autumn's promise

And suddenly autumn is here.

While mid-day is still hot, the sun still shining brightly down, early mornings, evenings and nights are cool. The duvets are on the beds, housecoats are once again in morning rotation, and socks are increasingly warranted.

It is a subtle shifting, a promise that the dog-days of summer will come to an end, a gentle warning that winter is coming and that it is time to make ready. Soak up the warmth and sun while you can, the aging summer tells us: colder, darker days are on their way.

We heed its call. We revel in the last days of summer, while also looking ahead to the coolness of autumn and making plans. Apple picking, perhaps? Autumn cleaning (let's scrub those windows while it is warm enough to have them open!), sewing up warmer clothes to ensure our cool weather wardrobes are ready. Redecorating in autumn leaves and autumn colours.

Letting go of summer and its joys makes room for embracing the vibrancy of autumn. After months of bright sunlight and green on green, autumn in eastern Ontario is a glory of colours. While summer's colour is near the earth on flowering bushes and plants in gardens, autumn paints the canopy with an array of shades, a last burst of brilliance before the gathering dark approaching the solstice: something glorious to remember as we enter the dark months of the year.

As each season ages, I begin to look forward to the season's change, not only for the novelty but for the reminder of rhythm, the new breath that it represents. The final days of summer a great, desperate exhalation; the first days of autumn an awed gasp of inhalation.

Urban Sprout Clothing

A dear new friend of mine recently said that when she is trying to keep something inside, something her spirit is calling out for her to do, her body rebels. Illness and unwellness follow, a sort of pathetic irony of the body. Maybe that's what I was processing for these past months: the desire and the drive to create and to begin something, my attempts at fighting it pushing me to the point of spiritual unwellness and confusion.

Remember how I said that professional challenges have spurred our family to new opportunities? Well, this is mine. And it's pretty exciting, though a little daunting, to be quite honest with you. 

I'd like to introduce my new venture, my first Etsy shop.

For literally years, I've had friends encouraging, urging, goading, and generally cajoling me into doing this. It's taken more than three years, an additional child, one move, one nerve-racking change of circumstance and much apprehension to finally get going. But now here we are, and I'm absolutely thrilled with this new opportunity.

The shop is still very new and not terribly full, but it's there, it exists, and I'm slowly going about the rather tricky business of building a name, a brand and gaining exposure. 

About the garments: currently I'm only offering dresses, though I have other plans in the works. The dresses are based on the idea that when we put a lot of time - or in the case of a purchaser, some money - into a garment, we want to really get our money's worth. A dress that is outgrown in a matter of months feels, to me, like a waste, so my dresses are designed and fit in such a way that they continue to be wearable and fit well for upwards of two years, possibly even more. The photos of the modelled dresses, for example, are 18mo size dresses worn by my 2 year old. They fit like a tunic, rather than a knee-length dress, and look great with leggings or jeans. She can even wear the 12mo size dresses as an apron top (and, toddler-willing, I'll manage to get some modelled shots of that someday soon). Longevity, comfort, and an uncommon sense of style are what I focus on for each and every garment I produce.

The blog isn't going to turn into one big advertisement for my shop, so not to fret about that. But since I write about our life, and this is now a central part of our family's life, I wanted to share. Urban Sprout Clothing has a Facebook page, as well as the Etsy shop: I am deeply appreciative of every follower we have. And if you follow me on Etsy, you'll get immediate updates whenever a new product is added to the shop.

I can't even tell you how excited I am to have finally opened the shop, and I am so glad to be able to share that excitement with you.

onward

Three months with no blogging.

It's interesting, really, how sometimes when I'm processing things I reach out, get verbose and hyperlexic and want to share share share. But sometimes not. Sometimes I process quietly, internally, intimately, personally. I share nothing. I work through whatever it is in my own head, often very slowly.

Three months of slow, internal processing.

The craziest part is I can't even tell you precisely what it was I was processing. I just...was.

Lots has happened, yet everything feels very much the same. All the girls of the house are a year older: Bubby had her second birthday May 3rd, Peanut had her fifth on May 19th, and I rang in my thirty-third (yes, I'm airing my age on the internet: does that make me brave?) on June 22nd (and conflagration-free, too!). Even Wembley reached the ripe old age of eight in mid-May.

Last year I struggled with Bubby's birthday. This year I journeyed toward it with a greater sense of calm, of acceptance. Time will go on, my children will continue to grow and age whether I would will it so or no. And they are glorious, these children of mine. They shine like stars and glow like beacons and every new ability and milestone is a mark of the wonder of them. If I spend too long looking backward at what we are leaving behind, I may miss seeing all that they are doing now and will do in the days to come, and what they do is so amazing, so hilarious, so fabulously silly and astonishing and brilliant that I would never want to miss a moment of it. So we move onward. Onward and upward, into the new.

Just before my birthday, I had a personal realization as well. It occurred to me that after almost six years of retirement from dancing, I had gotten soft. My body had gotten soft. I had lost muscle mass and strength and I didn't like it. I also know that with my history of pregnancy induced hypertension, pre-eclampsia and HELLP syndrome, I am at a heightened risk of having hypertensive issues later in life, not to mention the family history of hypertension. And I vowed to myself, "No more." 

If you follow me on Pinterest, you likely noticed that I've started pinning a lot of exercise and strength training links. The fact is, I know that it will be a lot easier to establish a pattern of healthy, vigorous activity at the age of 33 than at 43 or 53 or or or... And all the better to try and stave off hypertension than to attempt to undo years of damage. In the past weeks I've discovered - to my great surprise - that I love high intensity interval training (HIIT) and I now try to fit in at least 12 minutes of it every day. Less than two months in, I can honestly say that I am stronger and fitter than I have likely ever been before, and without ever lacing up a running shoe - because try as I might, I cannot find the running love. I'm lifting, as well, and feeling good about the fact that I can carry a basket full of wet laundry more easily than before. 

At first I struggled with allowing our girls to see me working out, out of fear that I would encourage body image issues. Quickly, though, I realized that all I am doing - because I never, ever comment on my body or anyone else's - is modelling healthy activity levels for them. "Mommy is exercising! Mommy is getting strong!" is what I hear from Peanut many times a week. Hopefully, they are learning not that their body should look any particular way, but instead that strength and exercise are worthwhile and healthy, that movement and activity are enjoyable at any age and will help them to be fit and happy, lifelong.

The past three months have seen me take my first real henna clients, have seen me connect with other local women who are focussed on community-building, and have seen two short articles of mine published. It's been a time of transition in many other ways: our church community is seeking a new minister after almost fifteen years with one wonderful minister, a man I have been privileged to call friend, leader and mentor, who has encouraged me and spurred me in my writing and in my spiritual investigation. We miss him desperately, but as with my children, I know we need to look forward in hope rather than look back in sadness if we are to grow. Time marches on: we must march with it.

Our family has seen some transition, as well. Faced with professional challenges, both Jon and I have branched into new opportunities, new possibilities to help our family prosper and thrive. Moments of - frankly - terror, have given way to hopefulness and vision and renewed purpose. After all, we've been through some pretty challenging times and came through it stronger and better than ever. It's perhaps a little Pollyanna-esque, but we're choosing to view unexpected challenges as good opportunities and motivation to try new things. It's easy to be comfortable and stagnate when things are more-or-less simple: when things are not, what is there to lose?

With that in mind, I have some very important and special news to share with you. My in-real-life friends have been goading me - thank you! - to do this for literally years, and I am proud to have finally done it. I hope you'll enjoy reading about it.

fruition

I said I was going to blossom this year.

In the brief moments I've had in the past few weeks to meditate on the past year, I've seriously questioned whether I actually have. Have I actually blossomed? I have I really accomplished all I could have?

But - being a fan of analogies as I am - I thought some more. The blossom isn't the culmination. The blossom isn't the great finish. The blossom is merely the step necessary before fruition. Apples and pears and oranges and peppers. Fruit for eating. Seeds for propagation. New plants. New life. The blossom is only part of the journey, not the destination.


And what have I done with this past trip around the sun? I sought out healing for myself, realizing that the honouring of myself could no longer be avoided. I changed my diet to find wholeness. We moved house, ridding ourself of the stress and anxiety that our previously mouldy, perpetually moisture-ridden home was bringing us, and instead embraced a little more quiet, a little more green, a little more space. We embraced home education, introducing a Waldorf perspective to our home, our family, our life. And I embarked on new endeavours, taking on clients and holding space with them as they walk into new stages of life.

I'm actually pretty proud of my year. It was rough at times, without question, but I have ended 2012 far, far more positively than I ended 2011. I've ended it in a very different place, both literally and figuratively, and while I'm a little surprised at the path the past year's journey has taken I am pleased with where I am. I feel grounded, like I know where I stand, like I have a sense of where I'm going. Even the big question marks hanging about seem more like gentle curves in the road rather than perilous blind corners. And I'm comfortable with that because life is unexpected: I certainly wouldn't want it to be boring.

fitting it all in

A week ago I woke up and my neck felt all wrong. Painfully, painfully wrong. Somehow in my sleep I managed to slip a vertebrae out - this isn't the first time this has happened by any means - and got some pinched nerves and shooting pains in return. Ouch.

By Saturday I'd seen a new chiro near our new apartment and yesterday morning she gave me the results of her evaluation. Not good. I've got some degeneration, reduced mobility in a bunch of areas and some parts of my spine are even curving the wrong way. Lovely. She's given me a care plan that takes me through January. It's acute, it's comprehensive...it's expensive.

I've been hoping to start dancing again. $

I've been planning to get back to my naturopath. $$

I've been really wanting to do get some coaching or do some e-courses with at least one of the amazing women I know online. $$$

And my clothes are rather threadbare and our laptop's on its last legs and I really would like to get a tattoo...

But my spine is pretty essential to, you know, everything. It feels like a rather clear priority.

It's hard. It's hard to prioritize self-care. Because on top of that list of hopes and plans is the reality that my children are going to need new shoes, they're growing out of their clothes, they need craft supplies. Peanut's in dance classes but we've thought about Kindermusic and art classes and outdoor adventuring and...and...

I struggle to fit myself into the list. Even if money were no object, the time alone needed to accomplish all of this is an obstacle to be overcome. Obviously I'm succeeding to some extent, but I've got a long way to go.

I had a night out with some wonderful, beautiful women yesterday. What a satisfying, sustaining night it was! But my aim, really, is to find a way to meet everyone's needs more or less at the same time. Instead of only caring for my self through time away from my family, I want to fulfill some of my own needs while meeting those of my family, while spending time with them. To stop effectively abandoning myself when I am with them. Surely there is a way...I just haven't found it yet.

And I truly believe it is important, not only to myself - because how good a mother am I if I've entirely fallen to pieces, right? - but to my girls as well. Someday they may be mothers themselves, and I never, ever want them to believe that the picture of good motherhood is a woman who has abandoned her own needs, who has poured everything of herself out to her family and taken in nothing for her own care. I never want them to have the misguided impression that they no longer matter because they have had children of their own. I want more than that for them. We all want more for our children than we ourselves have. I want them to succeed in this adventure of mothering better than I am.

Or maybe I really am getting the hang of it. After all, I did take the girls with me to my chiro appointment yesterday and I've written this entire post while they play independently. Perhaps, with a little innovation, I can find even more ways of incorporating all our needs. There is self-care in the acknowledgement of even a modicum of success.

blossoming

I haven't written a lot about my word for 2012 since I first mentioned it in January. In truth, it's been very challenging to put anything down about it simply because circumstances haven't been particularly "blossom-y". Ongoing struggle with post-partum whateveritis, food sensitivities, moving house... it's been a busy ten months. And while I certainly have been thinking about blossoming, about self-care and growth and direction and intention, the thought of actually writing about blossoming, right now, this year, with all that was and most definitely was not happening was positively depressing. So I didn't, because who wants to read (or write, for that matter) some downer post about things not being accomplished?

What's interesting about so many of life's journeys is that we often do not realize we are even travelling down the road, we do not see how far we have actually managed to come, until we pause and look back. In the past few weeks I've been glancing back and realizing that it is time to write about this, time to acknowledge my journey, because I have truly come much further than I thought. It's reason to celebrate, it's worthy of acknowledgement.

Back at the dawning of this year when I shared that my word for the year would be "blossom", I wrote:

I am in a season of change. In retrospect, it began over a year ago with dreading my hair, though I didn't realize it at the time. It is proving to be a season of spiritual change as I reflect and re-evaluate my faith and my vision of the church, of what the church is meant to be and how I fit into it and how that affects and effects my relationship with God. It's a season of emotional and existential change as I reflect on my identity, my role in our family, my role in society at large. I have been meditating on what and how I contribute, on the value of what I do, on balancing my desires for my children, my family, and myself. I have been struggling with how to balance what I do with what I think, my full-time mothering with my feminism.

Since then I've been largely focussed on my own sanity and health, but as things have levelled off, as I've started to gain a better understanding of what I need (sleep!) and need to avoid (corn products and peanut butter!) I've been able to investigate new possibilities.


A day after I wrote that paragraph I quoted above, I wrote this:

I need to exist in relationship with others. Too often I've heard truths about myself - about what and who I am, from the people who surround me, who love me, who see my own realness - which I had not seen before. My first step on this existential journey is to acknowledge that I cannot do this alone. I cannot merely reflect on myself: I need to see myself reflected in the people around me. 

And, beautifully, that is precisely what has happened. Before this summer I received a phone call from a dear friend, a member of my circle of fellow birth-minded women. This dear friend is not only a kindred soul but served as our doula at Bubby's birth last year. We first met in 2009 and instantly connected. She is a wise, funny, Christian (but not drippingly puritanical) birth-worker. And back in the late spring, she asked if - nay, she told me - I was ready to start attending births formally. To put myself out there, hang out my shingle, and no longer call my self an aspiring doula, but just a doula, here and now. I said, "I don't know" and she told me: yes, you are. You really are.

So I am. I'm a doula with Nativity Birth Services. Cool, eh?

And then one evening after we moved I was playing with some henna and I did my foot and my hand because, hey! pretty! and the next morning I was out with the girls and went into a shop to buy a wallet. The shop was very quiet and the girls were particularly funny so the shopkeeper and I ended up talking for quite a while and she noted my henna. She said, "That's beautiful: did you do it?" and I replied yes, and she said, "You should give me your business card: I always have people asking who they can get to do their henna." This lady was Indian, and I was absolutely floored: a woman from India - where they know good henna work when they see it - thought mine was good enough for fellow Indian women to wear at their wedding. So I gave her a Nativity business card with my info on it. Nice. But it seemed like I should do more, since one doesn't automatically think "henna" when one hears "doula".

So I declared myself a henna artist and call myself Red Tent Henna.

But because I've seen mother-blessings go oddly, and have spoken to women who have wanted one but lacked a circle of friends and family who understand what it is, I decided I'll lead mother-blessings, too. And then I thought, "Hey, I love a good rite of passage for all sorts of reasons: why limit myself and the community to only mother-blessings?" So I don't.


So I've done some blossoming I didn't really expect to do because I opened myself up to the reflections of myself in the people around me, the people who see my capabilities clearly without the fog of self-doubt and worry, without the nagging weight of past struggles.

And isn't that exciting?

how my children teach me to forgive

Child of God. We hear these words often enough. "You are a child of God" we say to one another; "I am a child of God" we describe ourselves. But as I've meditated on how we live, on how we relate to God and to each other, on how we enter into our relations with God and the Church, I've come to the realization that we may be only paying lip-service to these words. Child of God.

Or perhaps we do believe. Perhaps we truly do see ourselves as a child of God. But not a "child" child. An adult child, a child who has grown up. After all, don't nearly all parents say of their grown children, "Oh, you'll always be my baby" despite the practical evidence to the contrary? But while I know my mother looks at me and can see me as the infant, the toddler, the dimply-kneed ringlet-headed girl I once was, our relationship has most definitely changed. Now myself a mother twice over, she and I are more peers than we ever were before. We understand each other in more fundamental and complex ways than was ever before possible.

Is this true of our relationship with God? Jesus calls us "brother"; Jesus calls us "friend". But it's extremely dodgy theology to in any way suggest that we are now in a peer relationship with God. Jesus removes the barriers of sin that divided us from God, the salvation of Christ lifts us up to the beatific radiance of God's glory, but it does not make us peers with God. 

We need to start taking these words at face-value. I am a child of God. I am a child. Not a post-child, not a former child, but a child here and now. I do not understand what is before me. I do not see what God sees. I do not act with Christ's maturity, understanding or grace.

But look at children! Look at the kindness of children. Our four year old has a habit of antagonizing our one year old. She's been known to use her considerable advantage in size, pushing, body-blocking, grabbing, and pulling her younger sister around. And what does our one year old do in response? Rather than returning in kind, more often than not she cries out in alarm, in distress, only to reach out to her sister once again. She's more guarded, quicker to protect herself, but bears no grudge. She reaches out, again and again and again to her debtor. And how does her older sister respond? With further torment? No, instead she learns from her small sister's kindness, takes her by the hand, embraces her, laughs with her, plays with her.

Their relationship is a true, human microcosm of real forgiveness. It isn't blind or self-dismissing: there is room for self-care and protection. But it is never ending, it is repetitious, it is kind and it is healing. And my children understand it. They do. And while their father and I have tried to manifest that forgiveness for them, it seems far more innate than learned. So if my children can naturally fall into Christ-like patterns of forgiveness, being a true child of God isn't such a bad thing, is it? As Psalm 8:2 reads,

Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you;

toddlers shout the songs

That drown out enemy talk,

and silence atheist babble.

Approach God as a child, free of pretence or self-importance, of self-aggrandisement or pride. Approach Her in wonder, in awe, in complete lack of understanding, in utter confusion. Lift up your voice in joy, in laughter, in glee, in spontaneity, in total disregard for propriety. Fall on your knees in dependence, in reliance, in need.  She doesn't call us to be strong but to embrace our weakness, to accept and acknowledge our brokenness.

Like the child that you are, let her "cover you with her wings; you will be safe in her care; her faithfulness will protect and defend you."

honour the present child

Children are actual, genuine, autonomous and fully valuable human beings.

The demand - they command! - respect, consideration, concern and interest.

The minute - the very instant - we fail to treat our children in a way which acknowledges and honours these truths, we fail our children. 

Not maybe. Not sort of. We do: we fail them.

I fail my children a lot, I will admit. I do. But I keep trying. I keep picking my mother-self up and dusting her off with my metaphorical objective philosopher-self hands of grace and get back to the business of mothering. Back to the business not simply of raising these children as though they were crops, not simply training them as though they were a domesticated animal, but growing them. Of growing with them. Of living with them. Of learning from them what they need as much as - if not more than - I am teaching them. 

Children will not "grow up to be someone someday". They are someone. They are each someone. Right now. Right here. No matter how small or uneducated or crazy or clumsy or challenging or confused or silly or unsure they may be, they are each of them someone. Someone worthy. Someone valuable. Someone with thoughts and feelings and ideas - oh, so many ideas - and wants and needs and talents - yes, talents! - and strengths and weaknesses and questions that cry out to be heard, to be seen, to be felt, to be honoured.

I am tired - utterly, truly, totally exhausted - of trying to convince fellow adults of these facts. Of trying to convince fellow former children that today's current children should not be seen as mere potential. They possess potential - scads of it, heaps of it, endless bounds of it, of course - but to speak only of their potential, to seek only to feed or cultivate their potential while ignoring their very real, very present and very deserving current abilities is heartbreakingly dismissive.

Do not dismiss children. Do not dismiss what they can do here, now, today. Do not ignore the small person you see. 

Do not presume for one moment that - because you have never taken the time to inquire, to listen, to hear - the child before you does not have profound and complex thoughts.

Do not ever forget that that child is as much a Soul as you.

mind the gap

Years ago, when I was practicing yoga regularly I had a favourite class. I loved - absolutely adored - Power Yoga at Rama Lotus taught by Ian Fraser. Loved it. It was a hot, sweaty, 90 minutes that left me feeling energized, stretched and cleansed. I felt positively buzzed with happy hormones. At that time I was still taking weekly dance classes and performing frequently. Still, in stereotyical early-20's-female fashion, I was fairly critical of my body. But one day, after savasana at the end of my weekly Power Yoga fix, Ian was walking around the room chatting with other yogis and yoginis, and he came over to me. He knelt down next to me as I sat on the floor, packing up my water and mat, and said, "You know, you have a very strong abdomen." 

I was really surprised to hear this; I thought of myself as sort of squidgy and soft around the middle. So I looked at him and said, "Really?" "Yes, really," he replied. "You're very strong."

I've never forgotten that. It totally changed how I thought of myself. It didn't change the way I looked, and I still had some soft squishiness around my middle, but from then on I carried the knowledge that my abdominal muscles - the very core of my body - was strong.

That was great knowledge to have. Sadly, I don't know that any more; in fact, I know that now my abdomen is not particularly strong. And let me tell you, I am not pleased about that. Not at all. 13 months after Bubby's birth, I still have at least a 2-finger width separation of my rectus abdominus muscles (those are the so-called "six-pack" muscles) leaving me with reduced abdominal strength, and that translates into lower back pain and compromised breath support when I'm singing. Not cool. And, in an ironic twist, my former strength may have contributed to my current gap and lack of strength, as I've learned that strong abdominal muscles are more likely to resist the necessary stretching to accommodate a growing baby and will instead separate and move aside to make space.

I want my core strength back. 

For the past year, though, I've been afraid to exercise out of fear of making it worse. I know that exercising abdominal muscles with a diastasis recti (the technical term for a separation of the rectus abdominus) can actually worsen the condition, which is obviously the last thing I want to do. So for almost a year now I've done nothing about it. Nothing. And I felt a little helpless, a little powerless, with a sense of inertia about the state of my body.

Helpless. Powerless. Inert. A rather apt description of depression, isn't it?

A sign for me that the adjustments my naturopath has made to my diet and lifestyle are proving effective is that I no longer feel helpless, powerless and inert. I feel like I have found my feet, put them solidly underneath me and am ready to get to work. I've started healing my brain and my spirit: now it's time to heal my muscles.

I've started a board on Pinterest on core health and to it I'll be posting Youtube videos and websites with tips and exercises that I have found and am using to try to close that gap. I'm doing my exercises - gently, carefully, progressively - every day. I'm hopeful that I'll start to feel an improvement fairly soon, I just need to be patient.

Even more important, though, is gaining the feeling - better, the knowledge - that I am not controlled by my body's weakness. Just as I can shape my hormonal and gut health through nutritional choices I can shape my body through exercise. And my goal isn't to return to my pre-pregnant state - that's impossible - but to find whatever health, strength and vitality I can for my post-two-babies body, just as I will claim whatever satisfaction, happiness, confidence and stability I can for my parenting-two-children spirit and mind. In all ways, I want to be stronger. I will be stronger.

richness

We're looking at rental listings.
Yes, again.

Our reasons for looking after being here for two years are varied, and this new search is not undertaken without some misgivings and not only because the prospect of having to pack our belongings now with two children running around (including a new toddler with an unboxing fetish) is so unappealing. After two years this is home. This is our home. And while there are things about it that we do not like - the inefficient electric baseboard heaters, the very hard, concrete-slab-topped-with-parquet floors, the inconveniently-located electric baseboard heaters, the unreliable elevators, the ridiculously-expensive-to-employ electric baseboard heaters, the humidity issues, and did I mention the baseboard heaters? - we have memories here. We enjoy this space. We have danced and sung and played and grown in this space. It can be a good place to be.

But still we're looking. We've been looking since March. Because we want to find the right place, not a place right now. We don't want to be doing this again in a year or two: all things being equal we want to settle down for as long as possible.

We've seen a wide variety of places, from little houses to brownstone apartments to stacked townhouses to basements units. None have been quite right, though we've come very, very close. But as the process has gone on and on...and on, I've developed a new and reflective perspective on it all.

We've heard so many times - usually from friends and family who would never countenance living downtown - that we could save a lot of money by moving out of centretown and into the suburbs. And that's true. Or we could spend the same amount of money and get way more space and a yard. Either way, a dollar goes farther outside of the urban core. We know this.

What it comes down to, though, is richness and how we're defining it. Is richness having more money in our pocket? Is richness having more space in our home? Or is the currency of our richness found in time, in the time we get to spend together as a family, time we would lose if we were a long commute away from Jon's office? Or is our richness in the energy of the city, seeing the life and liveliness of the street just outside our window throughout the day, knowing that we can simply walk out the door and engage with our community through the mere act of sharing space - sharing the city - with fellow citizens?

At the end of the day, what will leave us feeling richest?

Finances are a consideration, obviously. Scraping by is hard and I am sick of doing it. But as we approach this move I am more aware than ever that our happiness cannot be measured simply in dollars, that square feet of floor is not a measure of satisfaction or joy. So as we look at strangely quirky, smallish apartments that represent a significant dollar savings, I consider, "Will we actually be happy here? Will we simply be counting the days until we can move again?" And as we look at places that will cost us exactly what we are paying now, I wonder, "Would we be happier and more secure with lower expenses? Will we feel hampered by the cost?"

It's a question of balance, really. And there are new developments, new changes to our financial situation (I'll be talking about that in an upcoming post: it's terribly exciting news!!) that factor into our consideration as well. I'm not sure how it will ultimately play out.

So for now we're scouring Padmapper (if you're looking for rentals and haven't used Padmapper before I highly recommend it: it is so much more convenient than hours of scrolling through Craigslist, Kijiji and all manner of other online listings), arranging viewings and trying to reckon it out. And, in true Presbyterian fashion, we're taking a fatalistic view to it all: the right place is out there, we just need to keep looking for it. It will come along. The trick, for us, is to discern what "right" really looks like.

power

I have been astounded by how powerful having dreadlocks has been. I mean, it's hair. It's just hair. It's perpetually growing, almost infinitely alterable...so why all that power in letting it knot up? It doesn't make any sense to me.

But there it is.

On July 11, 2010, I was sitting in church listening to the organ playing during the collection of the offering when, apropos of nothing, I thought, "I should dread my hair." I immediately responded to this thought by saying inwardly, "That's a crazy thing to think: where did that come from?" I kept trying to dismiss the notion.

It would not be denied.

I mentioned it to Jon and he agreed that it was a crazy thing to oh-so-suddenly think. Despite feeling that it was a ridiculous idea, despite knowing that it was a massive commitment, by the following afternoon I was sectioning my hair and backcombing it (I later learned that backcombing is essentially useless, but live and learn, right?).

It hasn't always been pretty.

It took a good six months before they started to even look like dreads: until then it just looked like I was massively neglecting my personal grooming. But as they matured and changed and shrank and shrank and shrank and eventually started to grow in length again, I found that my love for them grew. I also found that having dreads was a far more profoundly spiritual experience than I had anticipated. I initially thought that if I dreadlocked my hair I would just...have dreads. Nothing more, nothing less: just a different look.

I was so wrong.

What I discovered within days was that dreadlocks are - for me, and for many others like me - a journey. There are lessons and opportunities for growth and self-discovery to be had in the process. Lessons about self-identity. About surrender. About priorities. About beauty. About choice and self-direction. About patience - oh, so much patience - and acceptance. And along the way I have felt freer, with a fuller understanding of myself - of who I really am - than ever before. And I've felt beautiful. Truly, personally: beautiful.

Lately, though, I've been feeling a little constrained by my dreads. Washing them - or rather, drying them - takes a very, very long time. The ends of my dreads have looped back onto themselves in some strange ways, causing the tips of many of my dreads to be two or three times fatter than the rest of the dreads. It makes them hang funny, fall out of a bun easily, dry more slowly, and be far shorter than they otherwise would be. Frustration was mine. And there have been many wistful moments while brushing Peanut's hair - her hair that is so precisely like mine - when I have missed my old hair, my long curls. Those curls were so aggravating at times, but by turns so lovely.

I've felt a little trapped, truth be told. Cutting off my dreads seems so drastic and not at all a solution to my disquiet. But what else could be done?

Take a breath: I haven't cut them off.

Last night I had a dream. It was short, simple, and incredibly vivid. I stood in the bathroom, in front of the mirror, and I combed out my dreads. And I was happy. So happy. When I awoke I was almost surprised to find that I still had dreads, the dream was so real. And it occurred to me: why not? Why not try it? I know that it's possible to comb out years-old dreads: the beautiful Denise of Boho Girl recently combed her several-years-old dreads out over a period of weeks. As she describes it, it was a peaceful, calm process, one that served her need for change and a return to softness.

I'm not yet sure that I'm ready or supposed to release my dreads entirely at this point. I think I may have some more journeying to go. But while some of the greatest lessons I have gleaned from this process is surrender - surrender to the process, surrender to time, surrender to what will be - release of preconceptions - allowing things to follow the path they will, releasing my desire to control and constrain - and acceptance of what comes my way - rather than constant disappointment and critique - I've also learned a lot about my power. I have the power to defy expectations. I have the power to push my own limits. I have the power to be different and unique and noticeable and to do it without feeling afraid or constantly self-conscious. I have the power to step out of the box I built for myself all those years ago in high school and blossom into the person I truly want to be. What I'm discovering as I have meditated on this for the past few months is that my dreadlocks are merely a symbol of that, an outward representation of that power. And with that in mind, I not only have the power to surrender to my dreads, but the power to shape them if I want. It sounds pretty obvious: I control my hair, my hair does not control me.

So this morning after I ate my breakfast I rubbed some conditioner into the tip of one particularly lumpy-ended dread and started brushing it out. I brushed out a few inches of lock, which amounted to over six inches of free hair. Then I did another one. And another.



I don't know what will come of this. Maybe I'll let the free ends lock back up again but do some maintenance to keep them from lumping up the way they did the first time. Or maybe I'll gradually comb them all out. I haven't decided, and at this point I really can't. Since I seem to be getting these messages from the ether about my hair, I'm happy to continue that way. It hasn't led me wrong yet.

I now find myself on a precipice of sorts, in a liminal state of self-imagery. Am I a dreadie? Am I not? It's a strange mental space to occupy and I'm finding it challenging and more than a little anxious, but also rather exciting. However I proceed, I've seized a little more power for myself, from myself. That can't possibly be anything other than a good thing.