One Foot in Front of the Other

The lucky few of you who follow my Twitter or FB feeds may have noticed that, over the past three days, I've been sick. Not just sneezy/headachy sick. Not even flu-ey sick. I've been "lose nearly ten pounds in seventy - two hours" sick. I can't eat, I can't sleep, and heaven help me if I try to move, because that's when everything starts spinning and my body threatens to eviscerate itself. So I'm trying to sit here quietly and get computer work done, because I have a shitload of it, and because my brain is the only part of me that (sort of) works right now.

Take that last part with a grain of salt. I've been trying to create an email list for the past three hours, to no avail.

Seriously though. I have an incredible amount of computer work that needs to be done. I have 1700 emails that need to be organized. I have several blog posts to write, none of which I'm writing now.  I have mailing lists and one - month rotational menus to work up. I have a bio and a statement to create. I have clients to email, and advertising to do. I have calendars that need to be made.

Okay. That last part cheered me up a little bit. I like having things to write. Even if it's a gigantic pile of things that threatens to crush me where I sit.

I like the part about having clients to contact and advertising to do, as well. I'm unbelievably excited about this little venture my aunt and I are taking on. In 28 days, our dayhome opens. For those of you not familiar, a dayhome is residentially based daycare. We're taking the road less traveled on this one and renting an offsite space to set up the daycare in, so the risk has been considerable.

We've been working toward this goal of becoming licenced through the government and finding the perfect space for a little over a year, but when we signed the lease papers in November, this all became somehow much more real. Time seems to have sped up, too. This thing is now upon us, and there is a lot to be done. In two days I'm taking a buying trip to Calgary to pick up supplies. That's going to be a ton of fun in this condition.

The response to the advertising we have already done is amazing. We have spaces filling sight unseen; parents basing their trust in us based on little more than a Facebook fan page, some government papers, and some online advertising. I have no doubt they'll be happy, and I'm stoked to be able to provide this much needed service. I know what trying to find a quality daycare is like around here, and it ain't pretty. The state of childcare in this country is deplorable.

I'm encouraged by the response, because I think we can be relatively sure that our investment in this business was a good one, but I'm also a little overwhelmed.

I've been a professional cook for nearly twenty years,which means that I'll be good with the menu planning and time management aspects of running a daycare,  but I've never been my own accountant. I know I'll love playing and teaching and learning with the kids, but I don't know if I'll love doing small business taxes. I'm over the top excited to finally be my own boss, but I'm worried about being consumed by my work. I'm super happy to finally go back to full time work while still being able to be with my boys, but I worry how this business is going to impact them. I'm freaking out a little because, well, holy shit. This is all a little big and new and scary.

Long story short, there's a hella lot of adrenaline and excitement and fear flying around here these days. It's a heady combination, what with the lack of food and general lightheadedness. Makes it tough to keep on moving in the direction I need to go sometimes. But I'll keep going, one step at a time, and I'll always be amazed to look up and see how far I've come.

I'm off to tackle my (cyber) paperwork monster. Wish me luck.

I can't wait to see where I'm going next.

Links

Life, lived properly, can take us on some pretty wild rides. It can take us a long, long way off the map, and that's the best way to find beautiful new places. Sometimes, though, the process of getting lost can leave us a little shaken and disoriented. Ever look up from your work and wonder where the fuck you are and how the fuck you got there? Yeah, that. Regardless of where you've ended up, that moment comes.

When it does, old friends are the touchstone, the centering force we come back to.

I've been a mom for a little over two years. A single mom for the better part of that time. A caregiver and corporate slack for nearly four. Now I'm an entrepreneur. It's not the life that I had planned. It's better. It's different. It's crazy. It's frustrating. It's amazing.

Lately though, I've been feeling a little alien here, in this domestic bliss. It's a far cry from where I was just a few years ago - storm lashed and all alone but for a cat and a bike and a writing desk.

I've spent the last twenty or so years of my life wandering and writing, beholden to no one but myself. It was wild and completely irresponsible, and in the end it wasn't working for me anymore, but it is a part of who I am. It's a part that's been put on hold while I care for my family. It's always there, though, burning signal fires from waveswept shores and peering out of cedar forests, waiting for me to return. Waiting for me to get it right.

My oldest friends recognize that part in me - just like I recognize it in them. With old friends there is a shared, if diverging, history. Of course, they see the woman I've become - the one who cooks three squares a day for a gaggle of family, who is opening her very first business, who herds wild children. But they also see all the things that came before. They see the whole, and that gives them a special place in my life.

Last week I was lucky enough to spend a few days with people who have been in my life for many, many years. It was like coming in from the cold. I've been working my ass off for the past few years; I didn't even realize I'd started running on empty. Those few days - the friends, the conversation, the food, the hugs - filled me up.

We converged in the city where we'd all grown up.We sat in livingrooms and hotel rooms and talked; we sat around dinner tables and in bars and talked; we caught up on years of life because yes life has flung us far. We gave hugs and shared stories of children and divorce, broken hearts and the deaths of parents. We quietly compared laugh lines and were blown away by how well we've all aged.

We're grownups now, twenty years later, and we're all on our own ride, and we all know how wild the ride can get. In those rooms, lit bright against the dark, we found in each other a grounding point. We were reassured that life is big and sometimes kind of scary, but so, so worth it. We told each other that we are doing well, and we are. We've taken on some pretty big challenges - art, music, writing, parenthood - and we're all finding our paths. It was good for the soul to see us all fumbling toward success, making it in our own way.

The days have wound down now, and we've all returned to the ride to be scattered far and wide again. This time though, we are filled up and ready to fight again for whatever dream we are chasing.

Y'all know who are. Thanks for a great weekend.

 

Where I'm From

This excercise has been haunting my dreams ever since I read Jett Superior's stellar version a while back. When I stumbled across Schmutzie's this morning, I knew it was time.

So here's mine.

I am from bikes, from Burton, and from so. much. sky.

I am from windraked grass and jutting limestone and soft, flaky shale and clay valleys slaking away into a wide calm river. I am from Chinook arches and a big wind that blows life and death over the foothills onto the Prairie.

I am from raucous family reunions and stolid practicality, from Hildebjorgs and Kvellos and McKenzies.

I am from the storm and the calm. From Wind'll Change and Your Face Will Stay That Way; from Books Are Awesome.

I am from the CathoLutherProdeUniWhatever, pretty much in generational order.

I am from a small town clinging to the edge of a fjord; dark cold water fed from and feeding a chasing sea. I am from a green island I have never seen, from the deep forests and open plains of a new world, from asphalt and cobbles and dirt roads and narrow trails.  From lefse and lutefisk and Yorkshire pudding.

I am from the ones who came North trapping and hunting horse thieves; from those who rode days in bumpy carts to break an ancient Prairie. I am from leaving and returning. I am from wandering and seeking and finding; from the city, from the small town, from square white houses on windswept hills. I am from workworn bodies and beautiful eyes.

I am from a simple writing desk crammed with journals going back a hundred or so years. I am from a big kitchen and lots of hands to help with the work. I am from big hugs and fierce love and workparties and feeding people too much. I am from who came before and who comes after. I am from laughter and anger and denial and acceptance and family and grace.

So much grace.

Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself

In the months after the father of my children walked out on us, I worried about a lot of things.

I worried about how I was going to care for two children under the age of two on my own. I worried that I would not be able to love my children enough to make up for what had happened. I worried about how the trauma of being left would affect them later in their lives. I worried about how my biracial children would learn their heritage without their father. I worried about my decision to leave my well paying but stressful and all-consuming job so that my children would have me around. I worried about another career change.

I worried about a lot of other things, too, but this is supposed to be a short entry. The point is, I worried a LOT.

The one thing I never worried about, though, was being discriminated against because I'm a single mother. It never even crossed my mind.

Until tonight.

My partner and I are currently looking for a rental property in which to open our dayhome, and I went to view one tonight. It is a revenue property, owned by a husband and wife, and it would have been a great childcare space; lots of room, big windows, a good kitchen, and a huge yard.

The thing is, I must have let something slip while I was making arrangements on the phone, because when I went to meet the husband to view the place he stopped me on the front step.

"I have to ask one thing first", he said.  "you're a single mother?"

 I nodded.

"because we've had problems with them before. Their welfare cheque or whatever didn't come in and they never paid.."

That was where I should have walked away, I guess. But I didn't. The rental market here is tight and we are anxious to get this business open.

He brought it up two more times while I was looking at the house. I concentrated on things like the windows and the furnace. I was there to try and rent the house after all, and I get lippy when people piss me off. Just ask my ex.

When he brought up my status as a single mother in conjuction with being on welfare a third time while I was viewing  the basement, I'd had enough. I told him politely (I hope) but VERY firmly that I was not currently, nor had I ever been, nor was I ever planning to be, on welfare. I don't mean any disrespect to single mothers who ARE on welfare, but this guy clearly had linked the two, and in his mind all single moms were Single Moms On Welfare.

There are too many things wrong with this stereotype to list here, but I'll just go ahead and start with what it precludes.

When you link single mothers with being on welfare, you preclude the idea that there are single mothers out there who are not on welfare. That there are women without partners who are doing well in their own careers, paying their own mortgages, putting their children through school on their own.

When you assume that a woman can't or won't pay her rent because she is a single mother, you disrespect the hard work that she is doing to make sure her child has a roof over his head, food on his plate, and good shoes on his feet. Many single mothers work two or three jobs to make this happen.

When you paint all single mothers with the same (negative) brush, you gloss over all the moms out there who have been motivated to be something better for their children - all the moms who work  during the day and go to school at night so that they can become more, or the ones who finally decide to open a business that will benefit the whole family - and other families as well.

This stereotype also does a disservice to all the single moms out there who are on welfare - and do pay their rent, on time, every month; who bust their asses to stretch that tiny bit of money as far as they possibly can.

I don't do well with stereotypes.

Needless to say, we probably won't get that house. Even if they do get back to us, I'm not sure I want to deal with landlords like that. Those two will have lost out on a couple of very responsible and reliable long term tenants, and we will have lost out on a great space for our business.

Being discriminated against is an incredibly ugly feeling. I can think of a certain single mama who's been walking around here with a lump in her throat all night because of it.

I want to live in a world where shit like this doesn't happen, where people don't have to feel this way because someone else sees them as Less Than. As with most things, the best place to start making the change I want to see in the world is right here at home.

Over the next little while, I'm going to be paying really close attention to the way I look at and treat people, and I'm going to change the negative stereotypes that I may be unconsciously saddling them with.

If I can stop even one person from ever having to feel the way I do right now, I'll have made the world a better place for my kids to grow up in.

I hope you'll consider doing the same.

Beauty Abounds

*this post is featured at Indie Ink *

I am thinking of you this morning, driving from the cabin to the lake. Tires crunching on gravel, one hand holding my coffee cup, the other on the steering wheel. I give a country wave to the two ladies who walk our road every morning; two fingers raised from the wheel and a smile.

I am driving my son to the beach to go swimming. He loves the water. Small brown feet kick the base of his carseat as he looks out the window, naming as he goes.
"Wa." he says, definitively.
"Yes babe. Water."
"Bee." He says. Beach.

He will be two this summer: my oldest. My youngest, back at the cabin with his great aunt, is nearly seven months old. Neither of my children were planned, were certainly not expected, but I  love them more than anything I have ever loved. I can barely remember what life was like before them. Maybe I don't want to.

We flit down this narrow road through boreal forest, through bright morning sunlight and deep cool shade. Our windows rolled down, the scent of pine and fir heavy in the humid air. It's good to be back on the Canadian Shield. My heart holds a place open for this space; for the Thomsonesque rock sliding into lake after lake after lake, for the early morning and late evening paddles, for the deep dark forests, for the bears and loons and deer. It feels like home. And it reminds me of you.

I wonder, is your little corner of paradise anything like mine? Do you sit in the dark and watch fireflies, listen to the haunting call of loons out on the lake? Do you hike in the forest, sidestepping the lichens at your feet? Is there a canoe that takes you out gliding over the water in the early morning?

I wonder how you are. Are you happy? I imagine you are busy - it would surprise me greatly to hear otherwise.  Are you in love or, like me, are you satisfied with solitude for now?  I know you are doing what makes your soul come alive, and for that I will always be grateful. It makes me indescribably happy to see my friends succeed in whatever they choose to bend themselves to.

The road dips and twists; suddenly a deer appears. It bounces away into the brush, a flash of tan and then nothing.

"Deew!" My boy misses nothing from his perch in the backseat. His bright eyes take in everything through his window on the world.

He's a smart little guy, no doubt about it. And he's going to be trouble, I can tell already. He has a stubborn streak in him a mile wide and very definite ideas about how his world is going to be. He makes me want to laugh and kiss his chubby cheeks; to cry and tear my hair out and run screaming to the nearest bar, often all at once. In short, he is his mother's son.

I am reminded of our own parents in the farflung years of our youth - how my father's dark hair turned grey over the course of my high school years, how your mother would be waiting for us no matter how late we stayed out or how sneaky we thought we were being. It's laughable now to think of what we thought we were getting away with. It's heartwrenching too, knowing now what we put our parents though. But we were kids; we didn't know any better. We were just finding our way in the world - more bravado than brains, more energy than foresight.

I think of how, when we were so young, we swore we would never grow apart, no matter where life took us, no matter how old we got. When 30 seems an inconceivable age, it's hard to put life into perspective. And so we have drifted, in exactly the ways that our teenage hearts told us we would never. We no longer spend each and every weekend sleeping over at each other's houses. We don't read to one another from our journals anymore. We don't spend summers travelling, hitchhiking, going to music festivals anymore. Because life is what it is, and nothing stays the same forever, thank g-d.

We've lived and loved and traveled and ate and drank and created, and while did, we became women. Formidable women; independent, strong, willful and creative. I'm proud of who I am, where I've been, what I've done. I'm excited for the future. I hope you are too. I know I'm proud of you. And I'm glad you never took that job at the bank.

I cut the engine at the beach and look out at the water. The wind whips waves into whitecaps; foam sprays from the tops and is blown away in an instant. I'm tempted to try another lake, another beach facing away from the wind. It's early morning cool still, and I worry about my small fry. But I can see he is already twisting in his seat. He's seen the beach, and it's time to go. He doesn't give two shits about the whitecaps; we're here and he wants to do stuff. If it's not perfect, oh well. We'll beachcomb instead of swim. This kid is teaching me things already.

I release him from his carseat trap and he hits the ground running, down toward the water. I watch him go, as fast as his little legs can propel him, and think of you one last time before I join in on yet another adventure.

I miss you, and I hope adventure is finding you today, too.

Vintage Radness.

I've splashed this image all over the internet tonight. I found it in an old book about Canada's North that I bought at a thrift store. I'm using some of the other (much less gory) images in the book for a decorating project in Chaos's room, but this one, this one I'm keeping for me. Because it's awesome cool.

I also snagged a six foot by four foot blackboard that is now a room divider/backsplash for my desk.

And this amazing, giant moonshine jug. It's been a good day.

When I'm done with the Chaos Room Deco project, I'll let ya'll have a peek. Good night!

After Ni-Night

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After the chilluns have been put to bed and the loose ends have been raveled, I sit at the table to write. Ten minutes a night is what I've carved out for myself, and woe betide the poor fool who tries to wrest them from me.

"Goddamnit I miss blogging".

It didn't take ten minutes to write, but it was all I wrote in my journal tonight.

If you got an invite to my new digs, feel cool. Because you are, my friends. If you're wondering why the change, well, let's just say it's time. Toquegirl is part of me, but only a small part. I'm no longer a girl in any way. I am a woman, a mother, a writer. I've always overcome the obstacles life placed before me. I have a lot more conquering to do before my time here is up.

If you followed my last blog, thanks. I hope you'll stick around. If you find me at random, awesome.

Enjoy the ride. I know I will.

*Also, as with any move to new digs, it's going to take me a while to arrange the furniture and set the plants out just right, so bear with me. Soon I'll have this here space crazy with the Fung Shui.