Missin’ you, Mama

Posted under Family, Mom by Sarah

I think my mom would have been amused to find her former favourite mechanic schlepping plates and making lattes as co-owner of one of the local cafes.

She would have cried when she heard my song on the Noted CD.

She would be surprised to find that I now like the uniquely-patterned couch and armchair I inherited from her. Birds being one of my least favourite creatrues, I was never very appreciative of the brown, red, taupe, pink and beige pheasants that gallivant on said furniture. Now, however, since I built my living room and dining room around the pattern and colour scheme, I have grown to enjoy it. She’d feel right at home, I think!

This fall, Mom and I might have been students together: She had planned to go back to school for a second degree, hoping to find a way to professionally use her intelligence, wisdom, and hard-earned life experience.

Though her death forced me to get my own apartment and enabled me to buy my Trixie Toyota, if she were still with us she would have been excited to no longer have to share her car with me (or find coffee stains on the upholstery), and I imagine her coming over for coffee every now and then… something I always wished for.

I think she would have enjoyed the memorial we had for Mark. It seemed like she was there in spirit, anyway, and that the event was honouring her life as well as Mark’s. I wonder what she might have done differently, or what her ideas might have been. Still, I have no doubt that she would have been proud of us, proud of how we chose to celebrate Mark’s life.

I’m missin’ you today, Mama. I’m so glad Mark is with you now, but I wish I still had you, too….

A Transparent Truth

Posted under Church, Culture, God, Lessons, Life, Mom, Pentecostal, The Guts Of Me, Transparency by Sarah

The more observant of my readers may have noticed that all of my recent posts (notice I didn’t use the words frequent or regular), recent being over the last year or so, have been either about grief, ranting, or something superficial.

The reason? Fear, mostly. Fear of what others may think of me, of how those who have known me as The Good Little Missionary Girl might regard me if I delve back into the topic of faith, or get as truly “gritty” as I’d like to on this here website.

No longer. I am recently emboldened, by what I’m not sure, but here it is nonetheless. Please read on with an open mind, knowing that my only intention is transparency and getting back to the roots of this website. I know that people will have strong opinions about these issues. Please don’t take offense, rather take my honesty for what it is, or leave it. I cannot remain silent any longer.

It is no secret that I have long been disillusioned with church as I grew up knowing it, with the “Christian” institution that has become normal. In YWAM (Youth With A Mission, the organization that took me to Mexico and Hawaii, etc.), I was part of a community of believers that lived faith, day in and day out, in our work and play, sharing our possessions, helping each other when needed, and so much more. Going to organized church on Sundays became redundant to us, other than to show our Christian Mexican friends that we weren’t heathens. Shame.

When I returned to Canada, I was excited about a working relationship with the church that I called my home church, assuming the feeling was mutual. I had been on “the field” for several years and had what I thought was some valuable first-hand experience. It didn’t take long before I realized they had no idea what to do with me, and the apparent lack of trust in my gifts and abilities was so different from what I had become accustomed to that I very soon grew disillusioned. I knew the church wasn’t “well”, but it became more and more obvious to me that they had no idea.

I became increasingly frustrated with what I started to call “The Superficial Bullshit” (TSB) that passed for “fellowship” (the Christian F-word). It was what occurred before and after every service in the lobby as people “greeted” each other with “God bless you” (what DO they mean by that?), during every service as people watched each other “worship” (”Look who’s just sitting like a lump during the song service”, “Look who’s praying at the front - wonder what they have to repent of”), and at cell groups and Bible studies (how much of your soul will you really bare when some people bring their children to what should be an intimate place of trustful sharing?), etc. It occurs to me that my observations could very well have been tainted by something changing within myself and not an accurate reflection of many who were participating in TSB, but I desperately longed for something grittier, something less outwardly polished, less publicly fluffy.

More and more, entering the church building made me angry. I realized they didn’t know me and it wasn’t a place I could safely “come clean” about my ideas of what a church should be: they weren’t going to change anytime soon. After only having my membership for a year and a half, I withdrew it with a letter to the board, which brought no reply back. I voluntarily stepped down from the one area I had been involved with because I thought I might be regarded as more of a subversive than a leader. Then, I stopped attending.

That was a year and a half ago, and I still feel as if I have been set free! I don’t miss it at all. I DO miss the faith community I had in YWAM, though. I miss the level of transparency we had with each other, the “real-ness” of relationships, how we weren’t afraid to be honest with each other, how we held each other accountable in many areas, and so much more.

Then, a little over a year ago, my mother died. She was a single mother who had raised my five siblings and I alone since 1994. She was a beacon of faith, a pillar of godly truth, with a degree in religious education from a Christian university college. We were very different people, with different personalities, but we both held faith very close to our hearts.

When she was sick, I couldn’t handle it. Being the oldest child of a single parent, I have always stepped up, been responsible, done more than I should have. But in this case, I couldn’t get far enough away. For the first time in my life, I didn’t want to be responsible. I sat in the living room while my siblings did the food and dishes for Christmas. Perhaps the implications of her being weak and dying were too much for me to process, I don’t know.

Then she died a little over a year ago. I wasn’t ready. I thought I had more time, thought that I could say good-bye, ask her forgiveness for being so distant, get some understanding as to why I felt I had to get away rather than stick around to be with her. But she was gone.

It shook my world, rattled my being to the core. She had been the centre of my existence, my own personal pillar of strength for so many years. Suddenly, the world was different. I had to grow up, get my own apartment, my own vehicle, my own insurance policy. I inherited a bit of money that I had to invest. I became co-executor of her estate, co-guardian of my youngest brother. With my siblings, I had to make decisions about her things, had to pack up her house and move out.

The worst, however, was facing her people. They meant well, but their sympathy didn’t help. Neither did the church, really. A few people did, but I was almost relieved that there was no formal “church” outreach to the practically orphaned children of one of their members, a leader in their midst. It didn’t look good on them, but it suited me just fine.

Now for the gritty: I don’t know where I stand with faith anymore. I’m not that same “good little missionary girl” you used to know. I’m not the “worship leader” person. As you can see, I’m not even comfortable with those terms being applied to me. I’m not sure what they’re supposed to mean, or what they meant to you. I definitely know that I don’t identify with them right now, and I’m willing to risk your criticism to say so.

Many questions have been raised in my mind about what I always just accepted as truth, or took for granted, as the case may be. There are questions and doubts, but I’m not motivated to look for answers for them. Perhaps it’s laziness, or the evil, evil “backsliding”, but to be brutally honest, I’m okay with it.

Fundamentally, there are things that I don’t imagine will ever change for me: God is God, the Bible is true, Heaven and hell are both realities, etc. It’s the details that are fuzzy to me right now, and I really think that’s alright.

A friend said to me during a rare and refreshing online chat recently, “I’ll bet Jesus likes you more now”. THAT’S the kind of Jesus I can believe in. Hopefully I’m on my way to learn more about the type of faith that gets angry with hypocrites and hangs out with prostitutes.

Meanwhile, don’t expect me to say “God bless you” or do anything we know as “churchy”. I just can’t.

A Day in My Life, June 2008

Posted under Beauty, Books, Church, Clothes, Coffee, Creativity, Culture, Family, GrownUpVille, Idiosyncraticness, Lessons, Life, Longings, Mom, Money, Music, Nature, News, Seasons, Serverdom, Singing, Society, Technology, The Guts Of Me, Trixie the Toyota, Waitressing, Writing, Yummies by Sarah

I had a sudden desire today to chronicle and compare the different stages of my life, as I look back and notice that my life in June 2008 is remarkable different from that of June 2007, June 2006, June 2005, and so on.

I invite you to be a witness on this journey.

June 2008 finds me 27 years old, living in a two-bedroom second-floor apartment in the only apartment building in a tiny town in East Huron County called Brucefield. This town is known for it’s flashing light, yellow if you’re driving between Clinton and Exeter on Highway 4, or red if you’re coming from either Seaforth or Bayfield. There is one elementary school, one church, one drive-in restaurant, two mechanic shops, one Asian/Home Decor/B&B/Lunch Room location, and one fire station.

My apartment overlooks a cornfield, the view of which is mostly obstructed by a lovely birch tree. Said tree helps me feel more confident walking around in my apartment in less-than-decent clothing on summer nights. After all, who would be driving by slowly enough whose gaze could penetrate the birch branches in the split second I happen to be passing through my dining room, several feet from my beautiful picture window?

I enjoy living alone, though sometimes I do wish someone was there to care whether I came in or not, or to wonder where I was, or to motivate me to do dishes, finally! My neighbours are understanding and quiet, the area is safe, and I actually have a place to call home. MY home. I’ve immensely enjoyed painting and decorating my apartment, putting all of my good taste to good use in a place where I’m the boss, now and forever.

Another addition to my life is that of Trixie the Toyota, a pretty, dark-green 1997 4Runner who goes with me everywhere I go. She hauls the accoutrements of my life and hobbies without complaint. She has survived being rolled over in the ditch after skidding out on an icy country road, being hit-and-run by some unknown person, a not-so-successful attempt at backing up a trailer, and carrying some of my more treasured furniture.

Not so enjoyable are the bills that go with being established and mobile, namely cell phone, rent, insurance, hydro, phone/internet, groceries, gas, repairs, etc. I can’t say as I ever yearned for that part of nesting, but I take it in stride, usually. I’ll be much happier when I can finally get my tax returns done (for the past 2 years), pay off my credit card, and have money set aside for winter tires.

I have spent more than a year at the same job, as a server at The Brew’n Arms English pub and restaurant in Bayfield, Ontario. Earlier this year, I graduated to keyholder and Dining Room Manager, as well as Kitchen Painter and Orchid-Caretaker extraordinaire. My bosses are wonderful people who have become friends and family, as well as the most understanding and flexible supervisors anyone could ask for. They make me want to stay and do my best for them, for their business, for their town.

Last year at this time, I was also working as a drywaller, and, shocker! I don’t miss it a tiny bit. I do enjoy my refined house-painting skills, which I have recently put to good use in a “cottage” in Bayfield, and hope to expand as a second job. If you hear of someone looking to hire a house painter, give them my number!

I’m not attending church because I couldn’t handle the one I had called “home” for years. I’m generally fed up with the institution that is what church has become, with all its expectations and traditions and legalism. I would enjoy a faith-based community of believers that is honest and open, a group that can laugh and be reverent in an informal way. I really could expand this paragraph to a whole essay, but suffice it to say that I have not encountered such a community, but I still seek to hold onto my beliefs. I am discovering more of what life is like on “the other side” (outside the Christian bubble), and it’s very educational, despite occasionally dangerous.

If it were possible to live on coffee, I’d do it.

I’ve joined the wonderful realm of BlackBerry, as I once dreamed of doing. And I’m paying for it, too.

Writing is still my best communication method.

I rarely see earlier than 10 AM, or close my eyes earlier than 1 or 2 AM. I’d like to change that.

The music in my life has developed over the past year as well. I am the youngest voice of the all-female cover band, Cactus Jam, and I love it, despite playing mostly Legions. I was also privileged enough to be part of Noted!, a project sponsored by the United Way in my county, which is helping to boost the music careers of the 17 women chosen to participate. We got to record 14 tracks in a professional studio, and a great-sounding CD is the result. This past winter I also ventured out to sing a few times at Open Mic nights at a local pub, and have been the featured soloist at two church events.

This year finds me recently motherless, a drastic blight on anyone’s life, and definitely on mine. It has changed so many things and finally propelled me into nesting in the first place. It also made my brother and I guardians of our youngest brother and launched me further into the land of disabled children in Ontario. I now have a lawyer, communicate regularly with several case workers, get all kinds of official mail, and have to return junk mail still addressed to Mom.

June 2008 also finds me blonde, and with an even greater fashion sense. I love that about growing older! I predict I’ll still be stylish in my 80s. If I’m not, remind me of now.

I’ve discovered I love flowers and plants, doing the Toronto Saturday Star crossword, Pinot Grigio and Shiraz, premium beer, CBC Radio, brie on melba rounds with semi-dried tomatoes in duck confit, Dollarama’s plain candles, serving dessert, mom’s old couch and armchair (with my apartment’s decor built around them), C&E used furniture in Goderich, Americanos from The Bean, and living in Huron County!!! (Sorry, but that deserved more than three exclamation points)
Being Sarah Elizabeth takes different shapes all the time, and I’m enjoying the process. Here’s to another year!

P.S. I Love You

Posted under Memories, Mom, The Guts Of Me by Sarah

She’s all around me. Everywhere I look in my apartment, I see something that reminds me of her. The curtains she made hang on my big dining room window, the matching throw pillows on the couch that was hers, which sits behind the coffee table I bought her at Ikea, on which rests one of the sea grass baskets we bought together. She read most of the books on the shelf, I made the ottoman for her, the vase with lilacs on the coffee table was hers. Even the fact that I love flowers came from her.

I was shocked when she died because I wasn’t ready. Now I’m stunned that it’s been almost six months. Where could all that time have possibly gone? Wasn’t it just a few weeks ago that we were in her hospital room, shaking her body, hoping it was all a terrible mistake? How could time have simply carried on as usual when we have been left motherless?

Mostly I’m appalled at the thought that I didn’t love her well, not nearly well enough. That’s a fact, don’t try to comfort me out of it. I didn’t. You thought I’d have regrets, and I do. I don’t think I could’ve done anything about them, then, even knowing it might come to this. I didn’t value her enough, didn’t see enough of who she really was, who others saw, the ones who tell me over and over again what an amazing woman she was. Even strangers do that, when they find out I’m the oldest of that family.

I’m six months too late, Mom, and I’m sorry.

P.S. I Love You.

How to Force a Reno

Posted under Coffee, Creativity, Idiosyncraticness, Life, Mom, Singing by Sarah

Today was a great day. Even though it started early (I had to be somewhere by 9:00 am), I loved that I had a reason to get up. The day continued to be great, even though I did a few hours of dirty work (pulling old nails out of two-by-fours at a kitchen renovation project), enhanced by some scrumptious raspberry turnovers and delectable coffee (thanks to the newly re-opened Art See Cafe on Main Street in Bayfield for the complimentary coffee on this, their first day of business!). Even when I pinched my left index finger between a crowbar and a plank, it continued to be a good day.

My day got better when I (finally) had the chance to stop at the shops in the little town that I drive through on my way home to Brucefield. I am usually either in a rush or driving passing at midnight, so I’ve never been able to check them out. Until today. One of them was great! An interior decorating shop, it was full of furniture, antiques, candles, wall-hangings, drapes, centerpieces, and much more. And a new friend, Debbie, who I now feel like I’ve known for a while.

It didn’t take long for me to share the pertinent details of my small-town Huron County life with Debbie and her elderly parents, and soon she started apologizing for her almost-baldness, citing chemotherapy as its cause. I started asking her questions, and was delighted to discover that my new friend is a breast cancer survivor! I shook her hand and explained my interest.

A couple hours later, after lunch and a shower (and an episode of The Office), I returned to Debbie’s store, this time with paraphernalia from my apartment in tow, to seek her help picking paint and drapery colours. Together we picked out a lovely deep blue-grey called Distant Thunder for my bathroom.

Skipping forward a few more hours, I spent the evening singing with the Noted! ladies, practicing our group songs for the CD Launch next week (if you don’t have your tickets yet or your CDs pre-ordered, what the heck are you waiting for?!). Gosh-darn it, we are talented!

Finally arriving home, I made use of both arms and toted my purse, papers, a shopping bag, my new gallon of paint, a jug of laundry soap, the items I took to help decide on a paint colour, and a McFlurry all up to my second floor apartment in one fell swoop.

All was well, til I set the can of paint down at the top of the stairs and started fishing for my keys. I somehow knocked the can over, and it started a fateful course down the carpeted stairs. Who knew the lids to paint cans would fall off of their own accord? Not I! Granted, it had some helpful momentum. Nervously, I turned around. And started to swear. My lovely Distant Thunder was all down the stairs, pooled on the floor at the bottom, flung onto the walls, and even splotched onto the ceiling of the entryway.
(Insert more swearing here)

The Grief Train Marches On

Posted under Life, Mom, The Guts Of Me by Sarah

I’ve often had very vivid REM dreams that stick with me all day. Sometimes I wonder whether they are meant to remind me of something, or to reflect something that I don’t realize I truly feel. This morning is the second time since my mom died that those dreams were dedicated to her.

She was alive, but dying, and we knew it. She was weak and losing weight, but not enough for one of us to carry her by ourselves. She was happy even though she must have been in pain. There were so many people around, that knew her but didn’t necessarily know us. Still, we all formed a family there, circling in her orbit.

I wanted to get her outside, so that her feet could touch grass and she could soak up the sunshine, but I couldn’t carry her by myself. My sister helped me. We then tried to hold her up but neither one of us could do it alone. My sister tried to carry Mom on her back, but she was still solid enough to weigh my sister down, bent almost to the ground! That was funny.

Then, in the way dreams go, I found myself tightly hugging an opaque jar. I kept peeking in, to make sure its contents were alright. Mom had transitioned from a bed to a jar, and I had to keep her safe. All that was left was a beating heart, immersed in some kind of liquid, in a pretty jar. As long as it was still beating, I had to keep it company, hold it, protect it, keep it warm.

I woke up before her heart stopped beating…