November 10... changing light...

So I have been hearing a lot of people complaining. Mostly about the coming of winter, the chill in the air, the fact that it now gets dark at 4:00 p.m. I have to confess - I love it. There are no leaves to block the light so that during the day there is a very different light in my house. It's wonderful. At about 4:00 the sky becomes a very different blue than in the summer. And it's not even so much about the hour - there are no leaves for the sun light to reflect off of, the black branches reach up and stand in sharp contrast to the Chagall blue of the sky. It's fantastic. It's inspiring and paint-able, makes me want to be creative. And because it's 4:00 or 5:00 pm - I'm not inside cooking or eating.. I'm available to catch the view, to admire the trees standing tall, the sky deepening. It takes my breath away. The bite in the wind let's me know I'm alive. The beauty of it all fills me.

November 2.... Gratitude

Happy Birthday Dad. I just called my dad to say Happy Birthday. For the first ten minutes he thought he was talking to my sister, which has more to do with his dementia than it does with my voice, or my sister. However.. all that to say, my dad was extra chatty this evening, regaling me with his philosophy of life, laughing like a hyena ( I wondered was he on something?? Birthday cheer??). In the end, it's nice that he could laugh like that. We had him here for a family dinner on Saturday to celebrate his birthday. We put on German beer drinking songs, and he sang his heart out. I invited him to dance and he happily obliged. That was funny. He can't move his legs around too much, bad knee, too much weight, so instead of twirling me around as he would have in days gone by, he threw his shoulders into it... was quite the sight. He lasted about 10 minutes which was great. It's always amazing to me to reflect on my relationship with my dad - he was a brute, brutal, really sucked as a father - until now. I'm grateful for what we have. I really am.

There are new pics of my grandson Levi on Facebook. I am so happy to see how well he is doing, how happy he is, how happy his mother is. However... there are moments like tonight where I viscerally ache for my daughter, and my grandson - and I should say daughters and grandsons. I don't know if it's because of the extremely difficult day I had at work - but I ache to hold Levi. I ache to hug Jakob. I wish my girls were here having tea with me.

In the end, reflecting on that ache let's me know how precious and beautiful these relationships are. I cherish them. I'm teary now as I write - who would have thunk I would arrive at a place where I am grateful for the family I have. Here I am.

October 31.... ahhhhh .. a perfect day...

That my dear peeps, is the sound and sigh of one contented Princess. Today my friend and I went to Rawdon to the Bain des Sources Spa. Embedded inside Laurentian mountains - this spa has hot and cold pools/tubs, a eucalyptus steam room, the cold pools are actual mountain streams, a dry sauna, an awesome place to eat with a big fireplace, a fireplace outside, and the whole in the most beautiful country side setting possible. They have added a new building  - which is massage central.. and this has been my third massage there and they have some of the best masseuses ever.

And to have this day with my dear friend Christiane.. made it a double, nay, triple pleasure. Sometimes... you just gotta take some care of yourself. And like I tweeted today - when you take care of yourself you are not being selfish.. what you are doing is helping the universe provide. I stand by that :).

And then... to come home and hear Honey had a great time playing! Music! And he'll be doing it again! Oh Joy!

Some days.. are perfect.

October 27... Relating....

I was just going to write about the women in my life, and how we relate as opposed to what it seems that men tend to do, and I realized it's my mother's birthday. Oddly enough my mother was not one for relating. She chose instead to remain isolated - and whether she did that by numbing herself with alcohol, or deciding she couldn't allow herself to need anyone, she never developed the capacity to relate. I'm grateful not everything is inherited.

I spent most of my day with my friend Christiane at her atelier. I'm trying those lampions again - remember them?! She remarked on our friendship while we had lunch together, said she so appreciated how her and I could pick up from where we left off regardless of the time between contact. We relate to each other, and we relate at a deep and meaningful level. And it doesn't matter what we talk about - whether it's about our kids, or the state of my couple, or the state of hers... we relate, we support, we love, and we laugh.

Isn't that just awesome?

October 26 .... Work

I have had a big work day. So today's gratitude is a shout out to those brave and wonderful people who privilege me with their stories, their trust, their self. What they come and do with me is hard, hard work. Not for the faint of heart to be sure. I cherish the trust people give me. I respect the awesome journey I get to witness. 

Thank you for letting me do what I do. For doing it with me. 

My heart is full.

October 25 ...contemplation..

I miss my daily contemplation of gratitude. I used to walk around, back and forth to my office let's say, and contemplate what to be grateful for. I used to think of things and say to myself, there is something to put in the blog. I haven't been doing that lately. It's as though the blog has slowly been slipping from my consciousness. It isn't that I'm less grateful, or not grateful ... but I find myself less conscious of it. I think that's a bad thing. I also wonder - is that the same process that damages relationships, that the thought and act of loving slips from one's consciousness, it no longer is an active verb - but a passive backdrop to whatever else is going on? I think that's sad too.

It takes energy to love. It takes energy to be grateful, to exercise, to take care of yourself, to reach out, to act, to appreciate, to acknowledge, to connect. It takes energy to think and be and do. It takes energy to be a wife, mother, daughter, friend ... teacher, student... you name it. It takes energy to create, paint, play, throw clay.

It takes a wish to invest, in yourself, in those around you, in those you love.

I choose to invest.

October 22 .. Finally....

Hi there. So while I have indeed been neglectful - I would also like to say that I have had a dickens of a time getting on to Blogger. What's up with that? For three nights in a row now I have not been able to access the blog. Those are my excuses for now.

Alrighty - gratitude - it's there. There is lots good happening. Since I last wrote....  Honey and I are doing wonderful (even if the last two days has found me crabby). Even better, our weekly torture session this week, as we euphemistically call it, got cancelled! Now there's two happy people. Again, I have to say, couple therapy works when you do the work, it works when you let it work, and it works when you suffer yourself through the process. As a professional in the business, I have a whole new respect for my clients. Man is it hard work - to allow yourself to be that vulnerable, to trust that much, to share that openly. It is hard. But it is soooooo worth it.

One of the highlights in the past week has been the reintroduction of music into the home, into the soul of a man. And while I am suffering somewhat from the exclusion - I'll deal with it. I'm a big girl. I'll niggle my way back in... in the mean time, you play, piano man. You allow yourself whatever room you need. Grow. It's good for what ails you.

There's nothing quite like getting lost in our art is there. I remember those days - the smell of clay, I even like the smell of oil paints, toxic as they can be. Time I dug all that stuff out.... me too I need some fun.