169 Days

It’s been one hundred and sixty nine days since I posted about my inner dialogue and the vacation it took without me. Since then a lot has happened.

In brief: Jose Miguel and I separated. Mi familia y yo had an amazing/awkward/perfect/painful last week as a family in Perú. Two-thirds of mi familia flew back to Canada. One-third of mi familia screamed for over an hour on a flight from Winnipeg to Regina. A gorilla, a robot, some long-lost members of Jem and the Holograms and my Dad met us at the airport. Saskatchewan, as always, proved cold and somehow comforting. I made some bad choices, obsessed a little and lost twenty-five pounds from the stress of it all. I’ve never looked better. I started Spanish 101 and found myself in a level of hell only verb conjugation can create. I started reading and writing en español at a level I never thought I’d reach. I felt proud of myself. Jose Miguel was approved as a Permanent Resident of Canada after well over a year of waiting. We were told our paperwork was some of the quickest of anyone in our situation. I still want to burn Immigration Canada to the ground. Jose Miguel moved to Canada. Turns out the full three-thirds of mi familia in one house is amazing. We vaguely looked into filing for divorce but then something came up. Gaia learned to walk after an intense session with her personal Phys Ed teacher while Canada was winning an insane amount of gold medals in the Olympics. I finally went to Salsa night. I didn’t dance. I bought a car. I actually won’t own it for four years. Semantics. I tried snowboarding for the first time and I was amazing, even if I couldn’t move for almost a week after. I applied for a job, got offered a job and turned a job down. I’m glad I changed my mind. I love my job. Jose Miguel stayed home with Gaia full-time for almost a month. He’s an amazing father and still the most handsome man I’ve seen up close. The fact that we’re horrible at being married remains. I started running every morning at 6:00am. It made me feel strong and powerful and brave. We celebrated Gaia’s first birthday with a big party and a cake only my Dad could create. Jose Miguel took one last contract on ships. He left. Gaia got a spot at a home daycare. Gaia got kicked out of a home daycare. Gaia got a spot at an amazing, reputable, government subsidised daycare. I was reminded that everything happens for a reason. Gaia and I went to Vancouver for a visit. She made a lifelong friend in a big black dog, had her first experience with finger paint and was the star at her second first birthday party. She did this while wearing an excessively large tutu. I got to catch up, tell my story and celebrate the thirtieth birthday of one of the most amazing people I know. I felt like I could breathe again. We went home. I started a passionate love affair with coffee. Gaia started a passionate love affair with making friends. We are all very happy. I bought an iPhone. I took a week off Facebook. My Dad started cooking family dinner on Sunday nights. I got to dress like a grownup every day. It’s been said, by my boss, that I could take over the world all while wearing six-inch heels. She’s a smart lady. Gaia was exposed to every germ in existence. One day I caught her licking the floor at daycare. She was sick a lot. She stopped sleeping through the night. I talked to Jose Miguel on the phone almost every day. Who would have thought? I got my hopes up for spring and then it started snowing again. I questioned my decision to live in Regina. I started dating, realised I was bad at it and quit. I cut over ten inches of hair off my head. I was relatively unmoved but I’m pretty sure my stylist cried after I left. I had a picnic with my Mom. Gaia enjoyed her first ice cream cone... and her second... and her third. The sun came out and we got a big plastic pool shaped like a shark. Again, I got my hopes up. It was grey and rainy for a month. I cleaned my bathroom. Gaia proved she is a budding genius through a series of events I relayed to anyone who would listen. She started running everywhere. I finally sorted through all my old boxes, found I’d saved every piece of paper from university and threw it out. Now I have a whole extra room in my house. I’m planning on setting up a studio space for me and my girl. Gaia still doesn’t speak save for “Mama”, “Dad-Dad” (what she calls her Grandad) and “Uh-Oh” but she is the best non-verbal communicator I’ve ever met. She now knows the signs for “please”, “more” and “all done” thanks to the wonderful women at daycare. She has a genuine best friend who makes her laugh like no one else. They have perfected the best friend high-five. She climbs up the stairs, up the couch and up the walls. I’ve taken to telling strangers she is NUTBALLS when they look at her picture in my iPhone. She is. I drank many glasses of red wine and got drunk for the first time in a long time. I went to a lot of BBQs, playdates, dinners and a gala. I had my picture taken by Regina paparazzi one night with my boss. Apparently I’m Regina famous (or rather, employed by someone who is). A good friend came to town. We ate the best burger I’ve ever tasted, hosted a BBQ, drank a lot of Big Rock Lime Beer and bought fifteen dollars worth of jellybeans. I redesigned the blog one night while I watched Whip It. Jose Miguel and I made some decisions. We're still not divorced. This weekend the sun started shining. I got a tan while logging working hours and danced on the grass with Gaia when I was finished. Last night I took her to the park. She slid down the slide on her own for the first time. She perfected the art with at least eighty more solo slides before I could get her back home. As a result I think I developed an arm muscle I didn't know existed. This morning I felt like writing.

I make no promises, but... I'm back. Did you miss me?

Feliz Año

When I was in high school I wanted to be a writer. To travel the world and drink wine in the wee hours and spend weeks with lovers who I didn’t understand all while wearing really expensive shoes. I wanted to weave stories about life and love and adventure that I’d seen with my own eyes. Some throw away words from a teacher about how often I became “wordy and a tad self-indulgent” gave me doubts. When I went to university, fully enrolled in the Creative Writing program, the thought of sitting through classes where my peers critiqued the words I’d poured over turned my doubts into fears. I quit. I focussed on someone else’s art. Years and years of someone else’s passion. I poured over it and let it fill me up. Still, with every step I take a story weaves itself in my head until my thoughts are full with a rich inner-dialogue from a narrator to the story of my life who sounds just like me. Last year I jumped fast on the overflowing Mommy-blogger bandwagon. It was an excuse to write, a way to feel less alone and a place to find the overwhelming peace that has always come with telling my story. I thank you all for listening. I hope that soon I can find something worth your attention again. It’s been too long since I’ve had a story worth telling. I pride myself on my love affair the silver linings of life and for the past few months those silver linings have receded so far my narrator got lost in the clouds. My inner voice went on a vacation with happiness, passion, self-respect, dignity. I could go on forever. They must have chartered a jet. Rented a whole hotel in Vegas. Like no other this year has been full of the most epic highs and the most devastating lows I hope to ever encounter. There is a story here I’m sure, but not one I’m willing to tell and certainly not the one I thought I’d be writing. The moral to this untold story? Today, for the first time in months I saw the silver lining and the briefest glimpse of my narrator through the clouds. I hope her travelling companions aren’t far behind.


Tomorrow would have been my first wedding anniversary. Instead I’m choosing to let it mark the beginning of my new life. My new year. My new chance. To promise myself to search around every corner for the pieces of myself that went missing until I feel whole again. To stare at the sun and play in the ocean and buy myself a pair of really expensive shoes. To make myself good again. To be myself again. The truth is, if it were just about me I could wallow in the darkness indefinitely, but this year has brought me the biggest reason to always find a silver lining. She’s been the best silver lining I’ve found.

The icon of my fresh start. Wonder. Adventure. Beauty. Gaia.

All Apologies

I'm sorry. I really am. I make promises I don't keep. I'm inconsistent at best. I know. I know. If I were you I'd stage a dramatic blog break up with me, I would. I just don't have the patience you do. But I really do plan to get back to blogging regularly soon. In the meantime read this. It took me awhile to warm up to Dooce but with this post I'm officially in love. Power to the people. Damn the man.

PS. If I post a video of G laughing her little baby ass off will you forgive me? Yeah... I thought so.

The Catapult

Jaydeen (one of my BFFs who I write about frequently) and her main-man-Myles have started a blog which promises to be chock full of amazing photographs. Both have a wonderful and unique way of seeing the world and Jaydeen's photos in particular leave me wanting to wax poetic about life and art and travel and beauty. I've been begging her for years to get her shit together for an exhibition in Miami (where she currently lives) but for now this will have to do. A professional by no means her photos are simply a momentary glimpse of what life must look like through her eyes. We should all be so lucky to see what she sees.

If I haven't convinced you yet then have a look at some of my favourite shots she took while she helped me survive in the two weeks after Gaia was born.

Unfinished Thoughts

I’m sorry I’ve been so lame on the blogging front lately. In Vancouver I simply didn’t have time. Since I’ve been home I’ve been feeling so gross I actually thought I might be pregnant again... which I’m not... unless the three tests I took today are wrong. Add to the lack of time/energy the fact that Gaia is struggling pretty hard to give up naps entirely and I’m longing for blogging time. Still, I have so much on my mind. Here are a few things that may or may not get written about if I can ever find the time again:

• How it seems that even if I were dress my daughter up in a pink tutu she’d still get mistaken for a boy. It’s not that I mind so much just that I’ve been spending an extravagant amount of time obsessing over why everyone thinks my daughter is so butch.
• How I was a little sad when I got married that I’d never get fall in love again (well, you know, ideally) and how wrong I was. Since Jose and I got hitched I have not only gotten to fall in love with our baby girl, but also with Jose again and again in so many ways. I don’t think there’s anything else in the world like falling in love with your husband as a father. It’s pure magic.
• How rattled I am by the whole Jon and Kate divorce. I hate myself for caring, but I do. Last week I imposed an official ban on gossip magazines to not to participate in feeding the media fire. Today at the grocery store I noticed Michael Jackson has officially taken over the headlines but frankly I’m not interested in feeding that fire either.
• How amazing Gaia is in her new Jolly Jumper. I know a lot of people think they’re death traps but it makes her so happy it’s insane. I swear she thinks she’s learned to walk and jump and dance free of outside intervention but with a snappy new belt (obviously a big girl accessory).
• How Gaia and I slept in separate bedrooms on Wednesday night for the first time ever and how she did so well that I moved her into her big girl bedroom permanently which has resulted in me making over a hundred paper cranes to hang from her big girl ceiling. Crazy? Slightly. But also beautiful.

And those are just a sampling of the things I’ve been itching to write about should I ever find the time. Anything in particular tickle your fancy? Let me know and maybe it’ll give me the motivation to expand on it.

A Mental Vacation

Consider this an apology for three whole days without a single post. I have a lot to say but as yet have not found the appropriate words to say it. Soon. Or maybe I just need a few days to not have the appropriate words so I can just pick up where I left off and leave these last three days a mystery. We'll see. I'm fine. Gaia is fine. Jose is fine. My family and friends are all fine. Well. More or less. My life? My life is beautiful. Still I wait for the other shoe to drop. I'm always waiting. I teeter on the edge of having everything I never knew I always wanted while I cling to the fear that it could all be taken away. Just like that it could all be taken away. I like to think of myself as a pretty realistic person. Good and bad. Black and white. Right and wrong. I'm big on fairness. On karma. On the golden rule. A number of things have happened this week that have reminded me that life isn't always fair. Bad things happen to good people. Good people who don't deserve the sadness or shock or loss. Good people who don't deserve the struggle. I'm taking a week off from the news, from the media, from the gossip magazines and CNN and from the fiction. It's become clear that now is not the best time to read My Sister's Keeper. I'd say it's apparent the movie can wait awhile too. I'm taking a week off from the deaths and the injustice and the broken hearts and publicity stunts and tragedy that seems to be taking over my mind this week. I'm taking a break.

Blog-Lazy and a Baby Birthday

The beautiful weather in Vancouver is officially making me blog-lazy. As in, I spend every spare second outside exploring my new summer neighborhood with Baby G so when we finally come home to sleep I’m far to tired to string together sentences in any coherent fashion. I promise I will try and rectify the situation tomorrow. In the meantime today is Gaia’s three-month birthday. How it’s even possible that I have a three-month old baby is beyond me. I wonder if I'll still feel like that when she's thirteen?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY G!

Testing. Testing. One. Two. Three.

Is anyone out there? It seems I’m making a real go at this blog thing, but part of me wonders exactly who, if anyone, is intrigued enough by my average life to be reading. Who are you? What do you like about the blog? What do you hate? What would you like me to write about? If you’re out there let me know. I’d love any feedback you have! Oh but if you’re going to tell me I’m wordy and a tad self-indulgent don’t worry... I know. I’m pretty sure after twenty-seven years of much of the same that’s not about to change.

In other news I finally took a picture of the super creative baby gift we received from “Mahi Mahi”, a good friend and one of the sweetest, most adorable Royal Caribbean Youth Staff I met in my travels. Moulded from Model Magic, an Adventure Ocean staple, it’s an adorable version of my little family. Until life can imitate art I guess I’ll have to make do with the fact that at least the Crayola version of me gets the two people she loves most in the world in the same country (and living quite a happy life on my shelf I might add).

Lullaby

Sigh. I know. After a promising start I went and had a baby and let the blog thing slip away. It’s funny because from what I can tell the first months of motherhood seem ripe for reflection. I’m back though and committed to trying to get all these thoughts in my head out onto the screen. I have big plans people so bear with me. For tonight, I’ll be brief.

This afternoon was spent, as is most of our afternoons, talking to Jose Miguel via Skype. We’d chatted through a feeding and the consequent burping, a bounce in her chair and an adorable online game of peek-a-boo when suddenly, inexplicably, Gaia started crying. She started crying with the full-on, high pitched wails of a baby girl who’s seriously distressed about something (although what it was is anyone’s guess). I offered her a pacifier. I bounced her. I held her close and whispered into her ear. I kissed her. I rubbed her back. I rocked her. Nothing was working. I almost forgot Jose was watching us until I heard him start to sing softly in Spanish. Just as suddenly as it had started, Gaia got quiet. She looked at her father, singing to her through my glowing laptop screen, smiled a little and fluttered her eyelashes then promptly fell asleep. Jose finished singing while I watched my baby girl settle into my arms and her heavy sleepy breaths. There’s nothing quite like the moments when you notice that the man you married is exactly the man you hoped he’d be. Lately I’ve been lucky enough to have a lot of those moments.

I’m going to sleep now and if the Gods are good I’ll be dreaming of the way my daughter looks while my husband sings her sweet lullabies. In my dreams we’ll all be in the same country.

Chaos, Chance & Change

As I was checking my email at work last week and I was suddenly struck by the date. I’ve been twenty-seven for a whole month! Granted, it’s not that twenty-seven is a particularly important age, but rather that, for me, my birthday always seems to mark the official end of the year. It’s always on my birthday that I take the time to reflect on what’s passed and look towards the future. To determine the bad habits I’d like to give up and bask in the hope of new beginnings. Plus, I’ve always gotten the feeling that the days between December 26th and 31st were just ‘filler’ anyway. Yet somehow this year, amidst walks on the beach, llamas and inca kola, 2008 seemed to slip into 2009 without much thought. Which is funny, because let’s be honest, if there was ever a year fit for reflection, it was 2008.

The result of this realisation? I’m starting a blog. Do I fear that blogging about my life is terribly self-indulgent? Yes, but c’est la vie. Judge me if you must. If nothing else perhaps I can blame it on the boredom. Besides, thousands of people can’t be wrong. Right? To celebrate the very first post on my very first blog, I present to you, esteemed creepers with nothing better to do…

365 Days of Chaos, Chance & Change: The Five Fabulous Facts of My Life (Mi Vida) in 2008

#1. Trains, Planes, Taxis and Ships ~ In January, a mere month after signing on the Navigator of the Seas I was presented with the option of an unlimited extension on my sign off flight ticket out of Rome and back to the Great White North. Yes, I was making a decision for my five-months-into-the-future-self with no real fix on that self’s financial, mental or physical state after almost seven months of Adventure Ocean chaos, but riddle me this… what would you have done? After pushing the limits with the illustrious Royal Caribbean Adventure Ocean scheduler I picked an arbitrary date and committed to a (unplanned) European vacation of a lifetime. All I knew for sure was that I’d be kicked off the boat in Rome on June 19th and I had seventeen days to kill before my flight home on July 5th. I spent the next five months half-heartedly planning. A random email to a friend who might want to join me here, a brief perusal of flight tickets and hotel accommodations there and before I knew it I was three days away from sign off with no plans, no partner-in-crime and on the verge of a fairly significant panic attack. The night before I signed off, with more than a little prodding and considerable amounts of calming down from Jose, I booked a room in Rome for the coming three nights. Yes, I still had fourteen days to fill. Yes, travelling alone seemed daunting. Yes, I hadn’t even finished packing. Yet somehow, it all made sense. I think it had something to do with reading of Eat, Pray, Love. Thank you Elizabeth Gilbert.

The next morning passed in a frantic rush, as sign off mornings do. I stashed the majority of my stuff in Jose’s cabin, stuffed my remaining suitcase with everything I could carry, put all my sign off cash in my wallet and I was off. To make a long story short (something I’m not known to do), travelling alone in Europe for those seventeen days was the best decision I could have made. When all was said and done I’d been to Italy, England, Spain, Greece, Croatia and the airport in Brussels (where I justified counting Belgium as country number six on my official vacation tally). I’d seen the sights and checked off every must in the tourist handbook. Along the way I caught up with a great friend, got one more night with mi amour (which, as you’ll see in Fabulous Fact #2 turned out to be quite significant) and finally got to enjoy my “voyage to adventure” on board a cruise ship I was not employed on. More than all of that, what made the vacation warrant a spot on this list was the experience of travelling on my own. There’s nothing like the knowledge that all that talk of independence and adventure weren’t just bullshit and realising, in a way that a university degree, countless hours of employment, budgets and bills never taught me... I was all grown up. Shockingly, when you’re eating gelato on the edge of the Trevi Fountain, being a grown up seems pretty sweet.

#2. The Uber-Fetus and the Art of Making an Entrance ~ I don’t think I’ve ever been as sick as I was the morning I woke up for Rachelorette 2008. Sitting on the side of my bed, shaking after vomiting up breakfast I casually laughed it off when Roberge suggested I might be pregnant. To be fair, playing it safe was not mine and Jose’s strong suit, but if the doctor gave you a less the 2% chance of conceiving naturally wouldn’t you have been tempted to play the odds a little? It was hours later, after much bachelorette frivolity, standing in the liquor store thinking the greatest challenge for the day might be the choice between vodka or beer, when it hit me that taking a test, just to ease my mind, might not be such a bad thing. Of course, next thing you know I’m locked in the hotel bathroom, three positive pee sticks later and suddenly frantic about the reality of the ‘situation’ that would come to be known as the Uber-Fetus. In hindsight it really does seem like fate, but at that moment all I could think about was the fact that I had no home, no car, and soon, no job (ship life and pregnancy don’t mix) and I’d just maxed my VISA on some, admittedly fantastic, 7-inch heels. Did I panic? Hells ya. I guess for me it really was a case of ‘be careful what you wish for’. Anyone who knows me knows I’ve been a little baby-crazy since birth, even evoking genuine concern from fellow Adventure Ocean staff with my multiple adorable European baby-napping plots, but the reality of the situation was a very different from any fairy tale I’d dreamt up in the past twenty six years.

Of course as I write this now, about seven and a half months pregnant, I feel silly for feeling like this baby was anything other than a blessing. Against all odds, with one night in Barcelona, fate seemed to set the stage for my entire life to change. I don’t know where I’d be now if not for the baby, but regardless I know I wouldn’t be nearly as happy. My parents always called me a “surprise” but I think if the Uber-Fetus ever does question the shady circumstances surrounding its conception I’ll just have to tell the truth. Unplanned? Obviously. But then again, aren’t the best things in life those you never saw coming? I like to think that even my tremendous imagination couldn’t have come up with a ‘situation’ as beautiful fate dropped into my lap. Plus, you’ve got to admit, even in utero this baby knows how to make an entrance.

#3. Life in the Land of the Living Skies ~ As I packed “the dirty bitch” (RIP) after my years abroad and drove west to start at UBC it never occurred to me that someday I might end up back in Saskatchewan. In fact, if anything I’d made a secret pact with myself to never let that happen. That was almost eight years ago now and, like most decisions I made when I was nineteen, I’m not entirely sure what the big deal was. Faced with a burgeoning belly, a baby-daddy stuck on a ship in the middle of the Mediterranean and less than $20 to my name, Saskatchewan wasn’t looking too bad. The truth is. I like it here. It’s nice being in a place that has seasons beyond damp, rainy, really rainy and flooding. I missed the snow. I missed the fields. I missed my family.

I officially moved back in August and somehow my Dad and I concocted a scheme to turn his basement into a self-contained three bedroom apartment. I got a job at the MacKenzie Art Gallery, as the Education Program Assistant, finally doing something I really wanted and learning from a woman who’s been in her position for over twenty years. The lack of shopping options and entertainment has been a blessing in disguise, leaving me more fiscally responsible then I have ever been. Plus, I love leaving the house fifteen minutes before I have to be somewhere, instead of an hour. I guess no matter where I’d lived when I was an angsty teenager it probably would have seemed like hell on earth, but I feel bad for knocking Saskatchewan for so long. I played the big city girl for awhile but it’s just like Dorothy said... “there’s no place like home” and I’m glad to be back. Well... for now.

#4. “Si Accepto” ~ I was talking to a friend on the phone today and he pretty much summed it up... “Dude... you’re married”... Yeah.

Now, I’m not the most romantic person in the world, but the truth is, I love Jose more than anything. After what can only be described as pure and unadulterated drama onboard the Grandeur of the Seas and six months of read-between-the-lines emails, when he finally got to the Navigator and we finally got it together, I’ve never been so happy. One of my favourite days in Europe was our disastrous trip to Florence where, with only an hour in the city after misjudging the train journey, we almost got married in a park beside the train station. Logic got the better of us then, but somewhere between the arrival of the uber-fetus and the repeated rejection from the government of Canada the idea of marriage came up again. Now, anyone who knows me knows I’m not the marrying kind and I can assure you, neither is Jose. We kept finding excuses to push the thought out of our minds. Excuses like our repeated periods of separation, the fact we’d only had a life together onboard a cruise ship and the cold, hard truth that, well, isn’t a shotgun wedding a little tacky? Still, the minute I finally saw him in the crowd at the airport in Lima, I knew I wanted to be with him forever.

I absolutely loved our wedding. I loved finding our silver rings in Lima and laugh at their cost (about $15 each). I love that we both wore black and that I’d bought my dress on sale at ‘Le Crapeau’ just in case I needed something nice that fit over my belly to wear while I was away. I loved walking the two blocks through Punta Hermosa from Jose’s house to city hall and that his brother preformed the ceremony. I love that everything was said in Spanish and that we signed our marriage licence with our fingerprints and that, as Jessica King so eloquently put it, we ate “street meat” at our reception. I always thought I wanted Tiffany’s platinum, bouquets of orchids and a tower of cupcakes. I even worried, right up until the day, that I would forever regret not having a ‘real’ wedding. Like everything this year, I was shocked at how wrong I was. I think in the past I’d been fixated on all those things, not just because that’s what everyone else had, but because up until then I’d been missing the most important piece of the wedding puzzle... the groom. I loved our wedding because I was marrying Jose and that meant that everything was perfection. I can’t imagine needing anything more to feel like my wedding was more beautiful than any I’ve ever been to. Plus, say what you will about a shotgun wedding but I kind of liked having the uber-fetus there with us. More than a marriage, on our wedding day the three of us became a real family and I’ll always be able to tell our spawn about the look on her father’s face when (s)he kicked him during our first dance as Mr. and Mrs. Chancho.

#5. Inner Peace eh? ~ I’ll be the first to admit I’m a little hard to handle. I like to think of myself as one of those people you have to learn to love. High strung? Check! Controlling? Check! Judgemental? Insensitive? Bitchy? Check! Check! Check! But somehow, amidst the pure chaos that might have sent me into a shameful downward spiral only a year ago, I managed to stay, dare I say it? Zen. Yes me. Zen. I’m not sure when it happened, or how, but the evidence is irrefutable. I can’t see a cloud without waxing poetic about its silver lining. I’ve taken every obstacle as it came, dealt with it and moved on. I’ve been doing yoga and meditating and giving up prime parking spots in the dead of winter. Some might say it was love that finally did it, others the baby. I’m pretty sure ship people are convinced it’s the lack of hard liquor. Sometimes I wonder if I wasn’t like a computer on the verge of breakdown that somehow got re-booted just in time. A coping mechanism I developed in the eye of the storm like some aspect of Darwin’s survival of the fittest. Truth be told, I think there was always a peace-loving hippy alive and well inside me. If I ever let you in enough to know me well, you usually found her in the squishy parts beneath my cultivated thick skin.