Checking for Reality


English: North Saskatchewan River valley viewe...

North Saskatchewan River valley viewed from Glenora neighborhood in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Recently my horoscope asked me if I was ready for a reality check. It’s time, I was told, to assess how well I knew the “fundamental facts” of my current physical location. It was a grounding activity in the most literal sense. Being a literal girl, this appealed to me. Perhaps it will appeal to you too.

 

So to begin:

 

Do you know which direction north is?

 

North is directly out of my bedroom window. It’s where I see the green and white Northern Lights and where the smell of cigarette smoke from the neighbors drifts in.

 

Where does the water you drink come from?

 

The North Saskatchewan River is the source of our drinking water. Probably a better option than any ground water around here given the farming and chemical plants in the area. But not by much.

 

What phase of the moon is it today?

 

We just had a full moon not long ago, so the moon is in the early “new” stages. I didn’t see it last night or in the sky yesterday. When the moon is full, or close to it, you can see it during the day this time of year.

 

What was the indigenous culture that once lived where you live now?

 

Plains Cree

 

Where is the power plant that generates the electricity you use?

 

That I don’t know. We have power plants in the area, according to Rob, but which one feeds us, I couldn’t say. I can tell you that living rural you are more aware of the fragility of the power grid than you are in the city. Lights flicker when the wind howls and during summer storms. Last summer, we lost power quite often during those weeks when it seemed like we were living in the eye of a hurricane.

 

Can you name any constellations that are currently in the night sky?

 

Ursa Major and Minor. Orion. These are the ones that Rob points out most often to Dee. She is more interested in the configurations than I am. I just like the clearness of a night sky and the light of the moon. I am a moon girl.

 

What species of trees do you see every day?

 

Anything pine is decorative and a transplant. We live on the prairie. Too far from the mountains and the boreal forest for pine to be native. Poplar and Birch are the native trees. Anything else was trucked in.

 

These questions are meant to be a starting point for deepening the connection with one’s specific locale on the planet in an effort to be grounded, which is very yoga. You need to establish where you are before you can decide the best route to anywhere else.

Yoga is all about grounding – being present. Start in the physical and progress to the interior and eventually enlightenment shows up.

 

Not necessarily that simple but not the worst way to go about it either.

 

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Wintering in My Discontent


Snow Cat

Snow Cat (Photo credit: clickclique)

Nothing is wrong and yet nothing is actually all right. A most annoying state of being that plagues me of late and is contributing to a general lack of … what is the opposite of “inertia”? Ertia? Probably not, but still a state of general non-interest and lack of  motivation.

Attribution for this could conveniently be laid at the foothills of the longest winter I can remember. Four months and it’s not even Valentine’s Day.

“It’s actually only three months,” my husband pointed out as he readied to leave for work this morning.

“We’ve had snow since before Halloween,” I said.

“Barely,” he countered.

And by “barely” he means we didn’t have snow that stuck until the snowstorm that descended as Dee and I cased the hamlet for treats on Halloween, but we had snow on and off for over a week before that first big dump. To my mind that puts us nearly to the four-month mark.

“It hasn’t been too brutal,” he reminded me as he left.

And by “brutal” he means gods-awful-fucking-cold … by Canadian standards. Far north Canadian standards. Pioneer days don your bear skin coat and tie a rope between the cabin and the stable so you don’t get lost and freeze solid type of winter.

Even though he is right, in a purely technical sense, it’s still been the longest winter I can recall, and I am past the point of sanguine acceptance, pushing firmly up against being completely and irrevocably done with it.

Still, I don’t think that winter fed-up’d-ness is entirely all that is in play in terms of my Shakespearean mood.

The limitations of my surroundings play into it. The hamlet hasn’t any walking paths, or even sidewalks, so I am forced to trek into town to the fitness centre to walk. Something I am doing with regularity but not without resentment.

I’ve overdosed myself on teaching, which I am in the process of remediating, but still have a few obligations to complete before taking a break. Though I always enjoy a class once I get there and begin, I find that it’s harder and harder to pump myself up to teach, a sure enough sign of burn out.

Some of the weariness rests all about me in boxes and piles that scream to be sorted, organized and purged. There is nothing I dislike more than under the surface tidying up and cleaning. I am great with the superficial aspects. I can vacuum, launder, clear off this or that surface, render it accessible for use again, and clothes, mostly get folded and put away. However, the kind of purging that borders on excavation is something that only extreme situations like moving, for example, are likely to push me towards.

It could be the near absence of a social life. Although I am the least social person I know, aside from my husband, the fact that our only getting out of late is either related to soccer matches or children’s birthdays might be nagging at me a bit. But this leads back to issues finding babysitters (our last one grew up) and settling on things to do. Dining out and movies just don’t appeal and we are not pub people. And, of course, there is the problem of having to drive a fair ways before hitting upon anywhere that one would normally associate with a “night out” and finally culminates in my general laziness and indifference to venturing out at all when the degree of difficulty in doing so rises about “moderate”.

Or maybe it’s just February.

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I Thought the Daughter and I Had Already Discussed Lesbians


"Lesbian" wedding mock-cake at the R...

Roma Gay Pride  2008 Stefano Bolognini, June 7 2008. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As we drove into two this evening to take Dee to Girl Guides, Rob and I chatted about this and that as we often do. I mentioned that I googled … cyber stalked a wee bit … a woman I’d met by chance during a Facebook discussion on pap tests.

Yes, cervical cancer screenings. What else I would I be discussing in a Facebook thread.

I noted that most of the women I met virtually seemed to blog and they all appeared to arrive at blogging via upsetting and/or traumatic life events.

“I feel I might not to widen my circle of acquaintance,” I said.

As I recounted the various facts I’d gleaned about this blogger, Dee piped up from the back seat.

“She’s married to a woman?”

“Yes,” I said. “We’ve talked about this. Women sometimes fall in love with and marry other women.”

“No, I don’t think so,” she countered.

At ten she’s become quite contrary. She disagrees or takes the opposite stance simply because it is me, her mother, that she is talking to.

“It’s only a preview,” Rob has remarked more than once. He counts himself an expert because he witnessed two other daughters become quite militant opposing with another wife in the past.

“Yes,” I said, “we did. Remember my friend Mike on Facebook. The one with the two little girls?”

She nodded.

“He is married to a man.”

“Of course,” she agreed as though man on man marriage and parenthood was as normal as drawing a breath and why were we going back over this ordinary, normal ground.

“Well,” I continued, “sometimes women also fall in love, marry and have children. Just like them and just like Dad and I.”

“Except Dad isn’t a woman.”

“Dad is certainly not a woman,” I agreed.

Rob nodded.

“So does one of them wear a tuxedo and the other a white dress,” she asked.

“Sometimes. And sometimes they both were gowns or they both wear tuxedos.”

“I think girls would look cute in tuxedos,” she declared.

“If Edie and Silver ever get married, you can tell them you are going to wear a tuxedo like Dad’s then,” I said.

“But what if I want to wear a dress?”

“Then you will,” I told her, “but it’s nice to have options.”