memories

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Dear Mom

October 9th, 2018

Hi.

Today marks 5 years since the day you passed away, and I… don’t want to be sad on this day anymore.  At least, not all day.  Just as much as every other day you’ve been gone.  Last year I spoke to you out loud, in my car, on the way home from a weekend away.  I told you about the big life changes that had happened to me that year, and how I thought you’d feel about them.  I felt a little bit silly doing it, but that didn’t stop me from talking for at least 15 minutes.

This year I decided to write to you instead.  I have some thoughts and feelings to work out, and I tend to do that better in writing than out loud.

It’s been 5 years, and I don’t think about you every day anymore.  Often, yes, but not daily, multiple times a day, like I used to.  And when I do, I feel guilty and sad, as if I’ve forgotten you–which I haven’t–of course I haven’t.  But this is what has changed: I am no longer able to imagine what my life would be like now if you were still here.  I can’t.  I used to, in the first couple of years, imagine our conversations around certain events, what you’d think of new friends I’d made, how you’d react to some of my life choices (if I would have even made those same life choices?).  But now, it’s just been too long so many things have happened that have changed who I am and the way I live that I can’t imagine what you would think or feel if you were still here.

I don’t know if this makes any sense.  I think I’m rambling a little bit; let’s get back to where we started this thought.  I don’t want October 9th to be a sad day anymore.  I’ve written before about how arbitrary that date already felt, being so disconnected from the day we actually lost you.  And now the date means something else to me–it is the birthday of someone I love very, very much.  So I want it to be a happy day.

Is that okay?  Is it okay to want to celebrate even though it’s the anniversary of the day you passed away?  Is it okay to be happy most of the time and try to remember you with joy rather than grief?  I guess that’s what I’m writing to ask and try to figure out.  And as for the date, October 9th is not really a date I want to associate with you, because there was nothing good about that date for you or us.  I would so much rather celebrate you at Christmas and Mother’s Day and your birthday, and all of the other days of the year when the slightest thing reminds me of you.

All of this being said (and I’m probably completely contradicting myself now), I know I will still think about you around this time every year and feel the pain again–that’s something I can’t control.  What I would like to do is try to actively turn that pain into joy and celebration–not block it out… What am I trying to say?  I think I just want to cry when I need to cry, but try to stop feeling guilty when I’m happy on days like today.

Five years in and I still don’t really know how to grieve.  Maybe I should try to celebrate more instead.  This year I celebrated your birthday by making a playlist of all of your favourite music (or what I knew of it based on what we listened to growing up) and while there were a few tears, what I feel while listening to this playlist is usually overwhelmingly happy and nostalgic.  It brings back such good memories.  I want to do more of that: more collecting and sharing of good memories.

I don’t know how to end this.  I don’t know if I’ll write something like this again (if I do, it might just be in my journal).  I guess I’ll just say…

Love you forever,
Adela

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belated

Yesterday was Esther Day, the day Nerdfighters all over the world take time to say “I love you” to friends and family, celebrating platonic love in memory of Esther Earl.

I remembered that.  I was thinking of it days beforehand, making sure I wouldn’t forget to tell my dad and my brother and text all of my best friends that I love them.  This is just to say that I’m usually pretty good at remembering important dates.  But a week ago, I forgot my mother’s birthday.

I only remembered today because I’m reading Letters from Motherless Daughters by Hope Edelman, and she was talking about birthdays being milestones in the grieving process.  One week ago yesterday, on Monday, July 27th, my mom would have turned 50.  The big one.  I can’t believe I forgot.

I know that I’m really good at being in denial.  But I think it’s time to acknowledge that not thinking about Mom is doing myself a huge disservice.  Here I am reading about daughters who think of their mothers every day, who still look to them for advice, who are still struggling with the loss ten, twenty years later.  And here I am after less than two years, struggling to remember the sound of Mom’s voice and crying because I forgot her 50th birthday.  It’s as if I’ve been trying to pretend she never existed.  How awful that sounds.  It’s not the way I feel and it’s not the way I want to be handling this at all.

Reading this book has also had me thinking about memories.  I had a few seconds of panic earlier today.  I was thinking about making a memory scrapbook and was drawing a complete blank on anything to put in it about Mom in my lifetime.  But then memories and ideas and stories came flooding in, and I soon realized that one scrapbook might not be enough to hold it all.

So I think it’s time I stop hiding from my loss, stop putting thoughts of Mom out of my head the second they arrive, start revelling in memories rather than living in denial of the grief that, deep down, is still very real.  Anything less would not only be a disservice to me as I navigate through my now motherless life, but it would be a dishonour to Mom’s legacy.  It’s not going to be easy.  But I really need to stop taking the easy way out.

scotland 45

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starlight and reflection

Snow, like fog, makes the city quiet.  Winter has finally decided to grace the streets, rooftops and bare branches of Owen Sound.

It’s been a while–over a month! First because November was NaNoWriMo (my first–success!), and then because my December break has ended up being busier than I expected or planned for it to be.  But I would like to do a few end-of-the-year posts, so I thought I’d better get started!

Christmas was last week, the second Christmas without Mom (hard to believe), and I’ve been thinking a lot about her favourite crocheted white cardigan, for some reason.  Unfortunately it was one of the things we threw out when my grandma and I went through her closet, because it had a hole and several stains.  Now I wish I had held onto it.  It is essential to the number one most tangible image I can recall of my mom; that is, I can remember the texture of the cardigan and the tickle of her earring against my cheek as I give her an over-the-shoulder hug from the back.  It was the image that projected itself into my mind a couple of weeks after Christmas last year, when I was meditating on the studio floor before modern class.  It has stuck with me since.

I’ve had two ideas sitting quietly in my head for a few months, and I think I’ll mash them together for this post.  Because, friends, 2014 has been a remarkably (surprisingly?) good and happy year for me, and I want to reflect on some of the reasons why.  I will do this with two lists: first, a list of projects that I have done and choices that I’ve made this year that have helped in easing a lot of the pain, loneliness, and melancholy that tends to creep up on me.  Second, a list of bright moments: those moments that, as I look back over the past year, stand out to me as moments of pure happiness.  Then on Wednesday, New Year’s Eve, I will finally open my Good Things jar and reflect on all of the special moments I may have forgotten.

A List of Helpful Projects

  • The Follower Appreciation Project: In January, I decided to launch an appreciation project for my tumblr followers, because although they are very quiet and we don’t have a lot of interaction, I think it’s pretty cool that there are over 400 people out there who share my interests, many of whom have been with my silly little tumblr blog from the start.  So, in light of this, I sent a message to every single one of them: just a simple message containing a hug and some smiles and hope for good days all around.  It took me about a week, but the responses were almost overwhelming, still trickling in months later, reciprocating smiles and stories and brightening many of my days in return.
  • The Happiness Project: In February, I decorated a small jam jar with a sign that reads “Good Things About 2014” and began filling it with little scraps of paper (torn bits of yellow sticky notes).  The tiny scraps are just big enough to write the date and an abbreviated description of something that makes me happy on any given day.  Sometimes I had to use up several pieces on one particularly full-of-happy day, while other times I’d forget for a week or two and have to look back and try to pick out moments to write down.  It has been a fun and useful project which will doubtless come to an especially exciting finale on Wednesday.  The jar is now so stuffed full of little bits of yellow paper that I can hardly open it without them popping out.  It’s been hard to resist the temptation to peek!
  • Loneliness Be Gone Project: Not really a project… but essentially this year I have been taking more of a stand against my loneliness (especially when at school, living alone) by shoving my anxieties behind a curtain and actively seeking out social happenings.  Basically this just means that I reached out to my friends more (texting first, admitting loneliness, making plans) and have allowed myself out of the corner a little bit when in a room full of people.  Joining conversations slightly more frequently rather than just listening and observing, etc.  They seem like small things, but these are things I’ve had a lot of trouble with in the past, and I’m slowly getting better.
  • Reflection: I decided very early on that blocking memories or avoiding conversations regarding Mom was not healthy or good in any way.  Still, I haven’t been very forward in expressing the desire to talk about my mom, with my friends, with my family.  But I did two things on my own.  I read my mom’s journals.  And I went to a grief counsellor.  The journals are from ’89 to ’93 and surprisingly weren’t as hard to read as they were fascinating.  I learned a lot about my mom, her beliefs and her wishes, and it has changed the shape of my own lens and my own plans, a little bit.  The counsellor I only saw twice, and it was good because I was able to share a lot of stories and unload a lot of pain without worrying about it being too much for the other person (which is one of the reasons I haven’t really told my friends any of it, that and the fear of seeming selfish or attention-seeking).
  • Writing Projects: I’ve had quite a few writing projects this year aside from the Good Things jar.  There’s this Blog, first of all, which has been a new and compelling experience; one I will absolutely continue in the new year.  I’m making it up as I go along, but since it’s mainly for myself I suppose that’s okay!  Other writing projects include getting back into more steady journalling, the 50k words of NaNoWriMo (invigorating: the most motivated I’ve ever been to write), and a new hypothetical-book which I started in the spring and just picked up again a couple of weeks ago.  I’m hopeful that something might come of it.

This is a long post already, but I’d like to do my list of little happy moments from the year, so bear with me!

Looking Back: A List of Starlit Moments

  • Yule Ball 2014: The happiest I’ve ever been in a room full of two hundred people–entirely because I was sharing it with several of my best and closest friends.  I danced without feeling awkward, I smiled until it hurt.  Magical.
  • February 15: The day before my birthday, I went to my friend Tim’s house where he gave me a dead rose in a pot and we played Magic: The Gathering and doodled silly pictures until midnight, when my brother called me to wish me happy birthday.
  • The Second Task: Two of my best friends and I helped with the second task of the Triwizard Tournament (which York’s Ministry of Magic was hosting) by being Grindylows in the pool.  Then we walked through lamp-lit snow to celebrate our champion’s win at the new bar on campus.
  • Workshop: In the beginning of April, I invited one of my favourite dance professors from York to teach a workshop at my home studio, and seeing my own awe reflected on the faces of my younger dance classmates and students was a happy thing indeed.  Not to mention that Helen drove me from York the day before and we discussed everything from the unique artistic expression of modern dance to the bizarre psychology of reading.  It made me feel very important, somehow.
  • Hallway Politics: This was in the spring, when I spent those few glorious months living with three good friends in a house on campus while taking a dance science summer course.  One night, probably a week or so before voting for provincial elections was open, the four of us somehow congregated in the narrow upstairs hallway between our bedrooms and ended up sitting there for over two hours discussing the political situation and potentialities of Ontario, especially with regards to education (three of us being education students as well as dance).
  • Flower Crowns: The last Thursday that I was living in that house in the Village, three of my friends came over and we spent an afternoon making flower crowns and listening to to Disney music.
  • Studio Sleepover: In July we had a sleepover at my home studio.  I made red velvet cupcakes, read a ghost story I’d written specifically for the occasion, and had important late-night discussions with the two youngest of the group (nine and ten) who were not interested in the older girls conversations about boys and bras.
  • Wonderland: In August, a day at Canada’s Wonderland with one of my best friends! Despite the storm in the afternoon, we had a grand old time, and it was especially nice because I never get to see my friends from school over the summer.
  • Audition: In September I auditioned for the 4th year choreography show, Dance Innovations, and had the most positive-feeling audition I’ve ever experienced (I have avoided a lot of auditions since coming to York due to anxiety).  And bonus, I was chosen for a piece!
  • Improv: Near the end of October I had what was probably one of the best afternoons of my life, and certainly the best dance experience I’ve had.  It was an improv workshop organized by our favourite musician.  A couple of other musicians and music students accompanied him while we danced for about an hour and a half, with brief breaks for reflection and discussion.  Only six dancers showed up, including me, but I think that made it even more special, especially because three of them were my friends (the ones I lived with in the spring, actually!) which made it even more fun and comfortable for me.  This was when I really discovered how much I love dance improvisation.
  • Halloween: The week before Halloween, one of my best friends and I got matching giraffe onesies which we wore to the Ministry’s Deathday party as well as to our ballet class for spirit day.  On actual Halloween I had my other best friend home in Owen Sound with me for our mid-term break and we dressed up to hand out candies and go to the movies, along with my brother and one of my best friends from high school.
  • December 2: We had a study day, so my giraffe best friend came over and we baked and made Christmas cards all day, while listening to Christmas music and eating chocolate and popcorn interspersed with healthy meals.  We also went to see Big Hero 6, which was adorable.

Those are the biggest ones, though as I said before I’ve been very lucky in happiness this year, and there are a lot more bright moments that I haven’t mentioned, and more still that have slipped my mind but are certainly saved in my Good Things jar!  And with that, I think this post is certainly long enough.  Tomorrow I will post another old poem of mine from creative writing class (the last one, I think, and then I’ll have to start writing some more!), and on Wednesday I’ll conclude my Happiness Project!

I’m glad that winter is finally here, and I hope it is able to stay for a while.

I took this photo earlier this evening, when I was walking the dog and this little pile of snow on the turned-down bit of bark caught my eye.

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nostalgia

Image

Is it strange that nostalgia is arguably my favourite feeling?  It’s a strange feeling, kind of a peaceful limbo between happy and sad.  It’s a feeling that often motivates me into writing (and drawing and crafting, to a lesser extent).  I thought I’d compile a list of things that make me feel nostalgic, or things that I feel nostalgic about when I think about them… just to see if anyone else experiences a similar thing!

things that make me feel nostalgic

  • lilacs
  • swings
  • crusty, half-melted snow in March
  • turning cartwheels
  • reading under the covers
  • collard greens
  • hammocks
  • winter
  • fairy houses
  • leaf piles
  • sidewalk chalk
  • climbing trees
  • being barefoot outside
  • narrow dirt roads
  • rain
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memories I

I went through a mystery novel phase between the ages of six and nine.  Someone gave me the first six Nancy Drew books in a boxed set, and she was my favourite of favourites for a long time.  I used to love going to the library booksale every November, where I could buy a box of ten old books for less than a toonie.  It wasn’t long before I acquired almost the whole (ridiculously expansive) collection of Nancy Drew books, as well as some other lesser known teen-girl-detective books like Trixie Belden and Herculia Jones.  My favourite Nancy Drew books were the ones in which Nancy fainted at some point in the story (which is a hilariously high percentage of the books); I’m not quite sure what that says about the type of child I was.

    

Sidenote: I was just trying to find the title of another series I vaguely remember and stumbled across this very interesting article about how positively dated the original Nancy Drew books were in terms of social and political correctness.  I guess that wasn’t really something I was thinking about when I was seven.

I have several very clear memories from my mystery-binge era.  I remember Trixie finding a locket (or perhaps an earring?) in a lawn full of clover.  I remember feeling righteously furious at whoever wrote on the back of a Herculia Jones book “look out Nancy Drew, Herculia Jones is coming through”.  Almost as angry as I feel now when I hear anyone say “this will be the next Harry Potter”.

One memory has given me the rather interesting realization that I was reading full novels and somehow understanding them before I even knew what a sentence was.  I had been reading, unsurprisingly, when my best friend and her mom came over to visit, and my mom suggested that we go up to my room and read together; “Take turns reading sentences,” was what she said.  When we got up to my room and jumped on my bed, we had to figure out what she had meant by “sentences” and I decided that a sentence simply meant three words.  So we read three words at a time, back and forth, until my friend got bored.  Incidentally, the book we were reading was of the series I can’t remember the title too, though I’m about 99.9% certain that the protagonist’s first name was Arizona… if anyone feels like going on a book hunt for me?

I remember my mom getting a very battered copy of Sherlock Holmes from the library for me on the grounds that I liked mysteries, but I stopped reading it after the first couple of pages because I wasn’t quite ready for literature-level murder mysteries at the age of eight.

Through these girl-detective books I learned words like “sleuth” and “blazer” (improperly: in my imagination Nancy went around wearing neon-bright sweaters!).  I learned that fainting is a fact of life and mysteries always have a simple and logical answer that is usually obvious from the get-go.  In short, I didn’t really learn anything at all.  I started to lose interest in the genre when I noticed I could predict the ending of the books from the first couple of chapters–probably less because I was some kind of prodigy and more because they all had pretty similar and clear-cut solutions.  I was catapulted out of this phase of my life as a reader when my dad bought me the first Harry Potter book for Christmas when I was eight–out of the mystery phase and straight into the fantasy world I have lived in to this day, where I probably will stay for the rest of my life!

What sort of reading did you get up to when you were a kid?  Did you go through distinct genre phases?  Can you remember the first book that gave you very strong opinions about something?  Which books triggered your changes in taste?