This is why we live here. May. It is incredible. I have just been sitting outside soaking up heat and colour and life. And because it froze last night - no mosquitos. Even better. Went on a 12 km ride with Chess this morning and thought again, this is why we live here.
The garden is rototilled and the horses are in it trimming around the edges where I can't get. Also the goats just because they like to be where the action is. I still don't think they are pregnant but I keep hoping and checking for some sort of belly. They look incredibly svelte. Shoot.
We also have another set of chickens as our black ones have unfortunately felt it was okay to spend the winter hours pulling feathers off each other. The result is a bit obscene and certainly not appetizing in any way. They are still laying but now they are laying outside in the "chicken yacht" while the newbies, who look like large doves and seem to have similar temperaments, are inside the "chicken condo" and starting to lay tiny little white eggs. I'm thinking the black ones may not last.
This last Saturday (the long weekend) we finally tried canoeing from Crutwell to P.A. This is something we have thought about for at least 15 years and finally got organized. At the last minute we were somewhat dismayed to find out that Seth, in whose honour the trip was being made as he just turned 14, had sustained a fairly serious supraspinatus injury. For all you non-physio types, this is just one of those darn rotator cuff muscles that is really helpful but which no one really thinks about. Anyway, paddling was definitely out for him as it was in the super-acute stage where any type of stress would make it ten times worse. Paddling for 7 hours being a type of stress.
This was crushing for Seth and almost as crushing for me as he was to be my partner so Dan could go with Levi and Heidi. This would have made for somewhat even "teams" as we had two canoes. Anyway, we decided to go ahead. We already had the canoes and the day was nothing short of perfect. Neither of us was certain exactly how far this was and no one we asked could remember even how long it had taken them. We figured 3 hours - 5 at the outside.
Well, it was slightly more than that. I finally downloaded Google Earth after the fact and realized that there was in fact a pretty big bend in the river which the highway distance disguises. I'm thinking it was around 30 kms if not slightly more. That's a long way. We switched up kids pretty frequently and the little ones helped tremendously, although they mostly kept our spirits up with chatter and name-calling to each other and so on. Poor Seth was really good at making the best of it and stayed amazingly cheerful. Around the midpoint he hooked his legs into Dan's canoe so we were effectively "attached" which allowed Dan to give me a much-needed break. A few times the wind came up and even though we were going with the current I needed to row pretty hard to make any headway. However, I must say that despite being privately pretty scared that my old shoulder injuries would resurface, they did not. I was tired and that was it. I wasn't even really sore the next day although I didn't feel like doing anything. Wow. That was amazing given that a few years ago I quit my job over a shoulder tear. So all in all it was a really great day. Poor Heidi was falling asleep on her feet by 7 that night though. She worked so hard. As did Levi.
I have to say that this is the first spring in a long, long time that has felt manageable. My typical spring feelings are a mixture of excitement and crushing disappointment as I see the possibilities in the yard with the beautiful and so short-lived weather, and then have to let them sail by as I have to go back to doing way too much. This year I am enjoying so many moments and still I feel able to look after Dan and the kids with all their birthdays and play dates and track meets and doctor's appointments, and of course, all the eating everyone does. It's very nice and it leaves me wondering how anyone is actually able to do it all. This is coupled with the reality of feeling the loss of my income. It doesn't help for me not to work and yet, it really helps. Such a conundrum.
At this point I generally go off in my head into the "why are we here?" space. Also the difficulty of human suffering and how I can ever truly enjoy so much of my existence when so many others exist in poverty and fear and abuse. Not to mention families with kids with autism, etc. It is so NOT fair and I really wish life were fair. I wish I could actually help somehow without breaking down myself.
In my evangelical upbringing, I don't think I was prepared very well to be a person accepting help or needing help or even being needy, period. I was thoroughly prepared to help others. That's great until it becomes a problem to oneself or one's own family. There is obviously no point in helping others if the people who have been placed next to you suffer as a result. What a dilemma! Here I am, with my husband actively looking after me by taking up the slack and becoming a primary breadwinner, and I cannot figure out how this is okay. It is so hard to accept someone caring for ME. Not that I think it's wrong, I guess, just so unexpected. Where do I put that? Given all the urgent needs in the world, why should I be loved so effectively?
So I go back in my life and think about all the messages I absorbed as a child and young adult. I was given two streams of brainwashing, I think. One from the church and my family, the other from the secular world. However, both agreed in this point: I was capable of much, and much was therefore required of me.
I think probably my generation was one of the first to have women's lib sort of assumed. There was perhaps a bit more emphasis on how we as girls should not be afraid of maths and sciences, and also an enthusiastic pushing of non-traditional careers, but it wasn't militant. And we as girls were not worried about entering any sort of field we cared to. The downside was that the math of time and energy requirements for daily life were sort of glossed over. Of course we could do anything boys could do. That was self-evident. However, in reality, someone needs to look after the kids. And no matter how wonderful one's spouse is, he will definitely require regular maintenance to stay that way. And having other people look after kids during the day, as everyone knows by now, is not the same and does not necessarily lessen the emotional load of children and their real needs for attention, affection, and frequent cleaning.
So a picture was painted by my secular mentors that had my husband and I cheerfully sharing all the roles of homemaking and careers. Which my husband and I have certainly done in every possible combination since we were married. This is a solution but not one that is open to the vast majority of people whose jobs are not so in demand and therefore so flexible. And it fails to allow for much in the way of specialization. Somebody has to priorize their job in order to make ends meet. And it works far better for someone to be on top of what groceries are needed and who should be where when. I think that efficiencies such as these common-sense division of labour solutions have always been in play and in fact were used by the very teachers that were encouraging us to not use them. I think they encouraged us in some sort of hope that maybe because of new gender equalities in society, certain things would be possible for us that have in fact never been possible. Like doing it all.
This was exacerbated in my case by my church upbringing that encouraged me with many terms such as "no compromise," "total surrender," "giving it all," and so on. These were forcefully and emotionally preached to men and women equally and gave the impression that the world needed our full commitment and there was no time to waste. This kind of cause is nothing but appealing to anyone with any ideals whatsoever, but it does not mix well with the day in, day out, very un-cause like needs of little kids. Which are hard to get worked up about but which cause huge problems if they are not met.
So there you go. As I told my parents the other night, I think I grew up in a perfect storm of great messages which added up to a bit of a weird view of life. And now God is inexplicably allowing me time to rest and heal and reflect and just breathe. And you know what? It's a very odd sensation. But I'm thinking that it is helpful in figuring out a normal rate of living as opposed to full out all the time. And no, there is no way this is fair as I think probably every woman in the world needs this and very few get it. And I can't deal with that. But I guess I don't have to. Not being God myself.
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