{time tidal waves}

My head is going to spin off!

I'm not even sure if the whole 'time' thing is legitimate anymore. The concept of chronological order is a sham. I feel like all of the moments are melding together and crashing down like waves on rocks in oceans. And I'm sitting on those rocks (like a moron) getting absolutely drenched, and winded, and I only have time to dry off and catch a breath before the next one hits. I won't move though, because I don't want to miss this.

I'm about 23 weeks along now, and the moments in this last time tidal wave have been so sweet. We went to our second ultrasound a few weeks ago and found out that we're having a boy. I bought him a cardigan and some swimming trunks, even though he'll get here in the dead of Saskatchewan winter. He's started kicking Barclay's hand when he puts it on my belly, and we've given him a first name and a middle name and a hat. Sometimes I'll be cooking or drawing a picture or reading a book and he'll kick or squirm and I'll cry over it, because I still can't believe this is real. I've had dreams like this for ages.

Barclay wants to decorate the nursery with Rush posters.

{belonging}

I've been having kind of an emotional deja vu these past couple days, and it took me a very long time to nail it down, but I've got it now.

It first hit me on the weekend, on Saturday. I was sitting on a picnic blanket with Barclay in a field. We'd snuck off between the ceremony and reception to do a quick run-through of our songs; he had his guitar and I was laying there on the ground with my feet out of my shoes just being quiet, letting him work through a tricky part. We could hear the gathering crowd just a little further down the hill, and we could hear the wind above the trees, but everything and everyone very respectfully left us alone. 

Then, a few hours later, I found myself on a different picnic blanket between two of my good friends. We were laughing really hard, and I can't remember what it was about. Something somebody said, or probably the chubby toddler who was running around sneaking drinks from strangers' cups. And there was that feeling again. 

Again the next morning, sitting in church, and again afterward at my in-laws' house. I found the feeling yesterday morning in a hug, and in a text message conversation with someone I haven't seen in a long time, and I remembered it from a phone call I had on Friday. And last night, I figured it out. 

It was Liz's birthday this weekend, on Saturday, so last night a few girls came over to help her celebrate. We made a weak attempt at a British tea party (except that Liz doesn't like tea very much, so we had to trade out tea for punch). We stuck feathers in our hair in place of fancy hats and ate scones with jam and peach-apple crisp and cucumber sandwiches cut into stars and triangles and we put our pinkies up as we drank our blueberry punch out of ornate teacups we borrowed from Kiersten's mom. And we watched The Curse of Mr. Bean, the one where he goes to the swimming pool (to add some British humour to the evening).

Somewhere in there, I figured out the name of the feeling. The feeling of Belonging, to a group or to a person or to a family, has been following me around. 

{sipping it slowly}

I've been soaking up the last few days of summer (which officially ends on Saturday--I looked it up) in my little city. Spending my time outside, walking around, keeping the windows open to let the breeze slip in, letting the sun hit my face even if it burns a little, sipping it slowly. Because once it's gone it's really gone, especially in Saskatchewan. The leaves in my backyard are starting to turn red in places. All my plants are dying or dead. Things are starting to fall back into some sort of routine. I start piano lessons up again tomorrow with six students right in a row, and I'm excited about it. The kids are sweet and I've missed them. I need more artwork for my fridge, you know? Barclay and I got to sing together at a wedding this week; we dropped the ball and didn't even practise until the morning of, but I think it went ok (aside from me forgetting my lyrics cheat sheet at my seat and forgetting a bunch of words. I made some up and hopefully no one noticed). It's been ages since we've done music together. Add that to the list of Things to Make a Priority This Fall. Just before 'learn to make amazing cinnamon buns.'

{whist}

I wasn't feeling top notch today, so I spent a big chunk of time refilling my cocoa cup, listening to music, doodling, and playing around on photoshop. My good friend Kiersten has decided to get back into blogging, so she asked me to doodle up a new page for her to drain her brain onto. The specifications were: coral, teal, burlap, chalkboards, and a hydrangea. It's nice to be able to turn part of my brain off for a little while and concentrate only on symmetry and straight lines and shadows and textures and colours. At some point in the afternoon, the music ended and I left it off for a while so I could listen to just the scratch of my pen. That is such a great sound. Anyway, to see her new blog, click on the screen shot below--and then keep an eye on that space. Kiersten promised me content ASAP.

{learned things}

I always wanted to be a writer.

(Except when I wanted to be a librarian because I thought the job description was: read all the books in the library so you know what they're all about. In case someone asks. Also, know the Dewey Decimal System.)

The only thing that ever changed throughout the years was what kind of writer I'd be. There was the Nancy Drew phase, where I wanted to write about mysteries and teenaged heroines who got kidnapped every other week. There was the travel brochure phase, where I realized that the people writing the travel brochures probably got to travel to the places they were writing about. Then there was a romance phase and a journalist phase and a biography phase and a comic book phase and a music/interview phase and even a choose-your-own-adventure novel phase, among others.

The options! Were! Endless! Every time I read something -- a children's book, a magazine, the back of a cereal box -- I realized that these were someone's words that someone else had deemed worthy to put into print in whatever form that might take. The ultimate honour.

I told this to a friend at summer camp one year. She looked shocked. "That's, like, eternal English class."

I nodded excitedly. "Exactly."

She shrugged. "When I grow up, I'm going to be a full-time mom."

And I shrugged back. "Of course," I said. "I'll be a mom too." Because that was always kind of a given in my world. Girls were moms. Moms and maybe something else, if you wanted. Probably not, like, an astronaut or anything, though.

Fast-forward through the next ten years or so and there I was, at 25, wondering if I might not be a mom after all. Not that I didn't have time left, just that we'd done all we could medically and our specialist had said, "You're infertile and I don't know why," and our only remaining option (from a financial and emotional perspective) was "wait and see."

It was a weird shift for me. Like I was suddenly on the ceiling, upside down, and everyone else in the world was still standing on the floor.

Then the people around me seemed to start having kids all at once. Like there had been a meeting about it. And then, because it's what happens, the baby showers started. I don't mind baby showers. I don't like that one game where you have to eat the baby food and guess what kind it is, but baby showers in and of themselves are nice, I think. Balloons! Food!

But at the baby showers, I'd inevitably get cornered by someone I didn't normally talk to, who didn't know me very well. I'd be downing pink cake by the handful and she'd pat her newborn's butt or rub her own expanding belly and say something like but not necessarily, "You don't know what you're missing out on. My life didn't begin until I had a baby." Or she'd sigh deeply and philosophically and say "I didn't know what love was until I became a mother." Or she'd laugh, "You have no idea how selfish you are until you become a mother!" And on, and on.

And not just at baby showers. Facebook, real life, blogs, wherever. A lot of women love to talk about how the act of bearing a baby makes you stronger, how childbirth pushes you to inhuman limits, how motherhood makes you softer and more loving, how it cements your relationship with your husband, how it changes you and grows you and shapes you.

(And I'm sure it's all true! And I'm sure these sweet ladies meant well. It felt more like they were trying to recruit me than make me feel inferior.)

But hearing all of this made me worry. I'd spent my whole life believing that part of my job as a woman was to have a baby, and, I guess, that that act would take me to the Next Level as a human being. This might sound absolutely ridiculous to you, but in my mind, 'infertility' equalled 'stunted growth'. Emotionally, spiritually, physically, mentally. Like the doctor was saying, "Well, you're doomed to be exactly as immature and selfish as you are right now and your marriage won't be as amazing as it could be because you don't even know what love is and you're going to miss out on approximately 3/4 of the average woman's life experience." Like I could never be a whole, complete person. Like I got stopped at the gate for no apparent reason and had to watch everyone else board the plane and fly away.

I was saying yesterday to Barclay how the taste of infertility that we got (because I know, I know it was only a tiny taste compared to what many have to go through) is probably one of the experiences I'm most thankful for in my whole life. Because [a while] after my dramatic perspective shift, after the part where I laid down on the ceiling and cried my eyes out, I began to realize that personal growth, physically, spiritually, emotionally, and mentally, isn't something passive that happens to you as a result of an event or an experience or a life stage. It's something you have to work at, and something that you can and should work at no matter what stage in life you're at.
And that there are a lot of beautiful, strong, selfless, amazing women who have made a massive difference in my life and in the lives of others who are not mothers to the people they're loving and building into. That I need to keep my eyes open for opportunities to build into others and to love others really, really well, like they do.

And that I have intrinsic value beyond what I have or haven't done or experienced in this life.

And that we aren't all given the identical life path to walk, and that that's actually a good thing. Some of us will be moms, and some of us will be single, and some of us will be married, and some of us will be writers, and some of us will be astronauts.

And it's not about us anyway.

And as a result, this past year has been so full and good and fun and rich and stretching and challenging and growing. I've been travelling and trying hard new things and meeting new people and building relationships and keeping my eyes open and learning.

And in May, when we found out that it was finally our turn to experience the parenting thing, I found that my whole outlook on it had changed. I wasn't looking to motherhood to fulfill me as a person, or to make my marriage better or my life more beautiful or whatever. I'm crazy thankful for it, but it's not The Thing. I want to keep growing and learning in other areas. I want to keep enjoying new music and new experiences and new places.

I want to keep my eyes open.

I still want to be a writer.

{happy birthday Robyn Koester, thank you Kristen Berkel}

I went to watch my good friend Robyn play her songs at the CCC last night. It was soft and flawless, and I felt proud of her; she's very good. She told the story about how when she went to high school in Germany, she'd meant to take sky diving lessons, but then there was a war and so she had to take guitar lessons instead. She told it better than that, though.

A long time ago, we were walking around the Village and we made some kind of pact with each other that by June of, oh, 2011 (I think?), she would've recorded a CD and I would've written a book. We didn't shake on it or anything, but I think about it sometimes in my free time and feel like I've failed a little. All I've written since then are blog posts and to-do lists. (What am I supposed to write a book about?)

And now, even if it is two years and three months late, she's upholding her end of the deal and recording a little EP this weekend. I'm pretty excited about it, partly because I'm going to buy it and listen to it when I walk to the grocery store in the mornings, and partly because I know she's wanted to do this for a long time and I think it's really great that she's finally "taking the leap", you know, as it were.

Oh and it's her birthday today. (Happy Birthday, Robyn.)


PS: In the band who played after Robyn, there was a girl playing the autoharp! I mean, I realize it's 'a thing' lately for these indie bands to reach for uncommon instruments in a display of pretentious esotericism, but I still got pretty excited about it. What are the chances? I could almost smell my grandparents' chesterfields and feel the blisters on my little fingers gotten from hours of strumming away on that thing with no concept of how it worked. THANK YOU KRISTEN BERKEL.

{zithers and autoharps and schmaltz}

A friend of mine was asked by a friend of hers to pick out the music for her upcoming wedding. Which is kind of weird to me because that was pretty much the only decision I actually even cared about making for mine. I let one of the bridesmaids pick out the dresses, my mom picked roast beef for the supper, and I wore her wedding dress with the sleeves chopped off--it fit me, and it was a sweet dress even 25 years later--so even that decision was kind of a no-brainer. The main thing was that I got to pick the music for the ceremony.

(I mean, obviously, the main-est thing was that I got to pick the guy. And I did. And I picked Barclay. And every day I'm like, "SWEET. Good pick." Schmaltzy, I know.)

So anyway, this friend sent me a text the other day asking if I knew of any good wedding songs, and this is the first song I sent her because I just so happen to have been listening to it obsessively since last month sometime. I think the draw for me is the fact that it sounds like she's playing an autoharp through the whole thing, which makes me think of both of my sets of grandparents who kept autoharps under their chesterfields when I was a kid. I grew up thinking that all grandparents had autoharps under their chesterfields.

(I couldn't remember what the name of the instrument was, only what it looked like, so I googled "strummy old people instruments", and came up with a picture of a zither. And that's basically what an autoharp is, except it has chord bars and dampers.)