Stricken

As I recline on the couch, Dr Phil or Ellen or local news droning on in the background, my anemic toes stare up at me. 10 white reminders that I am not myself, I am uprooted, I am in crisis. Tanned skin retreats from crisis. Pale is the colour required.

The mirror is not my friend. Two tired eyes stare back. They are gathering baggage. Heavy, dark bags and the strain of their weight is showing. Gone is the glow, the energy, the fire that has kept me fueled for all these years. In it’s place a gaping wound. A reminder of life’s fragility. A monthly parking pass to a hospital.

My mom - the fiercely independent fireball role model of my life - lies in a bed there, in that hospital. Defenseless, vulnerable and afraid. The regal swans whom she has loved, companions by the lake’s edge, swim by. They are looking for her. They gather and make terrible noise. They cannot believe she has left them. And neither can I.

All of us have been drowned. Whisked into a dark vast cavern by a force of nature. Unexpected, uncontrollable, a stroke takes lives and knocks them sideways. Like dominoes in a storm, we all fall down.

They say it’s the most common cause of long term disability in North America. They say it’s the leading cause of death. They say someone has a stroke every 40 seconds. Those are just statistics.

They don’t say you will lose sleep. There will be tears. You will lose your independence, your free will, your health, your happiness. Your life. They can’t possibly write down what this ‘common’ occurrence will do to us all. It’s too hideous. Too morbid. Too gritty. They will tell me this post is the same. Harsh, negative. Ugly. And they will be right.

Unthinkable decisions to be made, lawyers to be consulted, forms to fill, belongings to discard, depressing facilities to be toured like holiday spas. Social workers, wheelchairs, hospital food. The smell of that. The reality is overwhelming.

How do you put this one in a box? Get it all settled and move on?! How do you protect your heart and soul from something so engulfing. Where do you find yourself again? It doesn’t exist. Not for my mother, not for me. Nothing will be the same again for any of us. And all by a tiny build up of blood, coursing through a vein, up into a brain. A tiny biological malfunction that ripples outward like an atomic bomb.

The frivolity of our lives in the sun, the coarseness of sand between my toes fades in my mind. I feel guilty at even the thought of it. Instead I reflect the grey around me. The sky cries onto the windows and her tears hit the cold lake, mixing with the weary waters of a Canadian spring day.

There is only one thing that keeps us all going. Pushing through the sludge. It’s the hug from my nephew. Warm, soft, beautiful in it’s innocence. It’s the hand squeeze from JW at the end of a trying day.

The friends of my mom who bend and stretch and reach out, far beyond what I could have imagined. It’s a testament to the amazing character of Jan. My mother is so loved. And it is love that shines through. It has proven to be the only force stronger than tragedy.

It’s what allows my sister and I to find laughter somewhere in all of this. Just to know that we are here for each other, for our mother.

So for now it’s the currency I’m working with. It’s the boat in a hurricane. And I’m just trying to hold on.

Happy birthday from another world

My bum is numb. Most of my outer layers of skin have lost feeling, but for the random involuntary shivers. This hockey rink is freezing. Despite my efforts to stay warm – donning a full body sleeping bag/coat, thick stodgy Uggs, and matching teddy bear hat and mittens, complete with bulbous knitted nose and ears. Very chic.

I sip at my flask of pretend coffee, wiping the deep red wine stains from my lips after each little swig. I’m trying to fit in here and hoping my teeth aren’t noticeably purple/grey.

The parents in the stands jump and shout after each play. “Noah! Rebound control buddy!!!” It’s all very aggressive and serious. The players out there are 7 and 8 years old. The smallest one is my nephew.

It is our last day in Canada – unless the winter storm warning in effect delays us by a day. We’ve been here, visiting the house I grew up in, for over two months. At once I am sucked back into the rhythm of suburban winter life, and also repelled and alienated by the contrast to the life I’ve led for the past 21 years away.

My captain – so far out of his ocean realm, sits beside me on the stands, enthralled by the fast paced game on the ice below. His new cozy winter toque, pulled down over his ears, he blows into his bright red, dry and freezing hands in the futile attempt to warm them. I’ve dragged him here, into my family, my past, my people. And despite hockey’s foreign rules and cultural intricacies, he has fit right in.

Hot chocolate, egg nog, minus 21 temps. He’s shoveled snow, used the snow blower, poured warm water on our frozen car doors to get them open. Welcome to Canada baby!

I cannot believe it’s been 4 months since we left Shiloh and our sailing life behind – left her to face hurricane Matthew alone while we visited potato festivals in West Virginia and sampled Moose pie in Newfoundland. We 'oohed' and 'aahed' at the colours of the Cabot trail in Cape Breton, and marvelled at the 40 ft tidal swing at the Bay of Funday. We walked the red sand beaches of Prince Edward Island and sampled the world's best scallops in digby Nova Scotia.... Luckily Shiloh and her boatyard friends all weathered the storm without a scratch.

It’s been months since I had to steer the 15 ton boat up to a fuel dock, weather a storm, navigate a port entry… All my life stresses have been replaced by GPS driving stresses, finding motels, and finally juggling all the family and friend visits over the holidays.

Everything about life is in flux. Within a few days we will evolve from our hats and scarves to capris and flip flops.

Everything has been in flux – we’ve visited over 80 cities, towns, villages, islands in 2016. We are lucky. And yet the worst tragedy to befall a mother is my reality.

There is the matter of my six year old son, who today would be eighteen.

There are things I can reconcile – weather, financial strains, family differences, friends who disappoint.

But my baby boy – the one who coveted his can of red Pringles, who cuddled all the girls and declared that food is not food without rice! My Shiloh – who loved Power Rangers and Bob the Builder and Spiderman. My little guy, with stubby brown fingers and a soft blond peach fuzz on his silky little neck…  that he was born 18 years ago today. I cannot reconcile this in my feeble mommy brain. My mommy heart has missed the years between 6 and 18 where my boy would have grown, but where instead there was a void. A void within my heart, a place where the world stopped spinning and simply sat, dumbfounded by a loss so great.

 

So today, as I watch my little nephew barreling down the ice, caught up in the spirit of the game, I decide there is no reconciling the things that happen in this life.

We simply find ourselves in places in time and we must soak them in. We must exist in the here and now – all the ‘what ifs’ and the ‘could haves’ held at bay. Life is in this moment. This right here. The smell of warm chocolate contrasted by the bitter cold air and the cry of the overbearing parent.  The sour kick of red wine with the metallic aftertaste of the flask. My boy is gone but this boy is here, and he is life – all new and hopeful. And there is love that transcends. It holds families together, it holds us all together across time and space. But all we have really is what is in front of us right now.

I have memory, and love and family and the frivolous concept of plans. Adventures await.

For now, happy birthday my angel boy and Go Adam! Our boy of the day.

My sister is practically a body builder

My sister is practically a body builder. I live chicken wing to chicken wing fix. While she holds down a high power job, two awesome kids enrolled in everything from gymnastics to hockey, a hubby AND works out at the gym like mad, I can barely figure out where each week disappears. 

While I opted for a completely off-the-wall life, taking off to volunteer in Africa years ago, getting an expat job there along the way, and retiring at 42 to live on a sailboat, my sis is sticking it out in the ‘real’ world. A world I know almost nothing of.

She likes designer bags and high heels but she’s no airhead. She might look like Pamela Anderson on a night out on the town, but at heart, she is as down to earth as they come.  And smart. Very smart.

She’s got more than her fair share of charm and gusto too - she could sell meat to a butcher. In fact, she does sell meat. Like a boss.

She has always looked up to me – the big sis, the role model. But what for I’ll never know. I’m not the highly ambitious type. I enjoy bargain hunting in Walmart and I did live for 5 years in Africa quite happily on $200 a month. AND I was a mother of a 4 year old at the time. Some say I’m crazy. Maybe they’re right. Irresponsible, wayward, a drifter. But not my little sis.

She doesn’t see my lack of self control around fresh cut French fries or 3-for-$10 t-shirts. She thinks I’m great.

While she’s pumping big iron in a gym at 6am after prepping kiddies lunches, I’m sound asleep, only hours later rubbing the sleep from my eyes and wondering which bar has the best happy hour deal today.

She juggles a mortgage and temper tantrums. I helm a catamaran around Bahamian beaches and bays. And she thinks ‘I’ do something to admire.

Letter to my little sister:

You are a wonderful woman. You are far too hard on yourself and somehow somewhere along the line you came to believe you need to be superwoman. You are doing a great job.

But I love you behind all the muscles and the beauty and the promotions and the amazing kids you are raising. I love you for you. The pudgy blond baby I used to push around our 70’s shag carpet in a car seat/speed machine. Back then I told Mom that you were MY baby, so she should get pregnant again and have another one for herself.

You were determined even back then – to a fault. Holding your breath in the supermarket until you turned blue – if you didn’t get what you wanted. Your skills at moving your life in the direction you want have improved immensely over time. But I still see those eyes squeezed shut. That spirit has not changed. You are ambitious.

You are worth looking up to.

I not only love you with all my heart, I respect you. I have no idea where those genes came from - the dedication to a goal, the motivation to succeed, the positivity you bring to it all -  they missed me completely.

I am me, so very different. And you are you. 

I wish for you everything you want in this life. I wish this with every fibre of my being. But what I wish even more than that is for you to look within and see how amazing you are. And believe that. 

You have enriched my life and made it whole. I was an only child. A lonely child. You made it both a challenge and you brought the rewards. To this day I've never laughed so hard, until I am bursting, red faced, spewing, snorting REAL LAUGHTER as I do when I'm with you.

Thanks for being my little sis, and mostly thanks for being you.

 

Renovations in and out

Today’s post was supposed to be about renovations, about befores and afters. About the realization of a plan. Work completed. The light at the end of the tunnel.

And it is. Or it was, at least it will be. But for now I’m thinking of a different kind of renovation. A reshuffle, cobweb cleaning of the mind. The kind that comes over you on the morning of a birthday. The culmination of all the years and days and minutes that have lead up to this very moment.

I sit in my rocking bed, noises of my captain, best friend and one true love upstairs in the galley, fumbling around trying to make me a cup of coffee. I am deep in thought. Feeling warm beyond the sweat of my brow, feeling lucky and blessed and so grateful for all the experiences my life has crossed path with. For the love and love lost, for my children, travels, jobs, struggles, joys… and he pops his head down into the passage, interrupting my thoughts with two bottles of instant coffee – “this one or this one? Sugar?”

I am grateful for the day to day of life. I vow at this moment to make a life renovation to appreciate it all. The salt water splash on my bum in the dinghy rides to shore, the constant rain storms that won’t allow our towels to dry on the line for days at a time. These are part of what is offered, along with the beautiful moments.

I will always notice the way JW’s eyes change colour by mood and lighting and his wardrobe. This morning the green has separated and there is a glowing yellow radiating from his pupils, giving way to a deep soulful grey. I love him. This morning I can see his soul. Like a child, like me. We are two naughty children, dared to run away with our back packs and not much more, opting for adventure and insecurity, and there are times we cling to each other with a fear so powerful it knocks us over. But we get back up and scamper around, learning how to sail, to live island to island, one mishap to another, broken boat part to the next, creak in the mast, leak in the hatch.

We have recently completed some long discussed changes to make this boat our home. It has taken a lot out of us, spiritually and financially. But it feels like progress.

It feels like a home that could take us places. Far away places, both spiritually and geographically. And as long as I have his warm strong hand in mine, I’m up for the challenge and the ride.

Below, some pics of the renos:

Making due - trying to make the purple velveteen cordouroy sofa look ok...

Life during renovations

Life during renos 2

When they cut out the wall of one of our heads

All the innards are gone, right down to the hull - OMG, it's so thin! There are holes!!!

The completed top cupboard! My new pantry and linen closet!

The completed bottom cupboard - to be used for tools and captain stuff

Finally collecting Shiloh from her unnatural home - heading back to the water!

En route through the boatyard - good riddance!

The renovated saloon - new chair, upholstery, table, and cut off nav seat (on the left - now a cupboard)

A view from further back - including new suede stools for foot rests, storage and seating!

And a view to the right....

And here's Shiloh - back in the water, new graphics proudly displayed, and a happy crew onboard

For Quinci

Baguette crumbs surround me. Today, Deshaies, Guadeloupe is my home. My table gently rocks with the considerable swell in the bay. I am a cruiser, sailing, living on a boat. But first, always, I am a mother.

Today, thousands of kilometres from my marine home, my son wakes on this, his twentieth birthday. He might shave, might eat something (remotely healthy?) for breakfast. He will stuff school work into his backpack and head out the door. Turn out his lights, lock his own door. He will cross town and walk the halls of a small university and greet friends. He will make calls and check all the birthday messages on his facebook. In the evening he will meet up with his girlfriend and they will head out for a romantic supper. He will celebrate like the adult that he is.

He won’t remember the black silk mane on his heavy precious head, and warm breath he brought into my life, the tiny living body that I held in my trembling arms just minutes after he was born. He won’t remember his saucer eyes, squeezed shut to the harsh new world, popping open to a tearful young girl, who had just had the mother label shoved into her clueless lap. No, he could not imagine now, a mother’s instant heartwrenching, the stomach churning, overwhelming bond that spread between us through the cold hospital room, just as we were separated physically. The love I felt. The love I feel today, so far away.

Quinci. Never was what I expected. Always was himself. The truest, surest, genuine person grew up within that adorable little frame. With a settled soul he watched me grow and learn motherhood my own way.

I wore steel-toed police boots with vintage mini skirts when he was two years old. We strolled for hours, mother with nose ring and punk short hair, baby Quinci, ‘King of Queen Street’, even then he gazed through my phases. Sat all knowing, greeting all from his stroller throne.

I have never cooked a Christmas supper – no turkey, no ham, no stuffing. No cranberries, no tradition to cling to. I took him across the world, barely a toddler, on my own adventures, seeking myself. 

But there he was, always himself. He tolerated my discoveries and floated through the instability of our lives. One year in the stifling heat of a dilapidated Ghanaian village, I presented him with his Christmas gift as he awoke, covered in mosquito bites. None of us had slept a wink. It was beyond miserable. He hugged me so tightly I thought my mother’s heart would burst. A lump beat my throat and my eyes burned knowing this was a special soul, this my boy. My faith in the human race was restored. For years. 

 And for years he lived uprooted, waiting patiently to find his own place, his own harmony, while I worked through the mess of my own life. Hours of patient melodies he plucked from his little harmonica, and then his guitars. An artist’s soul, soothed by the beauty of music and an appreciation so beyond his years.

At times I was the parent, at times it made more sense for him to be. Linked, hands clasped together we made it through lifetimes of adventures and heartaches. More heartache than any boy should have to endure.

Quinci, my pillar of strength. My sensitive, sensible one. I ache with connection, I feel that gut twisting bond, the tears welling, the throat attacked by the familiar lump… I love you from across a continent, as I did under the harsh lights of the operating room twenty years ago today.

Thank you for sharing yourself, for enriching my life, for being ‘Mompati’ my companion.

Thank you from a mother’s heart, for everything and for just being you.

And on this day my hope is that you will follow all the paths your heart takes you down. May you love, and be loved. May you enjoy this crazy life and never wait to do what you want to do.

Here I am, out on the sea with my soul mate. Following a crazy dream, an unconventional life once again.

And far away you are starting a life of a million possibilities. Never close a door that opens. Never doubt yourself. Most of all, never doubt that I will love you forever.

Merry Christmas from Shiloh

Merry Christmas. It’s pouring, the dark skies are dumping big time, and the wind is whistling. We awoke to a leak in the hatch above our heads. Drip, drip, drip.

At 4:30am the Holy Church of Blasting Music set up their deafening speakers somewhere on the beach to enlighten us out in the bay through distorted gospel tracks and pastor/DJ on a power trip. Welcome to Christmas morning, Carriacou style! The good thing about the rain was that it drowned out the sound system. Hopefully that was literally!

If I sound a bit bah-humbug, it’s not intentional. I am on a boat in the tropics after all. It just doesn’t seem like Christmas to a Canadian.

There was a time when a storm outside at Christmas meant cuddling up in bed, with the fireplace crackling and the sounds and smells of the season wafting through the house. Baking, cinnamon, dry warmth, the smell of new plastic toys…. Here it means jumping up and peering through the pocked Perspex windows, watching our position in the bay, with a keen eye on our proximity to the others – have we dragged? Is anyone else dragging? Are any hatches open or leaking? Do we have the rain catchers out? 

Shiloh all dolled up for Christmas

There is no commercialism here. No shopping - it's difficult to find carrots! No traffic, no hectic rushing around. Nothing to stress about (except the weather!). But also no family.

This is the first Christmas without any of our children. They have grown and have made other choices, spending time with other families, other friends, other countries. It’s a good feeling to know they are happily living their lives, as are we. But I still have those small pangs – wishing I could see their sleepy faces on Christmas morning, gifts under a tree… playing silly games, their youthful banter.

I must say though, that sailing friends are special. We’re all in the same boat, so to speak. Each of us with stories, families, lives far away that we’ve left behind in this nautical pursuit of freedom and fun and adventure. We connect. We gel. We bond instantly. And we learn how to say farewell as easily.

We definitely know how to have fun. So Carriacou it is for this holiday. It could be any island really, it's the people who make it shine. Along with a lot of rum!

The gang - pre-Xmas party at Miss Lucky's

But last night, as Shiloh lapped calmly in the bay, Christmas lights aglow, and we mulled amongst the party goers on shore, another Shiloh called me. All the happy voices muted, the festive faces blurred. An angel of Christmas past touched me lightly and settled into my heart.

A time before boats and bays, when my little one would wake on Christmas morning excited for the day. When his gaze, so deep would meet mine and melt me. The boy I could never hold tight enough. Couldn’t keep him here for the many more Christmas mornings he should have seen.

 He visited with a grin though, a deep wide grin and I held him there, oblivious to the chatter and cheer around me. That was my Christmas present this year. 

I am headed to a party of 20 on a boat. Good friends and good cheer. My boys are in my heart and they give me the happiness at the end of every day, that makes the season truly joyous. Merry Christmas Quinci and Merry Christmas Shiloh. Love you forever.

Thanksgiving is not a physical place

I am breathing quite slowly, the subtle scent of sun baked earth assaults my nostrils. The shock of bright lime palms dazzles my eyes, but I am calm. The breeze is warm but prevents a sweat, even in this 35 degree heat. The sun is deceptively affectionate, beyond the roof construction above me. It sets the sea afire with a glint that excites and entices. 

This is where I am doing my laundry today, in paradise, on Thanksgiving Day. 

I can’t help but reflect.

I won’t be partaking in the traditional Thanksgiving feasts of Canada, or even the one organised at a local marina (due to my failure to be organised enough to book us in), but I am no less thankful. I don’t need a belly full of turkey and stuffing to know that I am a lucky girl.

My family is far away today, and though I will miss my sister flittering around the kitchen, with exotic hors d’ouvres on the table, and succulent flesh in the oven, I am really with them in spirit.

I miss my boy, all 19 years and stretch limbs, with his baby smooth skin and towering hugs. Miss his gentle spirit. But I am wrapped around him with love and he can feel it. 

My little mom, fragile but so strong, always colour coordinated and full of compassion for all of us, will be there, where I am not, but I hear her ‘I love you honey’ and feel her tight little hug.

And Dad, reserved, but wearing his love there, just under his sleeve. He will be cringing at the energy of his hurricane grandkids, racing around his knees, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. His little text messages speak volumes for me, a world or so away physically.

 We’re all connected. And it doesn’t end there.

Thankful covers so many things. So many emotions. So difficult to be thankful for the reality that separates me from my littlest one, lost to us and to this world. But my life is rich beyond words for having known him.

And so I am thankful for his small neck, with it’s peach fuzz blond hairs, lying in a graceful little pattern, on the burnished brown skin below. Yes, I am thankful for the memories that sit solidly inside me. Offering up his tiny hand, dirt under the round nails, he’s been playing in the yard with his friends, leading a parade. He is sweating and his eyes alight. I am overwhelmed by his charm. 

 Shiloh, namesake of our forward vessel, I carry you forever with me.

I thank the wind and the waves, for accepting us, into a life chapter of exploring, tasting, seeing, feeling… for all that lies ahead, and all that led me here.

Thanks to the love of my life, a partner in every sense. For the only one I’ve known who took a dream and polished it, formed it and brought it to light. I am thankful for loving and being loved. It truly is what makes life amazing.

And I’m off to collect the warm, soft towels from the dryer. Thankful even for the cozy smell that awaits me.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Stay connected and marvel at the beauty of love.