The delays of updates have been vastly due to an amazing amount of life happening on this side of the screen.
One would think with the almost birth of our first child that life would slow down for the Creatives?
Not so.
When is that ever so?
We had a hiatus in February due to scheduling conflicts but reconvened very happily in the month of March.
We sat around a table and ate and ate, and while we ate, we discussed the weight of things.
There was a deep winter longing that was within our spirits that only a snow covered East Coast winter brings. A readiness for spring, yet the long winter had not yet passed.
Impatience?
Yet as we shared I had the sense that the food we consumed was not as nourishing as the words being shared. That is what I fell asleep to that night once the candles had been blown out, the crayons back in the box and all the crumbs swept up.
Sharing our journeys is more important than our desire to stand out. We share to relate and find the sameness and that is what creates our ability to be unique. It is our connectedness that makes us so different.
So we connect to be different.
And are different, so we connect.
It's a waiting game.
Waiting for a new life to arrive.
The questions are endless.
"When?"
"Is she here yet?"
"How are you feeling?"
"Have you thought about intervention methods yet?"
"Any sign of labour?"
All of these questions are a distraction.
A distraction of the real story.
The real story: is the life that was created for the exact time and moment it arrives. The real story isn't in the mamas control, it is in hands that are bigger and stronger than hers. The real story is a story about relinquishing the right of control. It is the lesson of mama hood. Given a gift to carry and entrusted to care for, yet in no way is this gift in the mamas full control.
And words of the Bethel Music Song Shepherd "In the process, in the waiting...Your making melodies over me." has become an anthem as the days tick by and the questions build.
So I turn off from the questions and I am resting in the process.
And shouldn't we all do that?
Shouldn't we attempt this present life of the moment we are in?
When we attempt wellness we need to attempt the deep breathing of bringing our real life forward.
Deep breaths like a birthing mama, and deep breaths like we inhale after coming up from the deep water.
In the process I am reaching to rest in the presence of what is bigger than me.
Here's the thing.
Words do matter.
We throw them around here and there and although we think our words are our own, they have life past our mouths.
I caught myself just yesterday throwing words around to the best friend, trying to describe thoughts that I was carrying. All my opinions and concepts being formulated as I spoke and I cringed.
I cringed because I heard the words fly out and have a life past me that encouraged criticism.
I despise criticism.
I think of myself as highly aware of critical language that destroys life. I pride myself in the awareness of the toxic words that fly around. I see myself as a Katniss in the word world. Bow and arrow in hand, ready to shoot at whatever is fake, unreal and untruthful.
And there I was supposing that just because I wanted to "express myself" that I had a right to spout words out into the air that could cut like a knife.
I did check myself.
I did backtrack, but I also walked away from that conversation with a sense of disappointment over my lack of sensitivity.
So I am calling myself out today.
Wellness is about words too.
And I want you to be well.
I want to be well alongside you.
I want to see us thrive and yes, I want to be truthful and call out the dark bits that we allow to walk in-between us, and I want to do that with a grace that catches our breath and makes us want to stand together.
I want to stand with you. With words that matter.
My city and province, Halifax, Nova Scotia is expierencing a cultural and well-being attack seemingly overnight.
I need not go into all the political details and drama as a quick google study would inform anyone of what Halifax is up against this season with a new budget being proposed without the input of it's dwellers and industry leaders.
Ultimately it all means that Nova Scotia's rise to be a place where people would want to stay and be inspired by is being cut. We were never a province that one stays for the 'money'.
No, we stay for the lifestyle.
Yeah, that East Coast Lifestyle company that came out of the roots of this city with a vision that has become world renown. Their creativity and ingenuity started here.
So this Lifestyle that speaks of ocean spray, anchors dropped, salt air-in-lungs, music heavy and all those bodies yelling and screaming praise to the sky as they embrace every wave that comes their way, it is worth it to protect.
The life we've been working so hard to shake is that 'defeatist maritimer'. The 'too much snow', 'too much rain' , 'not enough stores' , 'nothing to do' , 'if you want money, go out west' , 'we loose them all to B.C.'
Thats a tired Lifestyle. It's old. It's aging. We've had enough!
Those of us who have stayed here have seen a culture arise out of the defeatist ground and we celebrate every spring when the creatives and artists come out of there work spaces and spread their work. Spread our stories for the world to see.
I am one of them.
I didn't believe I lived in a city where I could be anything but 'boring', and then a maritime actor told me to submit a play in "The Atlantic Fringe Festival". A festival that film and stage workers alike make possible. It was there, after all the support my small group of friends and fellow creatives, that I began to believe my city offered me more than just a dead end dream.
Now, nine months pregnant, I am still figuring this 'Creative Life' out, but I wouldn't want to do it anywheres but this East Coast Lifestyle place where the salt air fills my lungs and the coffee shops are littered with aspiring writers, bloggers, actors, film makers and doers.
I am over this Maritime Defeatist Life.
We are more than this Halifax, Nova Scotia.
We are worth more than just a cut in our growth.
We deserve the time to sit at a table and pass 'grace' along to our city and it's members and discuss this with more than just a nod of 'goodbye'.
Stand up and don't accept the 'too small' City concept. Nova Scotia has what it takes, we know this, we have seen this and we won't accept anything more than the best for our now, and our future.
Wellness isn't just a concept to aspire to. Wellness is a way of life to step into.
Wellness is a daily challenge.
A dare.
It dares you to take aspects of your life:
- Mental
- Physical
- Spiritual
- Relational
- Financial
And give them a good shake up. To embrace them as part of you in a way that offers respect to the life you are called to live.
We need to honour our minds, bodies, spirits, relationships and our means to live. We need to cultivate and grow them.
It's Spring and the rains that fall on the ground are nurturing the growth that is coming. We should all be nurturing growth in our lives.
So I am taking this Wellness Dare.
Thirty-Eight weeks pregnant, I am honouring the body and life I have been given and will strive to respect and nurture these things.
Asking myself:
How can I challenge growth in my life and mind?
What are health and wellness lifestyle choices I can improve?
What does my spirit need and crave?
What relationships need work?
How can I work towards a financial goal?
Only you can ask yourself and answer the questions surrounding wellness, but when you do, you'll find you will be inspired to embrace this slow oncoming Spring with a new energy.
Will you join me?
I've got my singing voice on blast now, because it's getting down to the wire. This little one and I have a marathon to run and we've been preparing. Her with her persistence and me with my determination.
Emotionally, Spiritually, Mentally and Physically.
The journey of bringing a life into the world is all encompassing. The more this life moves and follows me daily as I do my own life, I have been realizing how important our surroundings are.
Maintaining an atmosphere of strength, purpose and sweet surrender to the beauty of life unpredictable has been a mantra.
We've set up a birth plan, washed the clothes, got the carseat locked in, and we've embraced the unpredictable. We don't want to live in a life of fear or perfect planning, but in the moment of the daily.
Words are so important. Keeping the words around us positive and speaking life over this process has been a realization of the life our little family want to live.
A life redeemed with spirits released to the trust and peace that only God can give.
So many of us do not realize how our own experiences, worries, fears and overall mindsets can affect another.
May I be so aware of myself and how I affect this little heart. May I speak words of life and faith. May I deny "myself" so I can be the grounding my child needs. Not to negate myself and needs, but to take stock in what I may carry that need not be shared. May I be the fighter and the protector but not the controller. May I train my mothering like an athlete, that I will understand how to use my abilities in a way that holds on when needed but knows instinctively when to let go. Because the letting go is as important as the holding on.
There is an amazing team of people preparing for this life and we are blessed daily by them and their care.
This is it sweet one. The stage is set, the curtains are ready. This is your first call.
It's the time of year for Spring Cleaning. For clearing the cobwebs of your life and space and making room for the new and the fresh.
Those of us who find this a fun and inspiring task are already on the journey of renewing ourselves and our spaces yet again.
There are also those who don't enjoy this. Who find 'renewing', 'renaming', or 'rebirthing' a very uncomfortable, scary task.
Both are valid.
We need those of us who have no problem moving forward into 'the new'.
And
We need those of us who prefer to rest in the known of before.
That is how we appreciate the balance.
There is balance when we make room in our lives for new things.
There is balance when we take the time to consider a new journey, decision, next step.
And although we may be scared to put a label on a 'next step', sometimes that is exactly what we need to do in order to progress more in our life.
Life is ever moving and changing. We cannot expect to stay in the same place with the same people. We either progress in our relationships, and work. Or. We don't.
We have to make room for life in our life. Eventually, you and I have to put a foot in front of another and go. Somewhere. Anywhere.
For me, I am making room for a baby. I am on the countdown to her birthday and daily going through the things that we accumulate that do not represent, or welcome her into our lives. We have to make room for this new life and that means that we stop and assess what we value. We make decisions based on moving forward to bring her in.
It's a natural thing.
This making room for more.
The more room you make,
The more life can happen.
So make room.
Here on the East Coast, it is white.
Like a new duvet cover our world has been blanketed. Not just once, but over and over again.
For some, this is suffocating. To be layered upon layered with white.
For me? This is miraculous.
No matter how many negative posts come out about our weather I am still smiling with my wilted tulips that I just had to say goodbye to. Because Spring WILL come. It does every year, and no matter how much weather we get in any season, there will be complaining.
It's too muggy.
It's too hot.
It's too cold.
It's too rainy.
It's too slushy.
It's too....
The city of Halifax has miraculously avoided many tragedies in the past few months. One specifically in a public place which could have been devastating.
Think of that.
Think of our soldiers away in hot countries who would give anything to be back in their snowed in homes, with their spouses and children. Shovels instead of weapons.
Think of the farmers whose land is getting the most rejuvenating moist giving season this year. That we might actually profit from the lands white on white covering.
Think.
I hope the snow continues for as long as it needs to. Because white on white might actually be what our land needs. Because weather comes and weather goes and what is left is still you.
You are still the same person with or without the white. If you are anxious for Spring, you will still be anxious when it arrives. Because once Spring weather is here and all the rain douses our land, and the frost covers our tulips during a flash freeze, we'll be complaining then too.
What is our problem that we can be in one of the most beautiful places on earth with all it's entitlements and still find reasons to be discontent?
I'll let winter sing a bit longer so I can learn patience, joy and rest in all this white it has layered on me.
Sometimes life is in those quiet moments.
You know,
Those real live moments that are quiet.
The nothing but ticking of the clock.
The twitch of a cats tail.
The feeling of a baby inside a tummy stretching for more room.
The blinking of a cursor on screen as thoughts scattered try to come together.
...
I don't want to be so busy that I miss those moments.
And often we are in the quiet moments when we least expect it.
Leave room for the quiet moments. The moments that take us by surprise and make us pause. Pause further. Press into the silence. There is something there worth finding. Something there worth trusting. May it rest on us and may we not be too scared to accept it as settles.
.....
We like labels. They tell us exactly what something is or isn't. They categorize, organize and set into place what we yearn to define.
We are born into this process. We are given a name, and from there everything else follows. We lean slightly one way towards what is so often called "The Right Brain" (Which is a complete myth of a concept) and we are labeled 'Artistic/Creative'. We lean in the opposite way and suddenly we are all "Logic".
These labels that the our systems, cultures, and norms set up as a whole, only teach over time limitations instead of freedoms.
Because when we are told something enough, we will believe it.
In my High School Grade 11 year I was picking out courses with my guidance counsellor and expressed a desire to take the next Biology class the following year. I enjoyed the one I had taken, and wanted to take another one. I liked the material and it interested me.
The response?
"You can't take that. You are not good at it. It won't look good on a transcript."
That was that, I was dismissed as not good at Biology therefor I had no business being in a class that would teach me about it.
Implied Label: Not smart in the sciences.
I accepted it. I never took a science course again.
Labels.
"Why don't you ever use a nickname for me? You've never given me a pet name!" I whined at the man I had married years before and known for even longer still.
"I don't know...it's not easy for me. You have always been 'Amy' to me." He spoke into the quiet of our darkened bedroom.
"Just Amy." I huffed holding a cat tail with my left hand and feeling the rumble of her purr through it.
"Not, just. Amy is enough, you are enough as you are. You don't need any other way to describe you, because Amy says it all."
The cat purred louder and I let go of her tail turning towards him.
"Amy?" I questioned not fully grasping how my three letter name could say anything more than a popular name trend.
"Amy." He pulled me in and I heard his breathing get heavier.
He wasn't trying to label me.
Why was I?
Because I wanted a label.
"Tell me what I am." I had so often asked my family, friends, teachers, online tests, bosses, colleagues ...
I am this.
I am that.
We need to be anything but these labels.
We need to flourish without a definition.
Because we are enough.
We were made to be exactly who we are. Contradictions and Consistencies all wrapped up into one person.