It is a lovely and very rainy Saturday evening. Chili is on the stove and the children are watching a movie (well the baby is unloading the dishwasher but its keeping him busy so....). As I was making this chili my husband was playing some Southern Gospel music. I had also taken my five year old out today to The Mill Store and bought her sparkly pink cow girl boots. She has a hat and jeans and bandanna and for whatever reason she has wanted boots for a very long time (at least in her eyes). She got a pair for Christmas from her Nana but they wont really fit her for a couple years. She carries them around in a bag. I went to The Mill Store a couple days ago to buy rabbit food. I always feel like such a fraud going in there because it is filled with so many treasures for farmers and ranchers and then I am there buying bunny food! Usually they only have boots for adults that are a couple hundred dollars a pair. I want some so bad!!!! However, a couple days ago I saw they had some pairs her size. They had a couple different options of colors and I knew it wouldn't be long until I was there with her. She was pretty cute today picking out a pair. She really wanted to bring two pairs home because deciding between blue sparkly and pink sparkly with leopard print was apparently agonizing. However she made her choice and she wore them home!
SO in saying all this is what I am getting to ~ the music my husband was playing and buying the boots for my girl ~ reminded me of my cow girl days. We moved to a farm when I was almost seven and from before we moved there I had really wanted a horse. My parents had gotten me a bunny to tide me over but I had not forgotten the black stallion I prayed for every night. My very practical parents told me that if I wanted a horse ~ since we were on a farm with a barn and all ~ that I could get one IF I saved up for it and then payed for everything it needed. So at the age of ten I had saved up one thousand dollars and I went out and bought my black stallion. However black and stallion and horse translated into a brown and white pinto mare pony!!!!!! It was the first 'horse' I looked at and even though she was injured at the time and I needed to soak her leg every day in cool water and change bandages I guess I fell in love. I remember when they brought her to my house and she hopped out of the back of a moving van. I had no NO idea WHAT I was in for. I sort of hopped on her and went for a celebratory ride around some of the property and then there I was! A horse owner!
We had neighbors on both sides of us that took me under their wing somewhat. I had a lot of learning to do. I had to clean her stall, do a lot of work for my parents to pay for her hay and grain and saw dust, and of course ride her and get a farrier for her feet; it just went on and on. We did have some fenced areas for her but I remember making a gate out of bailing twine and using sticks and twine to make random enclosures. I had some tack (the things I needed to ride her) and it was all mish mashed. I had an English saddle from the neighbor down the road and a western bridle from an auction. I had a purple western shirt from another neighbor across the road and cow girl boots from another neighbor on the other side of the road. Now that I look back I realize how amazing this experience was. A couple of the neighbors took me out riding with them to show me good places to ride. I was so young! They also gave me a good book to read about everything I needed to know. Everyone took me under their wing! My parents had no idea about horses and just let me do what I wanted. So all these neighbors were angels.
Here's the thing. I bought a fifteen year old PONY. I was ten. She hated my guts. I am not kidding. If she could bite me ~ she did. If she could buck me off ~ she did. If she could kick me ~ she did. She ran away FAR down the road MULTIPLE times ~ any chance she could get she was GONE. Neighbors who lived a couple kilometers down the road learned who I was pretty quickly, especially if they had horses. Now that I look back I realize she was so lonely and needed another horse friend. Also I assume she was very mistreated by other children who had previously owned her and so she had a genuine right to despise them. I was just so innocent and clueless. As time went on I got used to jumping on my bike to go after her...praying she would not get hit by a car...or limping home after she had bucked me off and high tailed it somewhere. My parents (especially my dad) wanted me to sell her as they felt like I could find a safer sweeter tempered horse at an auction or something. I was just as stubborn as her I guess, and I told them I wanted to keep her.
Time passed I started to grow up a little, and her feelings towards me started to change. I spent hours riding her all over our farm, in the fields, and through forest trails around our neighborhood. Sometimes I would wear a full skirt and ride side saddle and pretend I was from long ago. I wore all sorts of interesting things when riding my horse.When my friends would come over we would brush her and braid her mane and tail in all sorts of ways and saddle her up. We would ride double all around or take turns racing her around the fields or jumping her. She provided hours and hours of the best most incredible entertainment. I liked to pretend I was a rodeo star because she had apparently been a former pony barrel racer which was pretty great. A boy who lived on our property also got a horse. She was a Clydesdale (so a very large horse). There I was on my pony (a tiny horse) and he on his Clydesdale. We were a pretty cute looking pair I bet. He would always challenge me to race and I would tell him I wasn't stupid!!! My little pony and I didn't have a chance!
By the end of our three years together I could ride my horse bare back (so no saddle) with just a halter and lead rope and she would go anywhere I told her to.I could trot, canter and gallop just holding on with my legs. I trusted and loved her so much. Often I went on long rides alone to beautiful fields where I would lie in the grass as she munched on it beside me and I would tell her all the hard things I was going through. Her ears would be pricked forward and I knew she was listening. We would see many quiet memorable things on our rides as we clip clopped our way down the roads edged in creek and forest and wild flowers.
I remember the day I had to say good bye to her so vividly. I knew she would hate where she was going because a family with three little boys had bought her. I was moving far away to a town and I thought I would never see her again. I rode her to their house as they lived a couple kilometers away. I told her how sorry I was and how much I loved her and how much she had given to me. It was a hard goodbye. The walk home was one of the hardest moments of my life up until that moment and I had had more than my fair share. She had been such a challenge to break through to ~ and our love for each other was forged from the fire of many hard experiences ~ it was the strongest kind.
I heard through the grapevine that the family didn't last long with her because she hated the boys. She was sold at an auction and I heard a kindly elderly man had bought her. She was to be retired out to pasture and he would sometimes ride her to check fences. I was so relieved and happy to hear that and felt more at peace with having to let her go.I thought that would be the last I heard of her. However the story was not quite finished.
Some years later I was driving down the island highway with some friends (so at least three years later) and I happened to glance into a field as we were speeding by; and there she was! I immediately burst into tears and everyone in the car started freaking out not having a clue what was going on. We stopped the vehicle, I managed to hysterically sob that I had seen my horse. The boy who was driving the car looked at me like I was crazy, but calmly turned the vehicle around and we all went back to the field. She was in an apple orchard with other ponies. She seemed to immediately remember me and came over to nuzzle my hand. I couldn't stop crying and stroking her. I was so so so glad she was there and she was still alive and she looked so happy! She had her friends, her orchard and no horrible children kicking her sides and bugging her. It was such a GIFT to see her that one last time. I will never forget how special it was. It healed hurts I had from having to say goodbye in the way that I had to.
I have never been a cow girl since. It seems almost a dream to me that I had a horse that I single handedly had to care for at the tender age of ten, but I did. I hope one day I will again have a horse that I can ride bare back through open fields. It is a feeling like no other. The feeling of the strength, the movement, the softness of them, the way their ears flick back and forth as you talk to them, their nickers and the way their hooves sound. It is a truly majestic and freeing experience. Her name was Shango ~ I never had the heart to change her name. She made me a cow girl (although I don't think we ever actually rounded up any cows)!
Saturday, 30 January 2016
Wednesday, 27 January 2016
Pictures
I love that pictures tell stories and hold memories. I remember when my mom told me we were going to be moving off our family farm when I was thirteen. I got my camera with my 24 picture roll of film and walked all down our road. It was a beautiful country road with endless fields on one side and sporatic fields and forest on the other. On one side a creek ran the length of the road and on the other was wild grass, Queen Anne's Lace, snakes and ant hills and lone trees. It was a road that invited imagination and quiet and I loved it. I took all the pictures I could of certain neighbor's houses, road signs, the creek, fields, I was trying to desperately to capture everything that I knew would slowly slip out of my memory and fade away. I snapped the mail boxes, the little garden, the apple trees out my bedroom window, the five tall trees I was brave enough to climb, the bridge and horses. It went on and on and I used a lot of film. These pictures helped me cope when we moved back to town, away from the Ocean and the fields and the trees and my room with a view was replaced by a basement room with no view and a life that was polar opposite to the life I had previously known. I grew up seeing my mom take pictures. She had album after album for each of her five children. She captured all the important moments for us. I have treasured that. My husband has probably about five pictures of his entire childhood and I have albums stacked in my closet. The work my mom put into writing on the backs of each picture and protecting the albums through the moves and years. Tonight I was looking through pictures and was allowing them to take me back in time. To sweet moments that seem so long ago now, but aren't. If I did not have the pictures I would not remember them. There is something important about documenting history for yourself and for those you love. When I was thirteen I was fortunate enough to meet a girl who would become my official 'important life moments' documenter. She has been there for each important moment and has so beautifully captured them. It has changed my life ~ adding so much beauty, expression, creativity. I will be ever grateful for her role in my life. Here is the little part of a story of one of my children.
And here is a picture of her parents ~ back when we were farm folk.
Pictures speak volumes ~ they tell stories ~ and they are wonderful to have. I am so grateful for these and the story they tell of my little one's life. She will treasure them forever!
Tuesday, 26 January 2016
Rain
Today is ballet day ~ which means it is Tuesday. I didn't go to ballet last week because I was sick so I am even more excited to do tendues and jumps in the first, second and third position wearing ballet shoes and leg warmers than I might have been.
Something I often think about is comparison. In this ballet class I can't for one second THINK about comparing myself to anyone else. If I did ~ that would be it for me. I am just not flexible, I am not fluid, I am not good at remembering more than three things at once and the list continues in my head. When I go there I try to be in the moment, enjoying what I CAN do and leaving it at that. So far, thankfully, that has been easy to do.
I compare myself often. It is automatic. I love beauty and order, little treasures, bright colors. I have this image in my head of what I would like to look like daily or what I would like my house to look like, how I would like my children to act, the list goes on. It just doesn't happen. So that means I guess I throw my hands in the air and just give up. I go back and forth between trying and just giving up. The days I can let go of comparison I feel relieved and lighter. It is so discouraging you know? One day will I be able to really let it go? Will I stop looking at other people's abilities and talents, how they are doing so amazingly, and stop feeling so less than? I think I have more good days now than bad though ~ I have grown up a little. That is something. Something is something!
Another thing ~ I keep going around this circle and ending up at the same place! I feel unsatisfied with my job, my vocation. Lately I have had two children talking to me so rudely. It is challenging to not feel like they are controlling my feelings. I want to act like a child and cry and find someone to hug me. It is ridiculous. I feel like I am not sure what tools to pull out of my mother tool belt to ask for respect. It has been a pretty consistent onslaught these last couple weeks. It is happening every time I ask something of them, every time I need help. So with this going on, with the same issues of how to feed everyone with all the food issues everyone has, how to ask them to help around the house when they just wont, how to not feel like a total failure each and every day and to not live in that? I want to be able to hold onto the triumphs so much more than the failures, but I seem to cast the pearls away and hold the coal close. Why?
There is power in stopping all the thoughts swirling in the whirl pool that is my brain. Today I dropped my two middle children off at an art class and instead of driving straight home back to it all ~ I pulled off the road just for a moment. I was at the end of a street and I walked up to a path and stood and listened to the rain falling on a field in front of me. The mountains were almost invisible in mist and all I wanted to do was to be able to describe how the rain sounded to me. I stood there trying to let everything else in my head just drain away for that little bit of time and find a word that described the rain. Somehow I thought it would help me feel like I was capable of something :)
I love the sound of the rain. Last night I woke up and could hear it falling and it made me smile. When I lived on the farm we had a tin roof, and sometimes I would sleep upstairs just so I could fall asleep to the rain falling on the tin roof. It is a melodious comfort to me. Rain falling in a field sounds totally different than rain falling on the ocean. On one of our anniversaries my husband and I went kayaking on the ocean. The Ocean was as smooth as glass and the rain started falling. It was such a beautiful sound. Like the most delicate clink of a glass. When you are in the forest and rain falls it has to filter through all the trees. If there is no wind the forest has this damp hush to it. Everything is heavy with jewelled drops and everything you brush against baptises you and you are soaked quickly. Rain on a field though ~ today I wished I could just go out to the middle of it ~ sit down on something dry ~ and just listen. It is the most hushed and sweet melody. The rain drops make their own music as they connect with the winter grass, the cold saturated earth, the vines that are entwined. Today for those few minutes I had ~ to look, to listen, I felt so thankful. I could hear, I could see. I was filled and it was what I needed. I couldn't find the perfect word. I drove home and walked back in that front door and kept going. So that is all. This post doesn't flow or make a ton of sense. I just needed to write this out. The children are all fighting outside the door and I have to keep yelling interventions. Ballet is in a couple hours and I have to muster up the energy to get there. Once I'm there it will be lovely. If you are struggling with things that seem too overwhelming, so relentless, I extend my sincerest empathy. It is hard to be in this place. It is going to take continued work! It is going to take perseverance ~ peering out past ourselves and yet excavating ourselves on deep levels. It is worth it just not easy. Enjoy the rain :)
Love Tansy xo
Something I often think about is comparison. In this ballet class I can't for one second THINK about comparing myself to anyone else. If I did ~ that would be it for me. I am just not flexible, I am not fluid, I am not good at remembering more than three things at once and the list continues in my head. When I go there I try to be in the moment, enjoying what I CAN do and leaving it at that. So far, thankfully, that has been easy to do.
I compare myself often. It is automatic. I love beauty and order, little treasures, bright colors. I have this image in my head of what I would like to look like daily or what I would like my house to look like, how I would like my children to act, the list goes on. It just doesn't happen. So that means I guess I throw my hands in the air and just give up. I go back and forth between trying and just giving up. The days I can let go of comparison I feel relieved and lighter. It is so discouraging you know? One day will I be able to really let it go? Will I stop looking at other people's abilities and talents, how they are doing so amazingly, and stop feeling so less than? I think I have more good days now than bad though ~ I have grown up a little. That is something. Something is something!
Another thing ~ I keep going around this circle and ending up at the same place! I feel unsatisfied with my job, my vocation. Lately I have had two children talking to me so rudely. It is challenging to not feel like they are controlling my feelings. I want to act like a child and cry and find someone to hug me. It is ridiculous. I feel like I am not sure what tools to pull out of my mother tool belt to ask for respect. It has been a pretty consistent onslaught these last couple weeks. It is happening every time I ask something of them, every time I need help. So with this going on, with the same issues of how to feed everyone with all the food issues everyone has, how to ask them to help around the house when they just wont, how to not feel like a total failure each and every day and to not live in that? I want to be able to hold onto the triumphs so much more than the failures, but I seem to cast the pearls away and hold the coal close. Why?
There is power in stopping all the thoughts swirling in the whirl pool that is my brain. Today I dropped my two middle children off at an art class and instead of driving straight home back to it all ~ I pulled off the road just for a moment. I was at the end of a street and I walked up to a path and stood and listened to the rain falling on a field in front of me. The mountains were almost invisible in mist and all I wanted to do was to be able to describe how the rain sounded to me. I stood there trying to let everything else in my head just drain away for that little bit of time and find a word that described the rain. Somehow I thought it would help me feel like I was capable of something :)
I love the sound of the rain. Last night I woke up and could hear it falling and it made me smile. When I lived on the farm we had a tin roof, and sometimes I would sleep upstairs just so I could fall asleep to the rain falling on the tin roof. It is a melodious comfort to me. Rain falling in a field sounds totally different than rain falling on the ocean. On one of our anniversaries my husband and I went kayaking on the ocean. The Ocean was as smooth as glass and the rain started falling. It was such a beautiful sound. Like the most delicate clink of a glass. When you are in the forest and rain falls it has to filter through all the trees. If there is no wind the forest has this damp hush to it. Everything is heavy with jewelled drops and everything you brush against baptises you and you are soaked quickly. Rain on a field though ~ today I wished I could just go out to the middle of it ~ sit down on something dry ~ and just listen. It is the most hushed and sweet melody. The rain drops make their own music as they connect with the winter grass, the cold saturated earth, the vines that are entwined. Today for those few minutes I had ~ to look, to listen, I felt so thankful. I could hear, I could see. I was filled and it was what I needed. I couldn't find the perfect word. I drove home and walked back in that front door and kept going. So that is all. This post doesn't flow or make a ton of sense. I just needed to write this out. The children are all fighting outside the door and I have to keep yelling interventions. Ballet is in a couple hours and I have to muster up the energy to get there. Once I'm there it will be lovely. If you are struggling with things that seem too overwhelming, so relentless, I extend my sincerest empathy. It is hard to be in this place. It is going to take continued work! It is going to take perseverance ~ peering out past ourselves and yet excavating ourselves on deep levels. It is worth it just not easy. Enjoy the rain :)
Love Tansy xo
Saturday, 23 January 2016
My Plate Wall
I really like having little treasures around me. I feel like they express part of who I am and what I love. One day I got this random idea to create a plate wall. I don't remember now what inspired me. What I do remember is that I decided to do this wall and so I went to the 'big city' an hour away from where I live and found some beautiful plates. Then I incorporated some special plates I already had. THEN I had them in a cupboard for a couple years waiting for my husband to hang them. I knew if I tried then one would get broken for sure. They survived three moves, and storage, and then I had to find proper hooks for the backs and attach them. It was sort of an ordeal. Nevertheless my plate wall is finally up and every time I see it I am thankful. When I was in labor with my youngest I labored mostly in my dining room and that was the wall I focused on :)
I thought I'd share it on here because it makes me happy :)
His 9th Birthday Party DONE
Today my oldest son turned nine. I was dreading this birthday party. I felt like I had successfully thrown a party for my five year old in October and my eleven year old in December and had pulled off hosting Christmas at my house and I just could not muster the energy for another birthday. However with moral support from my sisters and mom and friends :) I got the party done and it was special. I think my boy felt celebrated and happy and loved and really on a birthday what else do you need. His friends he invited ranged in age from just turned five to seven almost eight and they all got along so well and had such a great time. We started the party at our house. We played a few simple games and had cupcakes and then packed up and headed to our favorite wetlands. I love that this is a possibility in January here. All the children belonged to my three close friends and two of them have had new babies so they sent their husbands. It was fun to see three dads taking care of all their littles as they ran and explored. We had lunch there and then the party was over. I can't express my relief that this party is done. I know it sounds ridiculous, and it is,
Tuesday, 19 January 2016
Life At One
You can almost see the piano keys now. When you first played you had to stand on your very tip toes and you could only play with the tip of your finger. We were all eating dinner and all of a sudden we heard one note on the piano being gently played over and over and we all looked over and there you were. You were SO proud and your eyes were so big. It was your proudest accomplishment of your life at that moment I think. Then, when you were able to sit on the piano bench by yourself and play, instead of banging on the keys, you gently played them individually and you moved your body to your music. Often you walk around singing to yourself or to us. Your dancing is pretty awesome too. It is so funny how you move your hands when you dance or hear music.
Your mind is so busy. You switch from thing to thing so quickly. Like right now you are emptying out a drawer of the desk throwing CD's with wild abandon. Now you are trying to put one in the computer, now you are spitting on them. You found a rubber chicken in the drawer so you gave it a try but it tasted yucky. Now you scared yourself by putting a couple CD's in and the computer sort of yelled at you. Recently you started coloring on the walls any chance you get and you are often standing on top of the dining room table. Heights do not scare you. You have been walking since you were just shy of ten months old and your legs are so bowed. You are determined and mischievous, you are loving and fierce, and you are brave. It is so interesting to observe each of my children as they are born ~ wondering who they are and what they will be. Slowly I see them come alive. They are sensitive, artistic, energetic, they are persistent and thoughtful, the list goes on.
You little one, your smile is so engaging. Your dimples are adorable. Your teeth are all chipped and it just adds to who you are. You love buttons on anything. You were my first child to call 911. You play with the pots in the cupboards and the tupperware more than you play with anything else, and you are waiting for that magical day when you will be able to open the fridge.I think what I have realized is the absolute most magical and whimsical and important part about being an observer and partaker in this life you are discovering is how everything is this crazy adventure when you are only one. You give one hundred percent of yourself to everything you do. Everything blows your mind! Like the fact that you can turn on a light or move a chair or that a bird is singing or a dog is barking or when the cell phone beeps that a text has come in. When you taste something you either love it so much that you enthusiastically make noises that let me know it is absolutely the best thing you have ever had or you literally spit it into my face and scream protest at the disgustingness. Your eyes absolutely glow with happiness and glee about so many things every day. It is the best reminder. I have to know that at one point, even if my personality was not quite the same as yours that life was fun and full and I wanted to touch and taste and see that life was good! Right now you have managed to get a bolt off one of our chairs. Your mind loves to figure things out. There are these moments when I see you discover something for the first time. When you felt rain on your face and you held your hands up and just laughed. Or when you discovered jumping in puddles. It was so adorable because you couldn't really jump but you could sure stamp and so stamp you did in a tiny little puddle. Daddy is your hero. You think about him so many times a day and if you get to call him on the phone your joy is uncontainable. You can't talk to him but you laugh and laugh and scream and it reminds me how much we are to love and celebrate others!
It is sad when this starts to shift. When you realize that there is unkindness and it hearts your heart, when the sparkle goes out of your eyes little bit by little bit and when the hard things harden your innocence. Life is like this. It can't be helped. But right now your are so innocent and you are safe and you are loved and everything is to be discovered. You are one. It is so beautiful and I am so honored to be a part of it.
Your mind is so busy. You switch from thing to thing so quickly. Like right now you are emptying out a drawer of the desk throwing CD's with wild abandon. Now you are trying to put one in the computer, now you are spitting on them. You found a rubber chicken in the drawer so you gave it a try but it tasted yucky. Now you scared yourself by putting a couple CD's in and the computer sort of yelled at you. Recently you started coloring on the walls any chance you get and you are often standing on top of the dining room table. Heights do not scare you. You have been walking since you were just shy of ten months old and your legs are so bowed. You are determined and mischievous, you are loving and fierce, and you are brave. It is so interesting to observe each of my children as they are born ~ wondering who they are and what they will be. Slowly I see them come alive. They are sensitive, artistic, energetic, they are persistent and thoughtful, the list goes on.
You little one, your smile is so engaging. Your dimples are adorable. Your teeth are all chipped and it just adds to who you are. You love buttons on anything. You were my first child to call 911. You play with the pots in the cupboards and the tupperware more than you play with anything else, and you are waiting for that magical day when you will be able to open the fridge.I think what I have realized is the absolute most magical and whimsical and important part about being an observer and partaker in this life you are discovering is how everything is this crazy adventure when you are only one. You give one hundred percent of yourself to everything you do. Everything blows your mind! Like the fact that you can turn on a light or move a chair or that a bird is singing or a dog is barking or when the cell phone beeps that a text has come in. When you taste something you either love it so much that you enthusiastically make noises that let me know it is absolutely the best thing you have ever had or you literally spit it into my face and scream protest at the disgustingness. Your eyes absolutely glow with happiness and glee about so many things every day. It is the best reminder. I have to know that at one point, even if my personality was not quite the same as yours that life was fun and full and I wanted to touch and taste and see that life was good! Right now you have managed to get a bolt off one of our chairs. Your mind loves to figure things out. There are these moments when I see you discover something for the first time. When you felt rain on your face and you held your hands up and just laughed. Or when you discovered jumping in puddles. It was so adorable because you couldn't really jump but you could sure stamp and so stamp you did in a tiny little puddle. Daddy is your hero. You think about him so many times a day and if you get to call him on the phone your joy is uncontainable. You can't talk to him but you laugh and laugh and scream and it reminds me how much we are to love and celebrate others!
It is sad when this starts to shift. When you realize that there is unkindness and it hearts your heart, when the sparkle goes out of your eyes little bit by little bit and when the hard things harden your innocence. Life is like this. It can't be helped. But right now your are so innocent and you are safe and you are loved and everything is to be discovered. You are one. It is so beautiful and I am so honored to be a part of it.
Sky Blue
Today ~ another one. Here I am. Dragged myself out of bed and out the door, dropped her off at school, back home again. It is misty out there. Mountains are hazy and shadowy and clouds are low. We are learning about clouds in home school right now so my five year old casually mentioned that there were strata nimbus clouds out there this morning. I don't know if she was actually right because it was not actually raining but she had the right idea. I was thinking as I was driving about the fact that I so often forget that above those clouds there is that clear blue sky and warm nurturing sun. It is always there. I know that is no new concept but today there are people in my life that I am asking for things for ~ asking for mercy and miracles and help, and somehow the thought of that blue sky up there behind the grey and mist and fog, somehow it is helping me remember the power of the asking and the importance of taking the time to do the asking ~ to just ask, to press in, to pray. So much haze and mist and grey in people's lives but above it always there is hope and sometimes I think hope is sky blue.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)