Believe that you have the power to choose a new path

Sunday, April 18, 2010

It was to be a dud column week.

I walked over to the flower garden on Sunday in the sunshine of the afternoon and talked to the little perennial plants sprouting up under the decay of last year’s growth. I encouraged them to make great gains in the next few weeks and how I’d be there for them.

I thought about the coming spring, of green and growing—and the tulip bulbs I forgot to plant last fall.

I thought about finally digging out my spring jacket and remembered I gave it to good will in October. I should never listen to the organizer gurus of this world who suggest an annual culling of seasonal clothing. Thanks to their bright idea that I put into motion last fall, I gave away virtually all of my summer clothes, save for an old tank top covered in paint splotches and a pair of cut-offs to match.

I figured it was time to put away my turtleneck sweaters and then realized there’s only about 35 days until the fall and winter catalogue is available for perusal “on a stand near you.”

And then the phone rang.

When the conversation was over with the dear-to-my-heart soul on the other end, it was quite clear that the Universe had other plans for what would drive me in the next few paragraphs.

Her situation was different and yet the same as those of a hundred other women who are victims of verbal and/or physical abuse in a relationship.

Studies suggest that the brain can handle only two tasks at one time. Add a third and things don’t go well. Obviously I was not a part of that study, because at any given time, I have at least four tasks on the go.

However, right now I have only one charge at hand.

Once upon a time many years ago in the big city, there lived a young wife and mother who did not believe she had choices.

It was a curious thing—not to believe there could ever be something better for her life—because she had been raised to think otherwise.

What she did believe was that even after eight years of marriage there was still room to explain away the times when he made her feel so small and useless.

She still believed she could fix it all by herself with a book on relationships or better yet, just by being quiet.

And so she never told anyone about the times when he got really mad.

And the one time when he exploded in a thundercloud storm of rage, and hurled derogatory words, with the digits of his left hand curled inward as he sucker punched her upside the head and knocked her to her knees—well—she never told a soul about that time either—even though she had dropped like a stone, with a child in her arms.

And when he said he was going to get his shotgun and the words drowned her lungs in terror and she could not breathe, she leapt from the floor with her child, flung open the doorway to a flight of stairs that lead outside, and ran.

Another of her children sat playing on the kitchen floor, yet there was no time to stop.

She leapt in bounds up the stairs, a child to her chest, and burst into the yard in a suburb of the city, and ran.

Instantly, he was behind her. She expected to be shot.

And she ran. There was no one around to help and no one there to save her.

She made it to the neighbor’s front yard across the street before he grabbed her. When she turned to face him, he did not have his shotgun after all.

She pushed herself to the ground, determined to cement herself there, arms wrapped around the child, as the one who scared her so spewed abusive violations and continued to pull at her shirt.

And when everything calmed down—yes, she still believed she had no choice but to remain seated in that marriage anyway.

After all she really couldn’t believe he’d done it. Had he really meant to do that?

What had she said to make him that angry?

And when he didn’t apologize, she never broached the subject with him. Not ever. Not ever. She didn’t want to make him mad.

She stayed small and kept her mouth shut.

It would take her another five years before she believed in herself enough and gathered the courage and made the choice to stand and walk away.

Today, she is a phenomenally strong woman who knows for sure that choice is possible and that “stepping onto a brand, new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation which is not nurturing to the whole woman.”

This is a true story.

The operators of the possibility theory live here

Sunday, April 11, 2010

I interrupt this regularly scheduled column to make a correction on a reference I made two weeks ago to something my dad often says—and I stand corrected.

“It’s always a possibility.” – Bruce Caldwell.

When I first learned of my faux pas from my relative neighbors, I thought to myself, “Anything is possible” and “It’s always a possibility” mean the same thing, so what’s the big deal?

But then I got to thinking about it, and as is, and has been the case on countless occasions since I was born—my parents were right.

There is a difference.

Firstly, a competent writer should never misquote.

Secondly, and though anything is possible, there is more excitement, hope, and anticipation in believing “it’s always a possibility.”

This whole stewpot of word jostling had me revisiting my childhood, a marvelous, carefree world that I frequently long for these days especially when this grown up life tells us we are on the paying end at tax time.

For us kids (myself and my annoying younger brother) hearing a parent say “It’s always a possibility,” as the answer to your question, always left us hinged on the two scenarios juggling our imagination.

And I don’t think we ever disputed the response.

How cool for the parent was that? No rebuttal from the peanut gallery.

There was always a chance.

Of course in the materialistic scheme of things, my brother and I weren’t asking for much. But we thought we were.

The "DQ" soft ice cream cone, or Sunday drive in the country, dessert after supper, a boat trip down the creek, swimming at Boffin Lake, or a snowshoe trip across the creek in the winter to have a hot dog roast, were sought-after experiences.

And when I look back on the countless times we did those things, I’d say their odds were a craps game dream. But we didn’t know that at the time.

I am convinced that the DNA of my dog “Dot” is overloaded with the possibility gene.

Everything she does appears to be with the understanding that she will win. Why else would a dog of her size believe that if she digs a hole in the ground she just might come up with something?

Because she does.

Five young groundhogs to be exact followed by the matriarch.

Maybe I should send her to Saskatchewan with the “Gopher Getters” at the end of the month. She could be renamed “Scout,” the preliminary reconnaissance ratter.

At any rate, she certainly won the battle with her doghouse. The nemesis she’s been involuntarily attached to when I leave the yard has been reduced to a pile of chewed wood and sawdust in her bid to sever ties with it.

Looks like the basement hairy “dog” chair will not be going the dump after all, as it has become the refuge of a winning dog’s bid to not be at the end of a chain.

The words “It’s always a possibility” spilled off my lips and into unknown territory the other day, when Daughter #1 asked me if I would pick up a piece of exercise equipment from the local department store.

Little did I know that it weighed more than my truck.

After sliding it down the stairs to the basement with pulleys and ropes in a two-woman powerhouse sideshow, I was then asked if I would put it together.

Because I was raised to be an optimist, I replied in the common manner.

Anybody who lives with me knows that in many ways I am very good at putting things together and though I digress, that includes; getting myself into Spanx underwear and recovering from a hissy fit as quickly as my Mac laptop does from an internal error.

However, I must have had a momentary lapse of intelligence when I agreed to tackle the evil exercise equipment thingy.

Like the painful memory of childbirth that magically disappears until the next time you have to do it, so had I forgotten my solemn oath to never ever come within 10 feet of an unassembled piece of anything that requires an Allen key.

Quite frankly, the Allen key is on my list of the stupidest inventions ever created and belongs in a fiery pit along with the cellophane wrap on CDs and DVDs.

And whatever machine is designed to seal the package of star washers and bolts in impenetrable plastic that comes with the stupid exercise equipment thingy, can go into the fiery pit too.

It is a well-documented fact that I can not do math well, and now it would appear that I don’t know left from right, as was noted by the peanut gallery after I put the hand railings of the exercise equipment on opposite sides.

“Just use it backwards,” I quipped of the possibility.

All I got was the flat stare.

I reversed them, but not before Murphy’s Law raised its ugly head. I already had used the Allen key to torque the nuts and bolts on the railings tighter than I was held into my thigh shaper pantyhose at Christmas.

I went down the creek bank and layed in the sun to recoup myself after the battle with the machine and no sooner had I closed my eyes did “Cash” come bounding to where I was and in a screeching halt inadvertently hurled long trails of doggy mouth mucous on my face and in my hair.

I just lay there and said out loud, “In my next life can I just be a tree or something?”

I’m sure I heard something greater than myself reply, “It’s always a possibility.”

There is chocolate for every moment and it's all mine

Sunday, April 4, 2010

It was really early on Sunday morning, at about 6:45 a.m. and I was wondering if the Easter bunny had paid me a visit.

As it happens every morning when the pad of my right foot barely touches the floor as I crawl out from under the blankets, the dogs raised their morning racket of yips and yawns.

Predictably in the middle of the kitchen floor I found Cash stretching and snorting and baring his teeth in that ridiculous grin he can make as he and his sidekick drum up their impatience for the morning piddle.

I am struck by the sheer routine character of the canine capers, whose every move and gesture I can count on each morning—including their beaming positive attitudes.

There’s something wise and wonderful about dogs that wag at the dawn and birds that sing their hearts out as the sun rises, despite not knowing what the day may bring them.

Yesterday morning I dragged my sorry carcass to the coffee pot in hopes that a cup of java would eliminate the sore muscles with which I awoke after fighting off fanged ghouls in my dreams—thanks to a late night episode of “The Vampire Diaries”.

Today I awoke with the sense that I’d been run over by a genealogy convoy in the night due to the countless hours I’ve spent researching my family tree.

On each morning occasion, I wasn’t in the greatest mood and still the furred companions who rent floor space here endorsed my presence.

Perhaps they were trying to tell me how pleased they were with themselves for not licking at the chip bowl that sat open on the kitchen table all night.

Or that they were proud of themselves for having allowed Peter Rabbit to hop to it at 2 a.m. without stripping him of his fur and leaving it strewn about the house for my next angora sweater project.

And I didn’t find any half-eaten dog-slobbered Easter goodies lying around—which on any other morning would lead me to believe that at least some of my dog training skills about unsupervised food, had met with success.

But at this juncture all it meant was that the bunny master had forgotten to hide the Easter egg treats at all. They were still stacked in their packaging next to the mixing bowls in the cupboard.

“Out of sight, out of mind” was my rationale—unlike last week when the “Cadbury” 34gram-weight eggs I’d thought would look nice sitting in my wire chicken egg basket on the counter, had no sooner been laid there than eaten by me—all 10 of them. “Buk-buk” barf.

The Easter Bunny had left two meaty dog bones for the canines to enjoy. I threw the tasty treats out into the yard and stood there grinning as Dot ran around the house with hers, then went and lied down for about 10 seconds before beginning the circuit again.

Cash just stayed put on the grass, chewing on his bone and rolling over on his back and flailing his legs in the air as he chewed, clearly delighted with himself.

After breakfast, I took to the outdoors to burn off four more Cadbury eggs I’d eaten, and to make room for the fine Easter dinner that was calling me to my parents’ house at 4 p.m.

I decided to make firewood out of the limbs of a 43-year-old rotted out evergreen tree that my husband felled while he was home at Christmas.

He’d left the wood carcass in long scraggly twig-infested chunks and piled it all in an area of the yard that clearly did not meet the approval of the yard committee.

I spent the afternoon stripping dead branches off with my hands, and every once in while used my foot for leverage when I came across a tough part of the tree.

There were foot traps everywhere and as I torqued and tugged in a Herculean fashion, I stepped backwards without looking.

In that microsecond that it took for my carcass to meet with gravity, all I could think about was the pile of gooey spring-soaked dog poop I was likely to land in.

I went down flat on my back, legs and feet flailing in the air. Thankfully the only thing injured was my self-esteem as I imagined the whole world just saw me topple like a sack of flour.

I stayed there for a minute on my back and watched as two big ravens flew overhead cackling at the sideshow. They were the only ones that noticed.

Not even the dogs had looked up from where they were parked within 20 ft. of me each coveting their dog bone.

At the very least I had expected them to interpret my fall as a playtime gesture and bound over to pounce on me.

I sat up, looked at the canine stupors and said out loud, “Thanks for making sure I was alright.”

They both looked at me from their prone positions with long, blank dog stares that smacked of “Huh?” before re-focusing on their sinewy synopsis.

I felt a little snubbed just then and my Alpha ego was slightly bruised.

But it was nothing that a few more Cadbury eggs wouldn’t fix.