I always loved the first few days of a new school year.  Not that I was eager to get back to the inevitable teasing I would have to endure, but because nothing felt better than opening a clean notebook and making those first few letters in my best handwriting.  There were no creases or smudges from a bad pink eraser, just pure white pages.

    New Years reminds me of those September days.  I love to start the year with a clean and orderly house;  beds washed, laundry caught up, fridge cleaned out of leftovers and all traces of Christmas packed up and stored away.

    This drives my family crazy.  They see me getting antsy on Boxing Day, picking up and packing away little bits of Christmas that I think no one will notice. The Christmas cards go first, then serviettes and pot holders and tea towels all decorated with pointsettias and bells.   Next I work on all the angels and snowmen and Santas lounging around the main level.  

    Amid complaints of not keeping to ‘Old Christmas Day’, in the end my family gives in and helps me take down the tree and put the house back pre-Christmas usually by New Year’s Eve. It seems only right to welcome in the new year with a house as clean and fresh as a new notebook.  

    And woe to the first person to spill, wrinkle or smear something.  To them:  a 500 word essay on Good Reasons to Not Start the Year Off With a Cross Mother.  And maybe a detention.   

    So if you’ll excuse me, I have cleaning to do.

                    Happy New Year

    

     

    

  They say we are going to have a long, cold winter this year.  I think they may be right.  The temperature has dipped suddenly and violently and seems in no hurry to change its mind.

    That’s not good news for me.  I don’t enjoy winter.  The heavy coats and sweaters make me feel leaden and the cold air assaults my ears and throat.  I worry constantly about my family driving on icy roads and walking on slippery sidewalks.  

    Heartier folk shake their heads at me and ask why I don’t move somewhere winterless.  And while the thought is rather appealing, especially as the days get shorter and the snow piles on my boulevard get higher, there is one reason why I have chosen to endure:  

    Winter is the prerequisite for my favourite season, spring. 

     The thawing, warming and  bursting forth of the earth is only possible if first it is frozen, cold and dormant.  

    So I’ll wrap myself up in a few more layers, or curl up in a blanket with a hot cup of tea for a while longer and dream of warmth and sun and blossoms.

    

Ten Things I Have Learned From My Cat

1.  If you cry loud enough and long enough, someone will feed you.

2.  There is no ambition a nice long nap won’t cure.

3.  Never settle for second-best in anything.

4.  It is important to always look your best.

5.  Avoid anything that smells funny.

6.  Special people deserve special attention.

7.  Personal space should never be violated.

8.  Everyone should get fresh air and sunshine on a regular basis.

9.  Playtime is mandatory.

10. Escape is, in fact, an option.

  I have always wondered if our first memory holds some deeper meaning.  Does it reflect some aspect of our personalities or is it simply the first thing that our newly-formed mental filing system was able to store?

    My first memory is of a soggy spring day when I was only two or two and a half.  Still too cold to play outside in rubber boots, I was wearing my very fashionable white snow boots with fluffy white fur trim.  I know I loved those boots because when one got stuck in the mud and my attempts to pull it out resulted in a stocking foot dangling in mid-air instead, I was traumatized.  Wailing, I limped back into our house with one sock totally caked in mud and my boot lost forever. 

     Or at least that’s what I was thinking.  I’m sure my mother tramped outside and got it while I sat, hunched and miserable sure my prized possession was gone forever, but I don’t remember that. 

    I have never really understood why this was my first memory or what it says about me.  Does it explain my horror at the thought of drowning in quicksand?  The fact that I rarely wear winter boots anymore? 

    Then again, maybe it was simply confirming the obviously accurate fashion rule that you should never wear white before Easter.

   

    

  As adults we get a little smug, don’t we?  We parade around believing we are the teachers; that we have all the answers.  If only our children would listen to us, things would be better.  They should pick up their socks, study harder, watch their money and eat more greens. I should have expected that life would pull the rug out from under me, that another belief would be shattered.  

    It is an undeniable truth that our children teach us as much as we teach them.  Oh sure, we explain how the world works, about science, math, grammar, commerce, economics etc.  But they show us how the heart, soul and spirit work.  They have a resilience in the face of difficulty that puts us to shame, an unshakeable belief in the goodness of human beings.  They find joy in the smallest things, strength in situations that cause adults to crumble and faith when there should be despair.

    Our family has had a hard summer and through it all I have tried to keep steady for the sake of our children.  But as fears had to be faced, realities accepted and a new future forged I thought I was supporting them.  But a strange thing happened.  When I faltered, wept, and stumbled I looked around and realized that they were holding me up.  

    If only we would remember to listen to them as much as we expect them to listen to us, we would be better people.  That and reminding them they still need to pick up their socks.

    There is a conspiracy to keep me from writing in the summer.  It starts with the children.  I spent years trying to teach them to ‘ask first’ and it never happened.  Only now, when I need some peace and quiet do they remember this rule.  

    “Can I go outside/have some lunch/play next door/go to the mall/use the internet/feed the cat/call my friend/wear this/make this/watch this/hide this/use this/fix this/have people over/rearrange my furniture/skydive/adopt a wild horse/raise earthworms????”

    My husband, in a valiant gesture, posted a sign on the fridge that said when Mom was on her computer, she was off limits.  Unfortunately it is no longer visible under the swimming schedules, work schedules, tutoring schedules and karate schedules that plaster the door. The ‘Mom’ rule has been forgotten.

    I have taken to hiding in the oddest places: under decks, in shrubbery, locked in the van, behind clothes in the closet and still they find me. Outside is no better as nature is in on the conspiracy.  I am hunted down by every mosquito, fly, wasp, bee and earwig in the neighbourhood.  

    Inside, technology is a willing conspirator.  There is always competition for my attention from the television, radio, computer, telephone, doorbell, washing machine, and answering machine.  

    It astounds me then that I have managed to put down any words at all.  But those that I have written have found their way onto the page in some of the loveliest settings: at dusk around our fire while camping, on the beach while the kids splashed in the waves, in the morning quiet on my deck, or curled up on my couch with the cat while a thunderstorm raged.   Although even then, it seems time is conspiring.  The days are slipping by way too fast.  

    So if this conspiracy is to get me to slow down and enjoy the summer with the kids...well, I surrender.

 I know for sure which fairy godmother wasn’t invited to my christening...the one who would have infused me with patience.  Somehow that gift was never given to me so instead, the fates have decided to force me to develop some.

     When I was three I decided I was ready to tackle school.  So, without telling my mother, I followed my brother to school one day after lunch.  Hysterical parents had to tell me that I was too young for school and I would have to wait.  Little did I know that this was to be a recurring theme in my life.

     I seem to have to wait for everything.  And for me that is the ultimate torture.   

    I am incurably punctual, so I end up waiting in doctor’s offices, dentist’s offices and airports.   I suffer from insomnia, too, so most nights I wait to fall asleep.  I shouldn’t have been so surprised when I had to wait weeks to deliver my children, either.  

    It seems ironic to me, then, that I would choose a profession where the art and duration of waiting has been brought to new heights.  Writing is the ultimate test of patience.  

    Writers wait for inspiration, then spend months or longer for the words to line up and behave themselves on the page.  We put our finished work aside and wait for it to ‘cool’ as if it were a pie fresh out of the oven.  Then we patiently rip it apart and rewrite it.  Then we wait on queries, wait for word on requested full manuscripts and editor’s comments.  Oh we’re not done though. The real waiting has just begun.  

    If we’re lucky, we wait on the decision of acquisitions, marketing and promotion.  If we haven’t lost our minds by this point, and are offered a coveted contract, we wait for editor’s comments, artwork, copyedits and line edits.  This is several months of patience in action.

    When the glorious day of publication finally arrives, we are only a shadow of our former selves living in homes where clocks have been ripped from the walls and calendars are unidentifiable through the blotches of marker.  

    How did I, the most impatient of people, survive this process, you may ask?

    Oh, it hasn’t happened for me yet.

    I’m still waiting.

 I wasn’t very old when I realized that my future as a supermodel was in peril.  It hit me one day when I watched a program where the models had to practice showing emotions in front of a mirror.  “Show me happy,” they were told.

    Happy? Really.  Nothing else?  Just happy?  I was confused. For me, emotions come in bundles. I didn’t have a singular ‘happy’ in my repetoire.   I got fifty shades of happy;  happy tinged with regret, happy dosed with envy, happy laced with irony, smug happy, bittersweet happy, giddy happy...really, it just goes on and on.  And don’t even get me started on excited.  

    It was a sad day then, when I had to face the fact that I was too emotionally complicated to ever be on a magazine cover.  

    But as bad as this was for getting on the outside of a magazine, it has worked out pretty well for being on the inside of a magazine.  Especially children’s magazines.  Writers are notoriously complicated.  Kids love complicated.  Ever ask them how they feel about something?  

    “So, how was school today?”

    “Okay, I guess.”

    “You guess?”

    “I was nervous giving my presentation.”

    “So you had a hard day?”

    “Ya, but I made the soccer team.”

    “So that was good, huh?”

    “Well, no.  Jimmy and me got in trouble in math class, so I had to stay in at lunch and miss the practice.”

    “Oh, I’m sorry, honey.”

    “That’s okay.  I got to help Mrs. Myers in the computer lab.”

    “So it was...”

    “It was a kinda hard, good, mad, exciting day.”

    Now we’re speaking my language.

   Seeing as this is my first entry, I am feeling great pressure to make it impressive.  What can I say that will make me sound witty, intelligent and sophisticated?  The trouble with setting down your thoughts for all to see, is that I’m not sure we do want everyone to see us.  The real us.  We don’t really want people to know that we are not always witty, that some days we do or say stupid things, and that we are only sophisticated at cocktail parties.   We hide our real selves and the danger in exposing our thoughts is that we expose ourselves.  

    So, knowing full well that this is a risky venture, I am daring to go forward anyway.  I will start slowly as I’m pretty sure the real me is best served in measured doses.