Travel tales

Never being sure when I will have Internet access I am posting again. I thought seeing as a large part of my journey is our trek across North America and possibly the South too, I should mention life in a 28ft RV.  I'm not terribly materialistic so selling everything was not so difficulty and so far there is very little I miss. I look at our little space as a small apartment. We have the master suite, queen bed, although shorter, tucked in the curved front of the trailer. Most of my clothes are folded away under the bed but I have a tiny closet which houses my hanging items and a small crate on the floor for everyday foldables, sweaters, t-shirts etc. The master is en suite, as in the sink and shower are at the end of the bed but thank heavens the toilet has a room of it's own. We have decided not to use the shower but instead it acts as a sort of laundry room/linen closet. Facilities at all the sites we have visited so have have been clean and adequate so this works for us. There is a sliding door just past the shower that gives us our privacy although so have we have had no use for it. As you enter our home you are faced with a sofa and dining area which slide out at the push of a button and give us an extra three feet of space. Opposite is the kitchen. One and a half sink, gas three burner cook top and stove, small fridge and freezer with enough cupboard space to house limited pots, pans, dishware and pantry items. We have everything we need. The back end of the trailer is for my boy. A door for privacy, a built in unit for clothes and belongings and a bed. Originally it was a double bunk room but we removed the top bunk to give him more space. He has problem enough with posture  and muscle tone we didn't want him folded up under an unused bunk. He has very few needs, a bed, a place for his laptop and somewhere for his guitar. His room functions well.
So life on the road. Well we eat, we sleep, we live. Morning are slow and lazy, breakfast together overlooking a new environment, discussions arise about where we are, what we can do, the wildlife we may see (still no bears, I'm beginning to think this is a national conspiracy to get foreigners over here!) then usually school work. Home schooling will only work if you have intellectual passion, a self directed drive to learn and succeed, and, lucky for us, my boy is all this. Strange then that he couldn't function at school but let's leave that for another blog post. Afternoons we usually run errands and explore. We have driven our little home from Ontario to New York state and the Finger Lakes. Watkin's Glen State Park and Letchworth State Park are two stunningly beautiful areas in the Finger Lakes region that are well worth a visit. We then headed to Chicago which is the most pristine large metropolis I have ever visited. The people are friendly the architecture overwhelming and the spirit heartwarming. I would recommend Chicago to anyone. For me there was a personal connection as my grandparents emigrated from Germany to Chicago in the 1920's. We were able to visit where they had lived and the places they had been, bringing old black and white photos to life. It may have been the hours of walking in the hot Chicago sun but it was hard to hold back the tears when standing before their old house. All the hopes and dreams they had, only to be faced with the depression of the 30's. They ended up heading back to Germany when the depression became to much, little knowing the terrible events that were about to unfold. I was young when my grandfather died but loved my grandmother very much and think about her often. She taught me a lot and I carry her wisdom with me. We didn't stay in Chicago, but about an hour north at a State Park on Lake Michigan. Wow, a tiny State Park on a forgotten beach until the weekend when a deserted site filled up in an afternoon only to be deserted again by Sunday evening. On our way back to Ontario we stopped near Green Bay, in the Upper Peninsular of Michigan and are now in limbo in Sault Ste Marie. We are awaiting news which will determine if we head west as  planned or  take a detour south to settle our oldest. Either way adventure awaits and our hopes for this trip providing therapy for our son will be tested.
I have had to change the way I live my life, adapting to a slower pace. I said before there is very little I miss, the very little was my small studio. Here I am exposed and although the only onlookers are my partner and son I struggle with having the confidence to show my work unless perfected. A terrible flaw I am working on fixing. It is one thing to have others hold you back but quite another to do it to yourself. This journey is about letting go and flying free in all aspects of my life and difficult as it is I will overcome. There have been two outstanding episodes on this trip so far that have amazed me in their simplicity. The first was an afternoon at the Laundromat in downtown Zion. As I sat waiting for he machines to do their thing I watched in delight the family's around me. The young (very young) couple with their two beautiful children. Everyone had their job, he checked the driers as she sorted the loads to come. Together they folded and organized, sharing a joke or loving looks, answering the children's never ending questions with patience.. Every now and then he would stop folding and head to the small television perched on a shelf in the corner, returning to update her with the latest from Wrigley Field. I'm pretty certain she had little interest in baseball but smiled and delighted in his excitement. When the last load was folded, a large suitcase emerged from under the table with four smaller bags inside. A backpack each for the children which was filled carefully with undergarments and socks. As the little girl wrestled the backpack, which was very nearly as tall as her, onto her back, the mother chewed the corner of her lip and worriedly asked her husband if perhaps it was too heavy. By this time the little thing was already impatiently waiting at the door, quite happy with her load. With every one else loaded up they headed for home on foot. It took every ounce of restraint for me not to jump up and offer them a ride home, abandoning my own laundry, but I recognised that this was a family moment. A ritual performed, a lesson for the children and a moment of unity for them. Who was I to stick my nose in. I sat there and smiled and thought, this is life, these people, these little things. I have had my eyes shut for so long. Just thinking about it now leaves me contented and for that small experience I am thankful.
The other event is one I have already told you about. Our epic trek across Chicago. And epic it truly was as it was long, poetic and as far as I'm concerned is the story of two hero's. We had very little to go on, a rough idea of the area of Chicago and some old black and white photographs. We also thought in a strange moment of insanity that we could probably manage without a map, after all how hard could it be! We walked for hours that day covering about 12 miles in all. We found ourselves at dead ends with hopes dashed as old buildings had been replaced with new. The sun was strong and the windy city decidedly un-windy. We headed east when we should have been heading west and ended up backtracking many a time. Yet despite this, despite my own falling spirits as I knew the ridiculous nature of this blind search, my husband and son kept walking. They walked without complaint. Seeing, I'm sure, my sadness as the chance of finding something seemed more and more remote, they rallied and with words of encouragement kept moving forward. If at any point they had said this is enough, we've done all we can, I would have agreed. But they didn't. I can't tell you how much that meant to me. We didn't end up eating dinner until 11pm that day. My tears in front of my grandparents house that day were for my grandparents, but also for my boy's. They were tears of joy because what they did was beautiful and I knew then how much I am truly loved.

Lifting weights part two. Guilt or fear?

All this talk of guilt has got me thinking. In the comments after my last post I quoted Webster's dictionary. It defines guilt as being an internal emotion, but from your post and life experience, I don't think that's strictly true. I think we feel real guilt very rarely, after all we try on the whole to be good people. The feeling we label as guilt is something else.
Red Bird, we have a mutual acquaintance who upon your first meeting presented himself as a complete arse. Strutting around  the yard he put on a display reserved for the Peacock. Now it could be he is simply a complete arse, but doesn't it depend on who you ask. Machiavelli would call it 'mantenere lo stato', to defend your status and keep your position intact. Something he considered perfectly acceptable, in fact, preferable.So let's assume his strutting was in defence. This is a man who, as society would say, has failed. He worked hard, he went to school, he became accomplished in his field. He married, built a home and had two beautiful children. But he couldn't make his marriage last. Who knows who was to blame or what was to blame. The only thing that matters is that he failed at something. Suddenly all his accomplishments mean nothing, not the top corporate position he holds at work, the possessions he owns or even the two beautiful children. There is a sign he wears around his neck that says 'I am responsible for a broken home, I am responsible for my children's heartache.' Now having never left my partner I am perhaps not the best person to comment, but I have to assume there was a reason. Maybe he was unfaithful, maybe she was unfaithful. Maybe he was a slob or simply never home. Whatever it was, these two people were not happy together. So they left each other, they stopped punishing themselves and chose happiness in a life that is all too short. Sounds pretty reasonable to me. Yet here he is strutting around the yard talking of his position and his housekeeper and his ability to finance both homes, a strange way to introduce yourself for sure but born of a need to defend his status and keep his position in tact, after all it is all he has now. So here it is, the disconnect. It was the right thing to do, they chose happiness for all their sakes including the children's I'm sure. But he knows he is judged, looked down upon, considered a failure, and it has become so all consuming that his first introduction to you is as a complete arse. He doesn't know you, he has no obligation to explain or justify  his decisions in life to you. You are a complete stranger, yet he feels this need to impress, to show you he is somebody of status. Had he moved in with family intact would he have been so boastful? Maybe, but I would argue that knowing he had it all would have been enough. Having gone through a divorce and all society attaches to that, BROKEN home, HURT feelings, FAILED marriage, here we have a man desperately trying to right the wrongs and get back into societies good books. Not make amends to his family, the ones who were directly affected, but to the world.  He feels a need to seek approval of everybody he comes in contact with because he knows he is being judged.
So why this judgement all the time?  I think as a species we need boundaries. We need to know the house rules, we need everyone to follow them and we need a status quo. Without this security we would have to take on the responsibility of our actions, we would have to think about what we are doing and why. It's so much easier when we can follow along and know that everybody else is doing it too. It is after all the easiest way to live. But our acquaintance has upset the staus quo, he dared to mess with the way things should be. The rest of the people move fast to put him in his place. If you're staying here you better follow our rules. So his pea cocking is to show that he can still tick the other boxes, he is successful at work, he has staff, he supports his family. He is ever fearful of being kicked out of the safe room.
But what of the people who want to leave. What of the ones who say 'I'm leaving this group of happily marrieds and heading over to that room over there. But hey I can still visit, right?' Well sadly the people in the safe room aren't that flexible, they struggle with this concept as it  messes with the stability of their environment. What if, when you visit, you bring others with you, what if more from our group want to try living in that other room. It's just to risky and so they try and guilt you into staying because they are fearful. So there you are, on one side the people you know telling you not to leave, the door on the other side behind which lies the unknown and a no-mans land in the middle that offers no security at all.
The point I'm trying to make Red Bird is that on the whole we judge others because it threatens our own security and comfort. Sadly we fall for it when being judged and don't follow our hearts desires. When we started telling people about our journey, that we were selling our house, our belongings, giving it all up to travel without any real plan of where we were going, surprisingly to us, we got nothing but positive reactions. 'Wow, that's great.' 'I've always wanted to do that' 'I would love to just up and go too'. Yet when we said well why don't you then, everybody came up with reasons why they couldn't and not one of them was strong enough to hold water. Why don't they just go? Because the fear of doing something different is strong, but the fear of rejection is too much.
So I think when we feel guilty about unusual decisions in life what we are really feeling is the fear of others projected upon us. What if you leave this safe room and get to that room over there and the door is locked? What if the others won't let you back into this room, will I ever see you again?. Are you really strong enough to float around in that no-mans land by yourself? What if you fail and  every one's watching? I'm scared for you. How will this affect MY life? Well here's the best part, and you know I always think there's a best part, when you do take that step they realise that the no-mans land is full of people who funnily enough are so much more like you, and perhaps for the time being, you don't need a room at all. You were brave enough to take that step and you seem happy. So the word 'forgive' is used. I forgive you for my feelings of insecurity. I forgive you for my own anxieties or close mindedness. I forgive you even though this was all about me, I forgive you even though I was  being selfish. I'm going to forgive you now because it makes me feel better about myself. It offers the people around you some sort of control. They have expressed their discomfort of your rule breaking, they have had time to digest and organize how it's going to effect their lives and they have come to the conclusion that both you and them have survived this upset.
So when you feel guilt, stop and think for a minute, is this guilt or is this fear, and if it's fear is it mine or is it theirs? If it's theirs give them some comfort that your leaving will not disrupt the integrity of their safe room. Play them a little status quo!

Lifting weights or how to get strong enough to push away the guilt

I am on a leash. It's short and unforgiving. At the other end are the people I love, each with a firm grip on the strong cord that connects them to me. Everything I do affects them, if I turn left they must turn left too, if I stop to investigate something they must stop too. But I am on the leash and they have the control. So my actions affect my family and I am supposed to walk to heel. The worst part about this is that I trained them this way, I gave them the handle and said,' I am yours, I will always be there, just whistle and I will come running.'
No, I take that back, it's not the worst part, it's just the hard part. Red Bird, we have a role, it's well defined and the most important job known to man. We are mothers and when we made the decision to become mothers we signed a contract with the universe. We promised we would always be mothers, we would always put family before ourselves. So the difficulty when we break away, when we say 'damn it why can't I just be', is not the judgement from others. Those comments hurt for a while, but we have strong armour, the pain we feel is self inflicted.
How can we possibly think about ourselves. We of all people. Our children may be of an age where they should be independent, or at least heading that way, but they are not. The psychologist half jokingly said to me at our last visit, "You know he's never leaving home". What kind of a mother am I when all I want is for him to let go of my arm. When she rejected me, when the sight of me drove her mad, when her friends became her everything instead of her family it hurt, but it was also wonderful. She is strong and brave and independent and I felt like I had done my job. I had prepared her for the world and she was telling me she was ready to go out there and make her mark. Sure she's still my little girl and I miss her everyday, I know she's still scared and unsure and will need to hold my hand every once in a while and I will be there. But this is normal, this is what we are prepared for, this is how it's supposed to be. There is no guilt when we let them go, when we turn their old room into the home gym or sewing room or whatever it is people with houses do(!) I think the guilt comes from the fact that with our youngest, we have to put our foot down and say 'NO. I will not wait, because there is no end in sight. I have to think about me now or I never will.' How dare we start our lives when they still need us so dependently. We signed a contract. The biggest twist of course is that this isn't their fault.They can't control this, it controls them, they can't pull themselves together and just deal with it. When she was hurting or struggling with an issue in her life and I let her find the answers she recovered, it may have left a scar that every now and then she'll notice, but she become stronger for it. She will look at that scar and say' That was a horrible time but I am stronger for it'. Our fear, or at least I know it's mine, is that he won't recover. I have to work everyday to make sure that he doesn't retreat inside himself, because what if he never comes back out. How can I go off and do my own thing and leave him to it when that is a possible outcome.
So what to do. Well Red Bird, in response to the poem I say yes, I am the happiest I've ever been, because I choose to be. I choose to ignore the guilt, I choose to stop putting my life on hold. Don't get me wrong I struggle with this everyday. It's hard, but I have to believe that he won't break. For now I have swapped my short leash for an extendable one. I can only run so far, but at some point, we'll unclasp that thing for good. You haven't run away Red Bird, you just put yourself on a longer leash too. People around you are afraid you'll run to far, but you won't. When you have children like ours you have an even bigger responsibility, you have to be braver and stronger and more adaptable and cunning. If we don't take care of our emotional needs, if we don't take the time to recharge our batteries, we are useless and the consequences are too frightening if we drop the ball. These are your stories Red Bird, no one else's. Other people are in them but they are yours because they can only be told by you from your point of view.  As for forgiveness, look, you can't control how your family feels, they will come to a resolution on their own in their own time. They may forgive you, they may not. If you let their emotional struggles eat you up you are doomed my friend. People judge others not superficially, but based on their own demons. Work on forgiving yourself, let the guilt go. It is done and now you move forward. I strongly believe that whatever we do in life, right or wrong, if you act on the best of intentions, it's all good. You live, you learn you take another step forward and you smile.

Am I Lost - Part II

Sparrow, in your last blog entry you referenced Mary Oliver's "Am I Lost":


Am I lost?
I don't think so. 
Do I know where I am?
I'm not sure.
Have I ever been happier in my life?
Never.


While I can't tell you how pleased I am that you're feeling this positive, I'm afraid that the second aspect of the poem has me in its grip lately:


Am I lost?
I am lost.
Do I know where I am?
I am lost.
Have I ever been more joyful in my life?
I am lost.


Let me clarify:


The act of creating a blog, Sparrow, has an inherent downfall: it opens you up to public scrutiny. By participating in a blog, I have said to the blogosphere, "Here is my story", and, in doing so, I have inadvertently asked, "What do you think of me?".  I knew this would be a consequence when I started writing, Sparrow, And I'm not surprised that I've received some negative feedback. I mean, I left my husband and I tore my family apart to "find myself". I knew that would bring about a negative reaction and I was prepared for that.


What I wasn't prepared for, though, was my own reaction to my first completed blog posting:


"Oh God! What did I do?"


This is my life, Sparrow, my journey that I'm chronicling, yes, but it is also my family's story and a very personal one at that. I left my husband and I'm not foolish enough to believe that my leaving benefited him, or my children, in any way. Leaving him hurt everyone, period. This journaling of mine makes their story public; highlights their pain.  Do I have the right to tell that kind of a story?  Moreover, do I have the right to discuss something as private and as personal as my youngest daughter's "exceptionalities" as I plan to? Does that story belong to her alone?


I've spent a week mulling over this issue of ownership, Sparrow. I've played with it, turned it head over heels and inside out and what I've concluded is this: In the end, nothing happens in a vacuum so, when my children are hurting because I left their father, that's my story born of my guilt.  Again, when the funds that were always there are now cut and strained and I have to start saying no to my children, that's my story as well.  When my youngest, who is battling her own demons, falls deeper into a blackness that I can't resolve for her, is that not my story as well as hers because I live with the consequences of it every day?  I conclude that I do have ownership, albeit it a shared one, and I have to insist that these are my stories as well as theirs and that my guilt does not negate that fact but, rather, my guilt reinforces it.


So, for now at least, I'm lost, Sparrow. I opened myself up to judgement and I received it from friends and  family alike, yes, but mostly from myself. My week of contemplation has shored my  resolve to continue sharing my story and claim it as my own because it affects every minute of my days. I'm hoping that, in the end, my family forgives me for my decision. Perhaps I am lost, Sparrow, because I see myself as a woman that needs forgiveness in general and I worry that I don't deserve it. I'll sleep on it and see how I feel another day because, as we both know, I always shake myself off and start again, no matter how emotionally self-indulgent I've been.


Love always, Red Bird

Am I Lost?

My dear friend Red Bird gave me a gift, a book of poetry by Mary Oliver. Along with a touching card she highlighted the poem Am I Lost?

Am I Lost?
I don't think so.
Do I know where I am?
I'm not sure.
Have I ever been happier in my life?
Never.

For a long time I have been wife and mother. The day to day of living. Making lunches, walking dogs, cleaning, shopping, taking care of family. I have enjoyed and embraced every moment of it, for it was my choice. My oldest is now independent and my youngest utterly dependent. He is unique and brilliant, quirky and quite frankly of another planet. They tell us he is on the autism spectrum, a little bit of Asperger's perhaps, a lot of anxiety for sure, but no label, he is an oddity that they can't quite put their finger on. What we do know is that the school system isn't able to help him. We tried, oh how we tried for years, but, as another friend put it, it doesn't matter which side of the Titanic you place your deck chair, if the ships going down, get off the ship. So get off the ship we did. In March of this year we decided to sell everything, trade in the car for a truck, buy a fifth wheel RV and head west. We are going to home school, we are going to teach our son how to survive in a world full of people. A world  where everyday interactions cause him distress. We plan on a year, but who knows what will happen.
 Am I Lost? No, I don't think so. I believe fate put me next to Red Bird because we were meant to be. Without you, Red Bird I wouldn't have found the strength to deal with it all, the doctor's, psychologist's, school's, naysayer's. You are my sister in all but blood. You are supportive, a comfort when I need it and the most fearless person I know. You inspire me to soar. I miss having you just on the other side of the fence, but will treasure this blog and all the stories to come.
Do we know where we are? Not yet, but finding out is the best part. Be strong my friend and keep moving forward.
Always Yours, Sparrow

On the Road to Change or, Why and How We Became Red Bird and Sparrow 

Dear Readers:

It's funny how things happen, how random events change the course of your life, literally, and make or break your spirit. Meeting Sparrow changed my life and I will be forever grateful for that. But, I'm getting ahead of myself because when I met her, she wasn't yet Sparrow and I wasn't yet Red bird. At that point, neither of us knew the truth; we can fly. We were still very much grounded.

In 2005, I moved from one area of Kanata, Ontario, a quiet Suburb of Ottawa, to another and within a month I had a new neighbour move into the house attached to my own. Within no time, this new neighbour and I were fast friends. Was it fate that she turned out to be my "sister from across the pond"? How was it possible that this slim built brunette with a beautiful British accent could be like me in so many ways from our similar body shapes, our reading habits, our fears and our cares to our tendency to emotional outbursts and zealous over-parenting. Even our husbands and children, we discovered, had personalities that were so alike we would often stop mid conversation and ask, "are you sure we aren't the same person?"

What I'll never forget, though, is a nightmare period in my life when, at the young age of 6/7, my youngest daughter started to pull away from the world, started to hide in her closet, stopped eating, refused to play with other children and started to show signs of crippling fears and obsessive behaviours that kept her from sleeping and playing. I remember coming to you, Sparrow, telling you this story of the child I was "losing". We were in the backyard, as we often were, and you listened patiently. You let me spill the tale of psychologists consulted, tests performed, diagnoses made. You didn't say a word other than to encourage me and it was only at our next "backyard chat session" that you told me about "him", your youngest. You told me a story of obsessive behaviours and fears, anxieties and depression, a pulling away from the world and again, we looked at each other and said, "are you sure we aren't the same person?"

We've come to each other with many stories since then, haven't we Sparrow? Stories that are similar, yet different. We're both enraged at a school system that can't seem to support the needs of children like ours, and at psychologists and health care professionals who aren't moving the world as we want them to in order to bring help to our young.

 "I left him", I told you.

"I'm leaving it all behind and taking my life on the road", you told me.

We've become birds in flight through our conversations and that act has actually moved us away from one another. I miss you and our backyard meetings in a way that I can't express but, because I met you and have been deeply moved by your friendship, the course of my life has been changed. I'm spreading my wings, as are you, and I like to think that our friendship made that possible.  I look forward to hearing about your journey, telling you about mine and comparing notes. Here we go on another adventure together, a "blog adventure".

Love always, Red Bird