C.S. Starr's Blog

Wow. I just looked at how long it’s been since I’ve updated my blog, and I’m super embarrassed and a little sad about it. I’ve been busy, and had lots of things I intended to write about, but the posts never happened. If you’re wondering what happened to me, Instagram is probably the best place to follow me with any regularity, that is, unless I get my act together after this post.

I’ll try! I really will! I have things to say!  I’m just really tired at 9pm, when most of my writing used to happen.

I’ve written about Mother’s Day before. It stings to read it a year later, but that’s okay. I’m not sure it will ever not sting, even though, with every passing year, it’ll feel more like brushing against a raspberry bush versus a wasp honing in on the inside of my arm, getting scared, and stabbing me repeatedly while I flail around.

The thing about having a kid is that I have a lot less time to be self-indulgent, even with grief, and it feels really contradictory, loving my kid the way I do, in this overwhelming, heart crushing way and feeling continually sad about a loss that would have negated his existence had it not happened.

I’ve never really been an everything happens for a reason person. It has a sort of romanticism that I think is lovely in writing and storytelling, but a bit weird applied to daily life, where love is most often expressed through small, heartfelt things like folding laundry and doing dishes on the same day, or offering up part of your chocolate bar when you don’t really want to share. Grand gestures happen, sure, but without the day to day filling, love would be very hard to sustain, so I do think it’s important to try and acknowledge the little things.

Back to everything happening for a reason. If you’re suffering from fertility issues, or haven’t met someone you want to have a kid with, or any myriad of other reasons you want to be celebrating Mother’s Day in the very traditional sense, this saying is basically crafted to make you feel terrible. If you’ve just survived a war and lost your family, this saying is bullshit. If you’ve narrowly survived a forest fire, but aren’t sure if the home you have to go home to, the home you’ve spent years and sacrificed building is still standing, NOPE. If someone you love is suffering from cancer, GO AWAY, WORDS. When you’re in the midst of a shitty time in your life, there are no reasons. There is just terribleness.

Everything happening for a reason is bullshit. The real truth of the matter, if you get right down to it, is that humans are amazingly resilient beings.

Women are amazingly resilient beings.

I say this with no ego attached.

Everything happens because we persevere. We chart a course, and we make it happen. Maybe we get swept out to sea for a while. Maybe we have to plot a new course that takes us to a different place. Maybe we need to stop for a bit and stitch our sails. Maybe we make mistakes along the way, and read the stars wrong, or turn our map into a Pinterest fail that ends up in the garbage.

Life may not look like how we imagine it, but we go on, and, to quote Queen B and Jay Z’s grandma, we make lemons out of lemonade, and it’s delicious and refreshing.

If you’re reading this and you’re desperately trying to get to where I am, covered in sticky bits and exhausted, but pretty darn happy, here are some words that may help, but could also not help at all.

– Motherhood is hard. It is the hardest job you will ever do. You will be incredibly invested in it because biology (and maybe because you love your kid), and it will make everything else that used to be easy hard. You will not recognize yourself some days.

– Motherhood is rewarding. But there are many days when you have to creatively interpret what rewarding means to you, in the context of the day.

– Motherhood is not to be missed if it’s something you want. It is worth the struggle to get there, and it is worth the struggle once you’re there. It’s fine not to want it, but you should be very sure that it’s not because you think it’ll be hard to achieve. I’m not specifically talking about the act of carrying a child as motherhood, because it’s not. The two are related, cousins even, but they’re not the same thing.

– Your struggle may not look like anyone else’s that you know, but you should find people who are struggling similarly, and struggle together. And fall apart together. And celebrate together. These people may be in person people, or they may be people who you never embrace physically, but have your back across time and space. They’re out there. They’re awesome. You need them.

Anyway, these words might mean nothing to you, and that’s okay. I’m far from an expert on motherhood or fertility issues, and my perspective is just that, mine. Everyone has their own story, and they’re all important.

Good luck out there.

Dear Pup,

It’s hard to believe it’s been 9 years since you wriggled into the world, the result of a clandestine relationship between your mother, Pooh Bear, and the cute little Cockapoo up the street.

When your dad and I went to see you for the first time, we thought we were going to the ends of the earth. Public transit in the greater Waterloo area is crap on a good day, and we were at this sort of in between place in our lives where we didn’t have a lot of money and taking a cab to and from somewhere would have meant eating ramen noodles instead of something cooked on the stove or something. We were living in a dive of an apartment; a basement where the people upstairs smoked so badly that it sometimes seemed like the walls were leaking nicotine while your dad did his masters and I scraped by working two retail jobs. We’d just spent a year in Japan, and reality back in the motherland was hard.

I’m generally a fairly upbeat person, but getting up at 5am three days a week to go scan inventory at The Gap, combined with our first soul sucking Ontario winter and the impending death of my granny from lung cancer made for a rough fall into winter. Fortunately, the past has a way of fading out the bad stuff, and leaving you with the good, and when I think back on that eight month period, I think that was the time when we really became a family, Matt and I.

And you.

You were so wriggly and adorable, that New Years Eve Eve in the suburbs of Kitchener, that there was no way we were getting back on that bus again. We’d agreed to take a taxi home if you were a fit, and it was pretty evident that you were, as I held you close to my chest and smelled your delightfully soft fur. You were the only girl in the litter and the last to go, since they’d decided to keep your brother.

I think, sometimes, that anyone that isn’t a dog person just hasn’t met the right one, and from that moment, you were the right one for us. You owned us immediately. 9 years later, you still sleep curled up beside us, as you did that first night, when you whimpered that way you did when you fit into the palm of my hand, and we quickly decided you missed your mom and were better off with us.

In 9 years, you’ve moved 5 times with us. You’ve taken planes, trains, and automobiles, slept in hotel room, and accompanied us on our best adventures. We’ve done outlandish things to bring you along, and convinced ourselves that you’ve enjoyed every minute of it, even though I think you probably would have enjoyed chilling on the couch just as much as a week in Cape Cod, or one of our many, many 20+ hour car rides, as long as we were there.

In 9 years, you’ve been through us through the best and the worst. You listened to us excitedly share our career successes and rough days. You wagged your tail at our wedding. You lay tucked under my arm and at my feet as I wrote so, so many things. We excitedly introduced you to our back yard when we bought our house (though you’ve never been into it unless we were there too). You let me sob into your fur when we miscarried, and lay in bed with me when I wasn’t sure I’d ever want to get out. You rested your head on my belly when Charlie was still an uncertainty, and did your best to spoon around him until it was pretty much impossible.

At times, I’m pretty sure you’re more maternal that I could ever hope to be. From the moment we brought Charlie home, and had no idea what we were doing, you were confident, and assertive, and your instincts towards the small ball of person were lovely and kind. I’m pretty sure we never would have been able to miss him waking up in the night because you were quick to let us know when we were asleep on the job.

Your relationship with Charlie is one of my favourite things. The way you’ve accepted him as another member of your pack is very cute, and natural, and one of those things that reminds me that we’re all just creatures, living and existing together. I know he’s a little rough sometimes, but it’s really just how he is right now, as he figures out his limits, just like you did, when you use to incessantly bite our fingers. I promise we’ll do our best to help him understand what you need from him to be the best of friends. And that we’ll never scold him for sharing his dinner with you, as long as it’s not excessive.

You’ve made us better people. You’ve encouraged us to get outside, and to be a real part of whatever community we’re living in. We’ve met countless dogs through you (and their owners, sort of, though we don’t know most of their names). You’ve convinced others that we’re good people, because we’d have to be to have such a chipper pup. You’ve taught us about unconditional love, and were it not for you, I don’t think we’d have nearly the patience for Charlie that we do.

I could go on forever. You’ve got so much personality and spunk, and the way you convince yourself you could take on any dog, be it a yorkie or a husky is probably something we could all learn a thing or two from. I love coming home to you at the end of every day, and, even though we gripe and grumble about you sharing our bed, it means there’s no room for Charlie, who I’m guessing would kick even more than you do, so thanks for that, I guess.

Happy Birthday.

I’ve been trying to think of something meaningful to add to the slew of information about why it’s important to get out and vote, and it’s been said well many, many places, by many people with a larger audience than I have.

Still though, I wanted to add my two cents.

For those of you that have been to my house, this picture may be familiar. It’s part of the mismash of inspirational things I keep at my desk.

This is my Great Grandmother, Elsie Ritch.

For those of you that know my penchant for flea markets, this is not something I gleefully scooped up at a great price. It’s her wedding portrait.

Elsie was born and grew up in Toronto, and came from a fairly well-to-do family. She married someone else from a well-to-do family, and had three children, my Granny Sue among them.

Elsie’s family were of the progressive variety. Her cousins were among the first women in Canada to attend medical school at U of T, and she was, quite notably, one of the first women to drive a car in Toronto, and one of the first women in the city to venture out of the house pregnant (with twins, no less). She climbed the Rocky mountains. She wore pants.

She was also part of the first generation of women in Canada to get the vote.

We are not even 100 years away from women getting the vote. 

I think we have a tendency to accept the status quo, because it’s easier to live in the now. The past is behind us, and concerning ourselves too much with the future, which is always uncertain, can feel daunting.

However, it’s where we’re all going, whether we get on board or not.

I’m not sure if Elsie knew that someday, most women around the world would be able to drive, or vote, or go to medical school, or wear pants every day, or marry other women. I’m not sure if she knew she was opening doors, or windows, or if she just needed to go somewhere one day and was tired of waiting for her banker husband to come home. I’m not sure if she overthought the decision to waddle out of the house, heavy with twins, to do her errands, or cared about what her neighbours would think of her swollen feet, if her pregnancy swelling was anywhere near as bad as mine was.

Still though, she and other women did these things, and now they’re commonplace, and that’s amazing. It’s amazing to think that they weren’t before.

But they weren’t. Less than 100 years ago.

We should never take the past for granted, and assume the future will be the same. There are a lot of things hinging on this election. Here are some things I’m considering with my vote tomorrow.

– My ability to access clean water.

– My Canadian-born Father’s right to continued Canadian citizenship.

– My right to religious freedoms (I’m agnostic today, but who knows what the future holds? I have a cousin who recently converted to Islam).

-My right to liberty, privacy, and freedom of expression.

– My right to get an abortion.

Perhaps I’m being dramatic, but I don’t think so. I’ve watched, with horror, for the past five years as so many of the things that I proudly thought I stood for as a Canadian were shoved aside, until there was very little left to hold onto. Ten years ago, I proudly sewed a maple leaf on my backpack and traveled Asia. Would I do that today?

I’m not sure. And that stings.

It stings for me, but it also stings when I think about the sacrifices and efforts that those that came before me put forth to make Canada a place where people wanted to live. A place my Jewish grandfather’s family felt they’d be safe from Europe’s persecution. A place my mother’s Scottish ancestors, who counted themselves Canadian before Canada was a country, worked to make a reality.

Tomorrow, I’m going to vote, because it’s what they’d expect of me. It’s what I owe them, what all of us owe every person that’s counted themselves Canadian and will count themselves Canadian in the future.

I don’t want my son to grow up in a country that doesn’t respect the environment. A country where his wife (if that’s the route he chooses to go) might not be able to have dominion over her own body. A country where his grandfather could, in theory, be sent to a continent he’s never visited (though, if I’m being honest, he’s a very unlikely terrorist and more likely to relocate himself to the US, since the medical care is better than it is in rural Nova Scotia right now, even if he does have to pay for it).

I want him to travel and proudly sew a maple leaf on his bag and know that his parents gave a shit about his future. That they recycled, and had a garden, and did their best to live within their means, and acted socially responsible. I want him to be proud of his mutt heritage, to embrace those that came before him, from his First Nations roots on his father’s side to his first generation grandfather on mine, and know that, all these people, all their decisions brought him to this place, and that this place is pretty great. That it’s a place worth loving, and being proud of, and calling home.

I want him to know that, when we started to question our government representation, we spoke up and voted with conviction, even if that vote takes us in a direction we may eventually not support, because, despite everything, we were optimistic about the future.

None of us can know what the future holds. We can only hope.

That’s why, even if you think the current government is full of thieves and liars (as some of my East Coast friends have noted on Facebook in recent days), or that your vote means nothing, we should all hold out hope for a better future, and taking 15-20 minutes to leave your house tomorrow, to mark an X in a box (neatly within the edges, please) is the best means we have to do that in the world, as it stands today.

We all have the ability to spark change, to reach people, to have our voices heard. But we have to speak to do it. Even if our audience is small, even if it doesn’t feel like we’re doing anything grand. We can’t know what the ripple effects of our actions will be, though, if we look back at the change that was sparked by more Canadians NOT voting than those who elected our current administration, the writing sort of appears on the wall.

By sitting at home and tossing your vote, you’re giving a hell of a lot of power to someone else. Someone who you might disagree with. Someone that might spiral your children’s, and your children’s children’s world in a very different direction than you’d hope for.

We can’t guess what the world of our great grandchildren will look like any more than Elsie Ritch could guess what today’s Canada would look like. I’m sure she’d guffaw at the internet, and cellphones. She died in the sixties, after all. I think though, that she’d be smiling, knowing that the steps she took made her extraordinary actions very ordinary in the future.

We can’t know, but we can hope. And to quote the late, great Jack Layton, hope is better than fear.

So hope.

And vote.

(And tell people you voted, because peer pressure results in more people voting, and that’s really what it’s all about.)

I recently did a closet purge. It took me about a week, and involved a lot of tough decisions that weren’t so tough, and in the end, I’ve got a closet that I’ve deemed shoppable.

I even found some great things I forgot I’d had. And some stuff that shockingly fit.

I hated being pregnant.

After wanting nothing more than to be pregnant for two years, I absolutely flipping hated it. I hated feeling swollen and physically unwell, and I hated that, after spending many, many years keeping a tight hold on my weight, and the numbers on the scale, in many ways, the weight I gained was completely out of my control.

Probably not all 65lbs. Some of those could certainly be chalked up to the family sized packs of Sour Patch Kids, but a lot of it sort of just showed up.

When you’re pregnant, the weight sort of sits nicely. Sort of. I didn’t exactly feel as sexy as some women do, but I liked the way my belly filled things out, and, at about 7 months, as I slowly embraced the reality that I wasn’t going to miscarry, I got a bit happier, but still felt on edge, and then huge, as I’d watch the numbers on the scale climb past numbers I’d never imagine seeing.

After ten months, I’m okay admitting that I didn’t take to motherhood easily at first. I don’t feel guilty about that now, but I did then, as I struggled with my strange new body and the tiny new life I was responsible for. It didn’t feel natural to me. I’m not sure what I was expecting.

Two years of trying and loss and I was left with a lot of extra baggage, perhaps. Mostly around my middle.

There was no switch flicked when he was deposited on me after leaving my body, no magic moment. Instead, there have been a series of  moments that have come to define me as Charlie’s mom. Beautiful moments, trying moments. Mundane moments.

As I grew more comfortable with my new role, the weight started to come off, incredibly slowly at first, but then, as I started to feel like myself again, started making mom friends and joining the world again, the scale started moving, and I started checking less because it wasn’t the most important thing.

I still have a ways to go, but it’s happening, and I’m confident that, in a reasonable amount of time, I’ll see the number on the scale hit the place it was when I last remember liking my body. It’s not so far off. My body though, is changed forever in ways that I continue to uncover. There are stretch marks, deep and wide that, while fading, aren’t going away. I live on black coffee, and not for the caffeine. My hair is thicker and shinier. My complexion is good most days. My arms are the best they’ve been since I was 22 and spent the summer clinging to the pole of a double decker bus in Halifax, holding on for dear life as we peeled around town.

Inside, things are different too. I have infinite energy for some things, and none for others. I cry more, both happy and sad tears. I see my son in places I never expected; in everything smaller or more innocent than me. Animals, refugee children, bumblebees on my raspberry bush and am moved to action because of him. I think I’m kinder when its merited, but also have less interest in people and situations that suck the limited energy I have to share and give nothing back.

It sounds cheesy, but my heart is bigger too. I don’t think it’s possible to understand what it means to live for another person until you have one that you’re everything to. I strive to be the one that he always thinks is the funniest, safest, trustworthiest, best person he sees when he wakes up in the morning, no matter how big he gets, no matter where life takes him.

So, when my post pregnancy weight is gone, I’ll still carry the load. It’s heavy, motherhood. Physically and metaphorically. But there are many reasons to carry the weight. Reasons that, once you’re behind the curtain, and you’re playing peekaboo with the most amazing person that is you,  your partner, and themselves all in the same moment, are worth every ache and pain, every pair of low rise jeans that I’ll never wear again. Worth every too short top, every dress that doesn’t swing the way it once did.

August 1-7 is National Breastfeeding Week.

I have conflicting thoughts on this. And I feel like my story is important to share, because, well, if I’d read someone’s story like this the week after I had my son, I might have felt a lot better. Or at least marginally better.

I breastfed. Here’s a picture of me doing it.

I remember the day I took this. It was around the beginning of February, right before we left the house to go to The Old Mill Baby Lunch. It’s the Catalina Wine Mixer of the Toronto baby community (props if you get the reference). I took this because I’d squeezed into my old clothes and was as dressed up as I’d been in months (tights!). Charlie was also looking dapper in his old man sweater and a onesie with a tie on it.

I also knew it could possibly be the last time I was dressed up and breastfeeding.

My story is a fairly typical one. I know breast is best (more on this later), and throughout my pregnancy, had plans to breastfeed. I told myself that I wouldn’t be upset if it didn’t work out, thinking of course it would work out. Breastfeeding is a natural thing that womens’ bodies are made to do. I was a woman. Therefore, I’d breastfeed.

I went into labour early on November 18th. This meant that I had one day (not counting the weekend) from the time I finished work, until I was handed Charlie.

I also had an emergency c-section after being in labour for 12 hours.

It was a stressful time. To be 100% honest, breastfeeding exacerbated that stress by about 1000 stress points. When you’re groggy and in a great deal of pain, the last thing you really want is someone barking at you about breastfeeding, but because it was something I wanted to do, I choked back the tears and the exhaustion, and did my best. I sat up and did the football hold, every couple of hours for two days while someone critiqued my hold and his latch.

Charlie knew what he was doing, but my body had other ideas. After 48 hours in the hospital, his weight had dropped by enough that the nurse needed doctor clearance to send us home. My milk still hadn’t come in, but she was confident that it would, and that we were off to a great start.

I was not so confident.

24 hours after we brought Charlie home, we visited my family doctor, who, along with cringing at my very raw nipples, also told me that my supply would come in any day.

It just never did.

I did the breastfeeding clinic. I did a week of pumping every two hours. I tried harder than I thought was possible with a barely healed surgical wound and feet so swollen that Matt continued to help me into my shoes for weeks after I gave birth. I was offered prescription drugs (which was where I drew a line).

And still, Charlie screamed and screamed, even after feeding for over an hour.

The first months of motherhood are hard as hell. Anyone that says they aren’t is either a little bit insane, or has forgotten. I’ll probably forget after a time. The ugh memories are already fading a bit, and it’s only been eight months. It’s a biological thing, so women will have more kids.

I’m telling you. It’s hard. It shouldn’t be a deterrent, because the best things in life are always a fight, but it’s hard. Fucking hard.

No matter how hard I tried, I felt like a failure. It didn’t matter that I’d carried a healthy, much wanted child to term. It didn’t matter that he was happy, and meeting and surpassing his milestones, and sleeping through the night early and gaining weight. None of it mattered, because I was failing at breastfeeding, the one thing I should have been doing for him.

Except it’s not the one thing I should have been doing for him. There were lots of things I needed to do for him, but breastfeeding was this overwhelming elephant in the room, every time I’d read him a story, every time he’d curl up and sleep on my chest because it felt like home to him. Every time he’d have a first, I’d wonder what he was losing out on, with every bottle of formula he consumed. I’d cry when I’d boil water, I’d choke back tears holding the bottle. It was awful.

Breast is best. So is following Canada’s Food Guide to the letter. So is abstaining from alcohol, and exercising several times a week. A perfect world is perfect, but how few of us actually live in that world?

Breast was not best for me. And because it wasn’t best for me, it wasn’t best for my child.

That is my truth. It took me a long time to get there, but that’s it.

I partially breastfed for four months at my physician’s urging. I’m glad I did, because it hopefully gave Charlie’s immune system a boost, and helped him with some added nutrients. I hope it made him feel close to me. On my end, I think we bonded much more when I saw the end in sight, when I felt like I was going to get my body back and stop hating every moment of what should have been a lovely bonding experience, but instead became a mom fail prod. I wish I’d been able to bottle feed unapologetically, like I do now, but in the early days, when I was just making my mom friends and beginning to socialize, the bottle left me feeling the need to justify a decision I hadn’t really made and explain myself. I’d wanted to breastfeed, after all.

I’m lucky. Or maybe I chose to surround myself with fantastic people who never made me feel less because I was unable to do what we’d all been told over and over again was best for our children. I have great mom friends. Mom friends that deserve their own post sometime soon.

Those first few months, you kind of lose yourself a bit, and it takes a while to rebuild the person you will become, because motherhood changes every woman. Not in bad ways. But there is change. I think my challenges made me a better mother, and advocate for myself and my family. I drew lines, made really, really tough decisions, and now, when I look at my child, I see a healthy kid that’s thriving. I don’t see a measure mark of formula vs. breast milk, like I did for a long time. If I’d taken another path, I’m not sure that would have been the outcome, or if I would have been able to enjoy such a special time in both his life and mine in the same way if I’d continued to let myself feel like I was letting him down on a daily basis.

I know there are people who get shit on for breastfeeding. The quickest way to fail as a business is to make any suggestions about them not doing what is natural in their establishment. I think this is awesome, and it’s empowering to see women supporting one another in this.I just think it’s important to support new mothers period, and that’s why I’m not sure National Breastfeeding Week is a good thing, because it’s exclusionary, and though I have the picture, there are lots of women that don’t, and for all sorts of reasons, which should all be supported. It’s hard, those first few hours, days, weeks and months, and applying any unnecessary guilt or shame doesn’t make breastfeeding any more important or relevant. It doesn’t make you a better mother.

Here’s what it does. It probably saves you around 2k in the first year, and maybe (and this is debatable), gives your child a better start in some ways that are really hard to measure in any quantitative way.

Unless you’re going to follow that up by doing everything else right, then there’s really no need to rub it in anyone’s face.

In a week, my little family will begin our annual pilgrimage to Nova Scotia. It’s a long drive, and with Charlie now, I’m imagining it’s going to take even longer, as we inevitably stop and entertain him at various points along the way.

These trips are always a little bittersweet.

If you’re from the East Coast, and you live away, you understand what I mean. It’s wonderful to get home and see friends and family, and slip into the salt air for a while. The scenery is both haunting and welcoming, the lack of humidity is refreshing.

The thing is, I don’t feel like there’s a place for my family there. And I’m not alone.

My husband and I are both well-educated, with good jobs that we both work very hard at. We’ve excelled and thrived post university and found places in our preferred professions. Good places. We’ve both been able to advance to great positions where we feel challenged. We own a house in one of Canada’s toughest markets to get into. We have minimal debt. We’re well traveled. We’re involved in our community.

We’re part of a generation that’s left the province in a sort of mass exodus, the likes of which will have long lasting repercussions in the region.

We’re part of the problem.

It’s a circular problem; lack of opportunities for young people have created a diaspora of sorts, which has left few behind to become established and create opportunities for later generations. The population decline means diminished resources, funding, and a lack of representation and influence for the region.

When we graduated university, the writing was on the wall. We left for Japan after our undergraduate degrees, and knew it was highly unlikely that we’d ever be back full time. It wasn’t because we wanted to leave particularly; we loved and do love Halifax, and probably could have easily enjoyed living there (we’re fairly urban people). It was because we knew that with the amount of student debt that we were both carrying, coupled with the lack of opportunities for people with undergraduate degrees, we’d both be screwed for a long time. At 23, we didn’t have the capital to invest in a home, or a business, and were staring down a minimum wage job, or a graduate degree that, if we’re being honest, didn’t guarantee us any more opportunities than the first degree did.

We’re not alone. I scroll through the people I went to high school and university with on my Facebook feed, and more left than stayed. Some that stayed or returned are Western Canada widows, or underemployed, or struggling to find the same types of opportunities Matt and I have, almost ten years after graduating. Anyone that’s from the East Coast knows the pull you feel when you’re away. So many of us go to great lengths to get back whenever we can, even though it’s expensive and time consuming to get there. We’re everywhere; you can hardly throw a stone in most Canadian cities without hitting a Maritime expat.

When I was young, I devoured Helen Creighton’s Bluenose Ghosts, which, if you haven’t read it, is a most incredible collection of ghost stories from the region, collected by Creighton over almost 30 years. Without her, these stories would be lost to time. I’ve been thinking a lot about this concept, as I start to get ready to make the long drive next week, and I’d like to put a collection of stories together, from people from my generation that have stayed, left, and returned.

I’d like to hear from you if you are:

 – A Maritimer between 25 and 40

 – Interested in writing or working with me to write 2500-3000 words detailing your history and experiences with the region.

 – Interested in helping with the production of such a volume.

I think our stories are important. I hope you do too. You can contact me via Facebook, or in a blog comment below if this is something you’d be interested in participating in.

Thank you!

Hi hi!

As promised, I’ve been writing more and plan to start posting serially on Wattpad in the not so distant future, but in the meantime, I thought it might be a good idea to dust off an old WIP and put it up for consumption.

The first 8 chapters of A Girl’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse are now live on Wattpad. I don’t have a cover (yet), but I hope that won’t dissuade you from checking it out.

Please, please let me know what you think (keeping in mind that it’s a draft)! I’m planning to have the entire first draft up within a week.

You can read Wattpad in a couple of ways. If you have a smartphone/tablet, I recommend the app, but you can also read online. If you download the app, I believe you can download and read offline as well.

A Girl’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse.

It’s inevitable that taking on a new project takes time away from others. There is, after all, a finite amount of time in a day, a month, and a year.

Some projects are also a lot more work than others.

A baby is a project. An incredibly complicated, unimaginably rewarding one. Creating this amazing, momentarily all-consuming person may be the most important thing I ever do. If it is, it’s nothing to be sad or embarrassed about either, particularly since my kid is super awesome in all the right ways, with his gooby grin, and incredible determination in all things. Someone called him analytical at the hardware store the other day. It was a weird compliment, for sure, particularly since they tied it to his gender, but that’s a post for another day.

Spoiler alert: there were fumes. From my head.

Anyway. He’s important, and I know when I look back at my life, there’s not much I can do that will rank higher on my list of things I’m proud of, no matter what the next sixty odd years bring*.

*Kid, please, please don’t become a serial killer. Or a member of the conservative party in its current state. Don’t make a liar out of me. Please.

Just because I made a kid, though, doesn’t mean I want to give up on accomplishing things. When I got pregnant, I decided to allow myself some time to devote myself to that task, since writing starting coming harder than it ever had. Most nights, for the past year, I fell asleep by nine in a pile of my own drool, while Sushi did her best to spoon herself around whatever position my body was in. I think I watched the entire Veronica Mars Series and enjoyed it immensely, but it may have been a dream.

Back to writing. It wasn’t happening. It broke my heart, but I decided not to push it. It became like running, or walking without a waddle; something I knew I’d do again someday, but not something I was capable of for a while. I knew I’d do it again, because, like my spawn, I am also a determined person, and writing is something I love. It’s something that makes me happy, something that makes me feel like myself. It’s a challenge, just like carrying a baby and functioning after that baby arrived was.

Is.

I’ve started writing again. It comes in bits and pieces, and I’ve been trying to come up with a way to turn it into something cohesive, something I can share and feel excited about as I go, so I’ll keep going, instead of devoting my baby-free hours to googling things I should be buying on Amazon for my baby that I’ll then have to spend my baby-free hours cleaning up #viciouscycle.

One of the hardest things about moving from writing prolific fanfiction, as I did for a few years, to writing somewhat less prolific original fiction was the lack of immediate feedback, even on rough writing. For those that sneer or look down at fanfiction, and I know you’re out there reading this, right now, I wholeheartedly believe that there is no better tool for developing as a writer than having copious amounts of eyes on your work, positive or critical, and finding that, in the real world, as a new writer, is hard. Hard as hell. Before you sneer, consider that. Where else can you immediately attract thousands of readers?

Back to my writing now, which is not of the fanfiction variety. I’m considering trying out Wattpad as a host for the project I’m working on now. I’m going to try and post (at least) weekly, and I may throw a couple of other WIPs up as well, as some sort of push forward for me to keep going. If you aren’t familiar with Wattpad, do me a solid and check it out. Would you read something published here? They have a lovely app for all your mobile devices, and an ever-growing presence with readers and writers (and I kind of love where they are with storytelling right now).

Consume All The Writing!

So there’s my favour. Give it to me straight up. Would you read my stuff in a serialized form (some of you, again)?

This Sunday marks my first official Mother’s Day (though Sushi might debate that). I think it’s good to reflect on things, and, maybe fortunately, but also painfully, this time of year leaves me with a lot to think about.

I had a DNC the Thursday before Mother’s Day 2013. It was, no holds barred, the worst. Two years later, it still stings to even think about how I felt that week, despite how everything turned out. Part of me is still there, tears streaming down my face as I sit on the curb outside a sushi joint with my furbaby, while Matt fetches our takeout order.

In 2015, I will spend the Thursday before Mother’s Day doing pushups on a picnic table while my lovely baby hopefully sleeps through a fitness class. I will likely follow it up with a coffee, and maybe a walk somewhere with some moms. I’ll go out for dinner with Matt while a friend I trust watches my child and go to sleep in my bed and listen to Charlie breathing while I fall asleep.

There is considerable pressure to slot yourself into many, many categories as a mother. Are you crunchy? Are you a slacker mom? An anti-vaccer? A free-ranger? Breast, bottle, cloth, disposable, purees or baby-led?

There’s a lengthy list.

The truth is, when it really, really comes down to it, none of it matters if you have a healthy child. The rest is all extras. Choices, like milk or cream, pizza or hamburgers, sunshine or rain. If it matters beyond this, your priorities as a mother are out of whack. I’d apologize for offending, but I’m not sorry. Not at all. Having a healthy child is something not everyone is afforded, and once you’re not afforded it, the little things, like parenting philosophies, or what you want in your coffee, matter a hell of a lot less.

Motherhood is a series of contradictions. It’s hard, and dirty, and sometimes several times a day, I pause and wonder to myself if I ever could have imagined doing the things I don’t think twice about. For those still on the fence about motherhood, google Nose Frida. Google how many diapers a healthy baby goes through daily. Google sex after a baby. Google sleep regressions, and colds, and wonder weeks and breastfeeding challenges.

If you’re still on the fence, and you’re not running away, through the meadow to a bar, then you’re probably up to the challenge.

For the first six months, anyway.

Something that is impossible to Google is the way your heart feels the first time your child’s eyes focus on you in an unmistakable way. The incredible joy those first rolling giggles bring. The way their little arms shoot up for you when they’re around five months old and how amazing it feels to scoop them up in your arms, over and over and over again. The looks on their tiny faces when they accomplish something new, and the amusing frustration they feel when they want more than their little bodies can do.

After giving birth, I was in the midst of the what the hell have I done stage, somewhere between month two and three when there was little eye contact and no laughter or acknowledgement that I was doing a good job or any job at all, when a childless friend wrote me to gush about how well I appeared to be adjusting to motherhood from my pictures on Facebook. I felt that was entirely untrue at the time, and, because we’ve known each other for over a decade, I felt quite comfortable telling her that that was not the case at all, and that she should question any new mother that says she has it together. Though I was still in that weird sleep deprived stage, I also remember telling her that if she had any hesitations about motherhood that she should really, really be sure before jumping in.

Do I regret being so blunt? Absolutely not.

Social media has this way of prettying up the raw impact of expelling a person from your body, after said body has spent nine months rewiring to create it. Mothers don’t Instagram their stretchmarks and c-section scars very often. They don’t take pictures of the copious amounts of fibre they’re consuming. They don’t lovingly write about the sporadic hormonal breaks, the night sweats, the still swollen joints. The depressions and adjustments are shoved to the keeping it real blog posts that get applauded for their honesty by mothers, but are also uncomfortable for the general public to read about, because we’re all supposed to fit into a number of mothering categories, but should first and foremost be thrilled that we’re mothers, fulfilling our great biological needs.

Did I have postpartum depression? No. I was incredibly lucky in that regard, and my heart goes out to any woman that has those symptoms on top of all the other weird motherery things that happen postpartum.

I certainly had days where I questioned my life choices in those early days, when my kid was working his way through the fourth trimester and checked myself daily for any of the symptoms that should result in some sort of medication. Days where I would have killed to go back to 2013 and thoroughly enjoyed walking around for a day and not talking to anyone in my old body.

I’d enjoy it for a day, and then I’m sure my chest would ache with longing for five minutes with my boy, and his easy grin and his tiny arms around my neck.

I’m nowhere near finding a mom label that I feel meshes with my parenting style. Six months in, I am, however:

– A mom that struggles with her post-baby body.

– A mom that sometimes feels overwhelmed.

– A mom that doesn’t entirely understand the deep love she has for someone she’s known for less time than some of the bottles of alcohol in her home bar.

– A mom that’s not sure if she wants a second child, and is quite happy to shelve the decision for several years, maternal clock be damned.

– A mom that still has a hard time connecting her pregnancy, which she did not enjoy, to the incredible result.

– A mom that has great compassion for the struggles of other mothers, and very little patience for judgements on how they choose to overcome their individual challenges.

– A woman that sometimes misses feeling more like an individual person, with hobbies and interests that didn’t have to be carefully scheduled.

– A woman that misses being able to walk out the door with just her purse on a daily basis.

– A woman that misses spontaneity sometimes.

– A woman that makes decisions for her child and family that she is happy to defend because they are no one else’s business but theirs.

– A woman, though grateful for Canada’s lengthy maternity leave, embraces the upcoming challenge of being a working mother.

– A woman that trusts her husband with their son completely and utterly.

– A woman that understands her mother more than she did a year ago.

– A woman that’s gained an unexpected, fantastic village through motherhood (I’ll blog about this another time), along with a new perspective on her community.

A huge Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers of all sorts out there. Keep fighting the good fight. And drop me a line if you’re ever in need of an ear.

I’ve been so lucky to have so many lent to me over the past couple of years.

Since becoming a mother, I spend a considerable amount of time hoping I can manipulate my son’s world into a place that turns out a good person when he’s ready to someday start his own adventures.

I think about the people and experiences that have enriched my life and why, and hope that he’ll have his own versions of those people. These people for me, are incredibly varied. Some I’ve known my entire life; others passed in and out more quickly, but made an impression, one that’s not easily forgotten.

It’s been seven years somehow, since one of those people left the picture far too quickly.

Mark Adams was my first Jr. High crush. From back in the day when one doodled hearts and initials and wrote on paper and cellphones were reserved for firefighters and policemen, and the internet was something people in Jr. High didn’t use, or even know existed. It was a different time, one I probably look at with a little more nostalgia than necessary. He was a nice guy. Witty. Smart. My Jr. High self, much like my 17 year old self, had impeccable taste in boys that would go on to be good men.

There were sledding adventures, phone calls spent locked in the bathroom for privacy, since there was only one phone at my house. It was a fun time. Eventually the crush abated, as most Jr. High ones do, but for the next 6 years, our paths crossed a lot, and I always relished the opportunity to spend time with Mark, because he was interesting. Not a lot of teenage boys were really interesting.

We had some crazy adventures, some of which our mutual friends that might be reading this would probably smile about. By the time we graduated high school, we were traveling in pretty different circles, but I still jumped on any opportunity to sit down with him at a party, or wave when I’d see him walking around town, until we both went off to our respective universities. Then, of course, it was 2001, and the internet was a thing people used to keep in touch, and we did sporadically, through MSN Messenger, and eventually Facebook. We didn’t talk a lot, but I wrote him a few months before he passed away in 2008, after I noticed he had moved to Guelph to do his Masters. I’d just moved to Toronto, and there aren’t too, too many of us from Digby that live within an hour radius.

I wish I’d made more of an effort to get together that year. It’s one of my few real regrets, like not asking my Granny to tell me once more how she met my grandfather before she passed away. I would have loved to hear about his future plans, and about Emerson, and all of the things that had transpired since we’d last crossed paths in person.

It was a real shock to the system when Mark died. When you’re in your early twenties, you think you’re fairly invincible, and having someone you know get hit at a crosswalk is the worst kind of reality check. The kind that makes you regard your surroundings a little differently, to take that extra second at lights when you would have just went for it, like you had a million times before.

An extra second at crosswalks is kind of a crappy way to remember someone, I think. It’s not very glamorous or interesting, and I think someone as outstanding as Mark Adams deserves better. I spent some time on my first child-free afternoon in months thinking about this, as Mark’s mother’s loving note to her son on Facebook reminded me of the date.

It hit me as a stranger offered me the last empty seat in Starbucks at his table with a guesture, while he continued to chat with someone on his Bluetooth. I’m fairly certain I haven’t worked on April 30th once since 2008, quite unintentionally. I was thinking about it today, as I even took a rare afternoon off from parenting. I didn’t plan it to coincide with today, it just sort of happened, as is usually the case. I can think of several times over the past seven years that I have taken a moment to reflect on Mark on this day and none of them have been while I was at work.

Going forward, I will continue to take April 30th off work, and spend the day just living, and being outwardly appreciative of that simple gift. Because I’m lucky to be living, and breathing, and learning, and spending time with my son and my family. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that just living is wonderful, and I think reminding myself of that is much more befitting than pausing at crosswalks (which I will probably continue to also do).

Thanks, Mark. I can’t wait to catch up in the (hopefully distant) future.