boy had been crying so much at night that his little sleeping bag smelt of tears! I mean, honestly, how many tears does one have to cry until something reeks of them?! How awful, no, how heartless a person must one be to allow a tiny child to pass their nights in a tear scented sleeping bag?! Monster! For days I felt guilty and because of this brought the topic up whenever I possibly could, desperately trying to attain closure...

In the car a few days later while shaking my head unable to get such Dickinson imagry out of my head, still racked with remorse: "So...did it really smell like tears? I mean, what do tears smell like anyway? (Ever hopeful that the scent of tears had in fact been something else.) Like did it smell like salt?! Is that how you knew it was the smell of tears? I mean, does salt even smell? Let's check when we get home!"

Anyway, the days have passed and my guilt has lessened although I still feel a slight twinge or two when I consider the terrible pathos of a little angel falling asleep in something smelling of tears. In the futrue, I may well be compelled to do laundry more often. We'll see.

The Great Anticlimax of Christmas ?

2009-12-09T08:44:00.016+01:00

The great creator of dissatisfaction: consumerism and materialism.

Consumerism and materialism in all their dazzling, empty glory simply lead to empty hearts and searching souls.

Empty hearts and searching souls create a sense of desperation.

Sometimes we look outward rather than inward. Though not at all bad in and of themselves, a beautifully decorated house, Christmas carols playing in the background, expensive heaps of presents under a glittering tree, the Christmas rush that people enjoy getting caught up in so as to avoid thinking of anything meaningful are all just ways to avoid preparing the spirit for what Christmas actually is. Though I also do all of the above, none of those things denote a readiness for Christmas.

I think the most beautiful Christmas Per and I have spent together was last year in Naples. It had none of the usual trappings of the season. We didn't have gifts with us, we didn't dress up specially, we weren't weighed down by tradition or stress or anybody elses expectations. Christams Eve rolled around quietly. We woke up in the morning in our little hotel room in a converted convent in the center of Naples and decided to go to Pompeii. I deliberated awhile over what to wear, I wanted something old being under the mistaken impression that after a couple thousand years the ash from Mount Vesuvius would still be hanging heavy in the air. Yeah I'm a dork sometimes. ;) So we walked out into Naples, sunny, clear and cool and found a crowded train to our destination. Got there, spent hours walking around, saw the remains of villas, pagan temples, frescos that even today retain their original colors, yellows, pinks, reds and purples. Snapped some pictures, felt sorry for the stray dogs, pensively regarded the great black volcano looming in the distance, sat in the solitude of this ancient place, soaked it in along with the sunshine and left again, relatively clean and definitely ash free.

Later when we were hungry, we roamed the dark streets looking for a restaurant that was open. We found a small family run place. There were two other couples there, one just finishing their meal and paying. They didn't have enough money apparently and there was a lot of arm waving, loud talking and laughing (nobody was upset or embarrassed) and the owner of the restaurant gestured to the people at the other table and sure enough they pulled out some money and covered the rest of the other couples meal, laughing and shaking their heads though it was obvious from their expressions they had no idea who these people were. :) We ate the most delicious food there, communicated in sign language with the owner which came in especially handy when I couldn't finish my meal, which was huge and delicious and it was obviously a great insult not to eat every bite. But I saved myself with a loud sigh and lots of patting my stomach with an exaggerated look of sorrow on my face at not being able to finish. I even waved my arms in the air awhile because well, no reason. We were in Italy! Anyway this sufficed and though not entirely pleased the owner smiled reluctantly and took my plate away and came back with a soccer ball which he started kicking around by our table while shooting expectant glances our way. We were duly impressed at his skill.;)

When we left it was very late, meals in Italy dragging on hour after lovely hour. Being almost time for midnight mass, we again roamed the streets this time looking for a church. Finally we found one that was open and we went in, were embraced by the warmth and soft light of an ancient church at midnight on Christmas Eve, one of the most holy nights of the year. The Italian mass flowed all around us, we watched children's faces shining, knelt and prayed that the coming year might be better than the past one. The peace of God was tangible and I thought that this is what Christmas is. Being here. Letting this mass be the focal point of our Christmas celebration.

And last year, there was no anticlimax. I guess there doesn't have to be one after all. I feel discouraged by how much possessions mean a lot of the time, but I guess that's one's personal choice. You can rush around being proud at how busy you are while avoiding most things meaningful or you can relax and be peaceful and enjoy every minute of a beautiful and joyful season.

Wishing you all a very happy Christmas this year!! :)

Love, C

Me @ Pompeii on Christmas Eve

And Then What Happened?

2009-12-02T19:59:00.007+01:00

I'm sure that many have you have been biting your nails in suspense, anxiously wondering, so what happened?? Did William end up sleeping in the morning after the hand over in court after all...did he?! So heartless of me to have left that question unanswered for so very long as I am sure it's been first and foremost on your minds all this time. ;)

Well here we are, home for exactly three weeks today and to celebrate we took William to get an obligatory blood test at the hospital which on a 5 month old little person is not the easiest of things to accomplish and definitely not an easy thing to stand by and watch. One of the kind-hearted nurses actually cried and had to find someone else to do the test for her. I also had to have a needle or two myself this morning although no one but myself was moved to tears by that procedure. So both William and I braved the needle\ syringe this fine morning...anyone care to take a wild guess which of us is still whining about it now?;)

Here in the chilly Norwegian winter, it's hard to believe that it was only three weeks ago that we were walking as slowly as we possibly could due to the sweltering heat down Galle Road in Colombo, dodging the crowds with William in our arms and doing some very last minute shopping on our last full day in Sri Lanka. We had planned to go back to the serene beauty of the Mount Lavinia hotel afterward and indulge in a last evening of relaxation before our 12 hour flight with a four and a half month baby that would take us to London. Alas, this relaxation was not to be...

As soon as we arrived back at the hotel we discovered that we had to leave Mount Lavinia (where we'd been for about 4 and a half weeks) in a HUGE hurry...not for any criminal purposes as you may naturally suppose but because they had given our room to someone else on our last night there. So we had about an hour to pack an insane amount of the accumulated aftermath of prolonged travel messily into many bags and suitcases and then we were rushed madly to another hotel in Nagumbo for the night. Far from being the inconvenience it first seemed, it was actually a blessing in disguise. It allowed us to relax, to just take things easy. Nagumbo is an incredible and beautiful beach city and we just sat out on our little hotel terrasse overlooking this indescribably lovely beach, drinking arrack and coke and talking with Mohan well into the warm tropical night.

I feel so appreciative. I think that we were blessed and challenged in so many ways during our stay there. I feel thankful that we had this amazing, life altering opportunity...I know now that I would not have wanted things any other way.

So now we are home again and there is still so much to say. I'm by no means finished.;) But for this time at least, our adoption journey is complete. We did what we set out to do what feels like forever ago now. We watched as over time our feelings, ideas and perceptions; our relationship with each other; and our faith in God changed, grew, and expanded. We noticed and appreciate those who waited with us, not simply for us to be finished and thus to get on with our lives, :) but those whose support, love, interest, questions, and prayers make us so thankful that we are surrounded by love. By family and friends and friends who are family. We are so blessed. Thank God!

How Five Years Of Marriage Spoils You

2009-11-04T16:36:00.001+01:00

It’s always the small details that startle you and bring the reality of a life-defining situation home in a way that the huge and obvious details don’t.
Per and I have discussed and talked over so many ways in which our lives will change tomorrow, after the meeting in court, when we can finally bring William back to the hotel with us, when we can safely answer “yes” instead of “no” to the people we have met here who ask us if we have children, when we have him with us all the time as opposed to two hours a day on week days. Even with all this imagining and discussing though, I am pretty sure that reality still hasn’t quite sunk in as evidenced over dinner tonight, when I leaned back in my chair and said “So just think, tomorrow, we have the court date...but then Friday at least we can sleep in as long as we want...that will be sooo good.”
I just hope William gets the memo. ;)

Where In The World Is...

2009-11-02T16:54:00.002+01:00

Everybody in my crazy family!:) Per and I are sitting in a hotel room in Mount Lavinia, Colombo, Sri Lanka waiting for our room service and listening to the sounds of the tropical monsoon that’s whipping the palm trees on the beach below us back and forth. My brother Kelly, (who shares my birthday but is three years younger than I am), is studying at a seminary in Edmonton, Alberta and I am assuming that after his first night of sleeping on a bench outside the seminary because he was locked out, he has never had to do it again. I say assuming but I should really say hoping...Edmonton is cold. Really cold. And at some point, it has probably had the dubious honor of being the murder capital of Canada, but hey, really, what big city hasn’t? ;) My adventurous and strong brother Michael, (who appreciates words, lyrics, and random humor the way I do), is on security duty in Thompson, Manitoba probably at this very moment, stomping through the snow banks of that chilly northern town twirling his baton and keeping the uneasy peace. (Do you have a baton Michael? If so, do you twirl it or is that cheerleading I’m thinking of? I’m just working with my limited imagination of what you do here so please correct me if I’ve got it wrong...:) My youngest brother Sean lives and breathes the balmy air of Nebraska, USA. He also is in seminary and full to the brim of zeal and passion for a staggering number of different enthusiasms and interests. My beautiful 19 year old sister is in Madugorje, Croatia right now with a friend and they are backpacking their way up to...ME! My parents are in Gimli, Manitoba and are celebrating their 30th anniversary very soon and it’s been so long since I’ve seen them. I miss them. I have one other sister as well, Shona, who was born after I was and who passed away from SIDS nine days later. I mention her because she is with God but she is also always with us. She is still my sister and death changes nothing except the tangible.

Norway, Canada, Croatia, USA. How far apart we all are. How far some of us travel to find our own path in life. How far God chooses to take us from home and family sometimes.

But not really. The distance is not in our hearts where it would truly matter but in miles made up of land and sea. Through travel and communication the world has become so small. It is no longer so daunting as perhaps it was for my great grandmother Rannveig, who at 18, boarded a ship in Iceland that was heading to North America and knew she would never see her family again. I have never been able to imagine what she must have felt standing alone on the deck knowing then that the world was very large, distances were very great and good byes were mostly final. But she kept photographs, (rare and precious in that time), of her brothers and sister with her until she died many years later, a gentle, kind old woman in the Betel Home in Gimli, who thought in her last days of life that she was a healthy young girl again, happy and secure with her family in Iceland.

Who’s to say she wasn’t?

The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows

2009-11-01T15:37:00.005+01:00

Can you imagine me in court?!

For example, once while driving on country lanes at night with a friend back home, not wearing my seatbelt, I noticed with alarm the flashing lights of a cop car coming up behind us signaling that we pull over. Assuming incorrectly that everything in the world is about me I began to frantically fumble with my belt, unable in my agitation to do it up in the few seconds it took the officer to stride over to our car. In those seconds my life pretty much passed before my eyes, I began to envision all sorts of scenarios, a night in jail...well actually, why stop there...even a life in jail! I started to mumble incoherently to my friend that I would just tell the officer everything, admit to not wearing a seatbelt and take the punishment (which in Canada would amount to a fine, if even that, not jail time just so we’re clear.;). Luckily my friend being more clear headed than I, advised me to shut up and not say a word about the seatbelt which the officer wouldn’t have been able to see on a dark road anyway. I took her advice, beamed charmingly up at the officer and was very much relieved to hear that it wasn’t about my seatbelt at all! In fact, he just wanted to warn us that some criminal had just escaped custody and so to be careful while driving in this area in the dark. *Shakes head* And to think I was worried! ;)

Anyway, yes, me in court. With my quick thinking and collected nature, it’s what I was born to do. We have our court date on Thursday November 5th and though it may not exactly be what I was born to do, I actually do believe it will go smoothly and well. So long as I can remember that we are not actually being accused of anything and thus to try not to break down and confess to any transgressions or crimes. We just have to answer a question or two and hold out our arms and accept the gift of a small boy being given into our care by his mother.

In that moment we become parents. It’s a triumphant day for us. We don’t have to witness the tearing grief of a mother who has just given up her baby, who may, as the nuns told us, many of these brave women do, go back to the convent and weep until they are sick with the sorrow of it all.

November 5th 2009.

Try to imagine us all in court.

Sunshine Sketches Of A Big City

2009-10-29T14:36:00.005+01:00

Sketch 1:

There are cows and bulls on the streets of Colombo. They lie contentedly at the sides of the frighteningly busy roads. They graze at the side of the river that runs through the city. (They probably chew their cud as well but I don’t really like to look so closely.) Why I find this interesting, I don’t know but my eyes widened in fascinated surprise when we were told that in this bustling city of around 2 million people, some people own cows, milk them in the morning and then let them out to wander the noisy streets until the cows see fit to return to them in the evening.

Today I saw a feisty wee street dog and a plump, pampered-looking black cow engaging in furious verbal combat. The dog was howling its heart out and the cow flung its head in the air and bellowed loudly, their enraged sounds mingling with the honking of horns and screeching of tires all around us. Since we were driving by, I didn’t have a chance to see who won this particular turf war, but my bets are placed on the mangy dog...I wouldn’t have messed with him at least.;)

Sketch 2:

Sri Lanka is largely a Buddhist nation. All over the city are shrines and temples. Seeing Buddhist monks walking the streets in their orange robes is as common as seeing nuns and priests in Rome. Yet there are also elaborately decorated Hindu temples shooting up to the sky and Catholic convents dotting the city. One street will have a shrine to Buddha with a statue of the Hindu god Vishnu close by and on the next street is a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus or the Virgin Mary. Religion is everywhere and religion is practiced and religion is respected. I find this concept of religion being respected unusual. In Canada, these shrines (regardless of who they were dedicated to) would be vandalized or knowing Canadians, perhaps even shot at as we have been known to do with such things we don’t like...mainly those cameras that catch you speeding I think. No one likes those but at home when they first were introduced, they were shot at and I even heard of one occasion where someone smashed it with a hammer.;) Anyway, I digress...

Sketch 3:

Now I know that I am not the tiniest thing around, but buying clothing here has been a lesson in humility. Let’s just say I haven’t bought very much because well...I just can’t bring myself to go to the counter with a dress or top or underwear in, Heaven help us all, triple extra large.:)

Sketch 4:

Last Saturday, October 24th, was my 29th birthday. (It was also UN day but as I pointed out last year on my blog, that doesn’t excite me overly much.;) We celebrated it, (my birthday not UN day!!:), with Mohan and his beautiful, gracious family. It was such a genuine pleasure to meet them and their hospitality was amazing! It was certainly one of the most special birthdays I’ve had in a long time.

Though there is not very much that is serious in this entry, it occured to me then how very much this past year has held. How very different a place we are in now than we were last year at this time. Right about this time last year we were approved to adopt and we chose this beautiful country to adopt from. We assumed that it would be still another year from now until we would be called with the joyful news that a perfect baby had been chosen for us. I was kind of down. I didn’t feel there was much to celebrate at all. What a difference a year can make.

What I Like...

2009-10-15T16:45:00.008+02:00

(Outside the Dambulla Cave Temples in Sri Lanka)

As a child I had a taste for the exotic. I had a pretty sizable doll collection including costumed dolls from almost all corners of the world and the vibrancy of their clothing filled my bedroom. I remember once my dad found me a brightly colored orange and yellow decoration that hung from the ceiling with small bits of mirror adorning several marching elephants on it. And when all the girls in my class bought black glossy purses, mine was made of some ragged velvety material with yet again, a huge bejeweled elephant on it made up of thousands of glittery bits of material and sequins. I think I kind of had a thing for bejeweled elephants... I also liked gypsy earrings that dangled to my shoulders and swishing skirts. Incense and candles and burning sweet grass.

Over time, I slowly gave my doll collection away because I developed a loathing for collecting anything at all as I grew. I still don’t like purses in the traditional sense and only use one when I can’t find a huge bright bag to sling over my shoulders instead. I like big earrings and wild bracelets and I most certainly still like bejeweled elephants and love with unreasonable passion, terracotta plant holders but that has little to do with anything I’m afraid! ;)

These days I like Sri lanka. I like the warmth that seems to ease and relax the general pace of life that we are accustomed to in the western world. I like the color of the saris I see on the streets. I like the heaviness of the flower scented air at the convent when we walk around the gardens with William. I like the coconuts in the palm tress and the stray dogs that sleep at the sides of the busy city streets and the spicy food and fresh fruit. I like a lot of things. I’m kind of charmed you see...by the graciousness of the people we are meeting here and their beautiful, frequent smiles.

It’s been a busy week...we’ve been at the orphanage every morning and it’s an hour there and an hour back to the hotel through the bustling Colombo traffic that consists of everything from expensive cars to three wheel type tuk tuks to mopeds and bikes that weave in and out between the larger methods of transport. The occasional cow rests at the side of the road and people are everywhere, crossing large motorways at random. The drive alone is fascinating! On Tuesday we had a short meeting with the probation officer handling our case but as we have seen is usual here, it was short, sweet and felt more like a social call than business. We were supposed to meet William’s mother on Wednesday but so far we haven’t had the pleasure of doing so for whatever reason. Wednesday and Thursday afternoon, we went and explored the busy, busy shops...at Per’s insistence of course. ;) While we found tons of amazing bargains at both the House of Fashion and Odel’s Department Store, sadly I found nothing decorated with bejeweled elephants. Ah well, there’s time yet...

Tomorrow we will wake up early and go to the orphanage at 8 instead of 10 and then set out with Mohan and drive to Dambulla and onto Kandy stopping for an elephant ride and exploration of both spice and botanical gardens on the way, then we will explore Kandy and visit an elephant orphanage on the way home on Sunday. So you know what, forget all this “bejeweled” nonsense...I’ll settle instead for the real thing!!!:)

Have a wonderful weekend all!

Suspended Time

2009-10-13T17:26:00.003+02:00

I will admit that I wondered at first. Long before we decided for certain to adopt. Long before you were even born...and an eternity before I met you. I wondered if I would love you. Wondered if I could. Maybe this seems a horrible thing to admit to. I don’t think so though because it wasn’t actually you or me or whether you were worthy of love or if I were capable of giving it that I was wondering about, but more about the nature of love itself. How does one love if not to simply decide to do so? I was preparing myself with these thoughts, arming myself with the knowledge that love is more than we assume it is. Thinking it through in order to be able to promise you that my love for you will not fluctuate daily as feelings, without fail, do, but that it will be a constant presence in your life. In order to be able to promise you that you will never need to wonder.

I also wondered what it would be like to visit you every day for two hours at the orphanage. I wondered what we would possibly do. It’s only been three days. We’ve only seen you for six hours in total. I needn’t have wondered. The time we have with you is too short already. It feels like suspended time...quiet, peaceful, full. I could never have known that for these two hours, everything else would become less important, that seeing you yawn would be something to exclaim excitedly over...and that like this morning, when we made you laugh for the first time, actually laugh, that it would be the most beautiful sound I could ever imagine.

I didn’t expect to already love you. I had told myself to be patient, that it would come in time. But here we are and here you are, with your huge, alert, glossy brown eyes and though you may not really know us yet or understand exactly who we will be to you, we understand very well after just six hours that you are the most precious gift God could ever have blessed us with. We are head over heels already.

If Anyone Should Ask, You Can Tell 'Em I Been Lickin' Coconut Skins...

2009-10-12T18:27:00.005+02:00

(Mount Lavinia Hotel and the Indian Ocean.)

The waves on Mount Lavinia Beach are amazingly powerful. So full of force in fact that I have decided with some help from the aforementioned waves that it is completely hopeless to try to appear graceful or appealing and that I should certainly abandon all hope of appearing even remotely sexy or goddess-like whilst standing on the picturesque golden sand with foaming white surf rushing around my feet while gazing into the horizon with a far-away look in my eyes.
Getting knocked onto your back while still only a few inches into the water is not terribly picturesque, nor is scrambling frantically on one’s hands and knees up out of the white foam while yet another traitorous waves decides to rush at you from the side and send you flying in the other direction and yet another tries to pull you out to sea so what was to be an impressive show of quiet grace and beauty ends up a manic struggle for survival, gulping down mouthfuls of salty water and clawing at the sand, white limbs flailing helplessly...
Actually, in spite of my presence, the beach is an incredibly tranquil place. The sound of the ocean is hypnotic and beautiful. The first morning that we walked down the stone stairs to the beach, there was not a soul in sight, just sand and palm tress and fallen coconuts bobbing in the tide. The second day, after Per and I had both enjoyed the warm water for awhile, he came over to me, a contemplative look on his face and said seriously that he was glad the waves were so strong here, really glad, because it meant that they knocked me over and so in effect, he didn’t need to worry about having to dunk me in the water himself. As any good wife would, I nodded sagely, glad that during this rather busy time in our lives, that one responsibility at least had so mercifully been lifted from his shoulders...;)

Butterflies And Wings And Other Perfect Things

2009-10-11T07:40:00.001+02:00

It was with a wonderful feeling of accomplishment that we arrived in Sri Lanka early Friday morning. Perhaps it was having completed the long journey with relative ease...then again, perhaps it was the joy and plain old sheer fun of taking the bus between terminals 3 and 4 in Heathrow a few more times than was strictly necissary due to helpfully imparted yet rather faulty information...we’ll never know. ;) Maybe it was simply stepping out into the luscious heat and warmth that made a very welcome change from the dark, drizzly fall morning we had left behind us at home. Whatever the reason, it felt good to have arrived. It felt good to begin...
First things came first and serious sleep deprivation aside, we were taken directly to the Good Shepard Orphanage, and it is no exaggeration to say that entering the grounds were like entering a vast, quiet, peaceful oasis of calm right in the midst of the unfamiliar chaos of Colombo. After very little time and no fuss or questions, one of the sisters handed us William for the first time. Per held him first and I stood behind him and we both looked down in quiet contemplation and awe at this tiny boy who would be ours, whose picture I had found my eyes straying to every spare moment and I’ll admit it, even kissed a few times. :) There he was, in the flesh and as we gazed at him with a sort of beatific happiness, he clenched his tiny fists, opened his small mouth and began to wail. And cry. And scream. His small face screwed up with what appeared to be absolute indignation, and if he had been capable I’m positive he would have demanded to know exactly who we are and just how we dared handling him in such a familiar way?! We were left alone with him for the next couple of hours and after a while, he exhausted himself and fell asleep uncerimoniously on Per’s lap. Upon waking, his character much improved by sleep and a bottle, he studied us intensely with dark brown eyes and finally deemed us worthy of recieving a few toothless smiles.
So this moment that we had waited for and imagined for months had arrived. When it all comes down to it, I suppose that there is no “proper” way to feel, no proper reactions or emotions. For example, as we drove from the airport to the orphanage, there was no nervousness or fear or wild excitment even. Though it was a joy to finally meet our baby, it was a calm, peaceful happiness, not a giddy hysterical one. The entire morning had a feeling of unreality about it, almost like moving in a daze...experiencing it from a distance. But please, make no mistake, it was beautiful, memorable and precious, and apparantly, on Friday morning at least, the pleasure was all ours. ;)