On Soul Friends and driving 3 hours to give up your bedroom

There's something special about the friendships forged in your early 20s, in those formative adult years when you are discovering who you are apart from your parents and siblings and hometown. When you actually start to choose your friends, rather then being semi-forced into friendships with those who happen to be in your school class, or live on your street, or the children of your parents' friends.

An old friend is going to drive 1.5 hours to pick us up from the airport in Toronto on Friday evening, then take us the 1.5 hours back to his home where he and his wife are going to give up their bedroom to hunker down with their 2 tots so we can crash with them for 2 nights. (Oh, and did I mention the jet-lagged baby and unpredictable almost-3-year-old we're bringing along? Saints is what these people are.) 

I lived in the same residence (Canadian-speak for "dorm") with Jayden for our first two years of university at Vic. Since then we have kept in touch sporadically, my husband I visited him a few times on our returns to Ontario, we were thrilled to meet his lovely wife Amie when she came along. (She's an amazing photographer, check her out! Shameless plug.) We four have seen each other only once or twice over the past 4 years, but manage to have deep soul chats when we do, encouraging and speaking life over each other. Some call these kinds of friends "a friend to your destiny."

The ivy-covered walls of our residence building and dining hall at Vic

I have lately been amazed at the close bond I still feel with old friends my 18-23-year-old self ma de back in university and during my first travels in Europe. Even though we only spent a short time together (3 months at Tauernhof or in Greece in some cases; 1 or 2 years at uni in Toronto or Quebec City with others), somehow we still stay in touch (with a helping hand from social media). There is still a strong level of trust and appreciation; we deeply value each other. You don't stay in touch with everyone, of course, but those with whom your spirit resonates, with whom your heart really connected. There is a bond there that transcends borders and oceans, marriage and kids and a decade. We don't talk often; we may rarely even directly address one another on said social media. But we lurk follow, we keep up, we still care, and when the chance to see one another again comes, we take it and it is like the intervening ten years were only a few months.

From the ages of 18-23 I was very nomadic; I moved every 4-8 months. I lived in numerous cities, apartments, residences, and in a tent on the Îles-de-la-Madeleine for two summers. I met a lot of brilliant people, who I am still honoured to know and rejoice when our paths cross.  

What about you, do you agree that the friendships forged in your young adult years (circa 18-24) were the strongest? Or does it have more to do with being in a life-changing place/formative experience and less to do with age?

Old Vic, across the quad from home during my first two years of university

Be still (living in the tension between here and there)

My mind is full, neck is stiff, right wrist is cracking and cramping from too many arrow strokes down and mouse clicks. There are articles to read, sort, take notes on. Books to be ordered through inter-library loans; fortunately HiWis (student assistants) are still on duty to photocopy the dozens and dozens of pages. An abstract to be sent in for a conference. Suitcases to pack, travel arrangements to be made, last-minute gifts to be purchased and Canadian dollars to pick up from the bank.

We're flying to Canada on Friday. It will be the first time I have seen my brother and sisters, their spouses and children (our kids have 7 Canadian cousins. Actually 2 of those are Americans, technically.) in two years. My parents were able to come and see us in Montreal in April 2012 when we were there for a research trip for my PhD, and were also able to visit us last fall. But I miss those dear siblings of mine! We have lived apart for the past 15 years, first scattered all over North America and then I took the leap across the pond in 2004 making it notably harder to visit. I am grateful they all made the trip to Germany for our wedding in 2006; I know (even better now) what a sacrifice an overseas trip can be when you've got a young family.

At last my siblings et al. will meet our baby girl, who is almost not a baby anymore. There will be splash pads to visit, walks among the Tulip trees and sandy beaches (with hopefully no biting flies) at Rondeau Park, wiener roasts over the campfire on our parents' farm. I am hoping to score some more mint-condition kids books at local yard sales. Two years ago we saw a family with a few tables and blankets full of goods spread out on the front lawn in my tiny hometown, so we pulled over. When I inquired about the price of Bear Snores On the mom looked at me hopefully, "Maybe 25 cents?" Sold. Bear Snores On has become our favourite since then, inspiring many a bear cave of couch cushions and popcorn and black tea parties.

More than the packing and travel plans, my heart is reeling from all the Big Thoughts and Plans my husband and I have been talking over the past few days. Priorities, dreams, realigning the course of our future to what is most important to us and where we sense God tugging our hearts and footsteps. Remembering passions and ideas suppressed or left dormant out of necessity. Following Jesus into the great unknown, where feet may fail. The aches and tension in my body indicate that I am holding on too tightly to worry, to fear, to expectation and excitement and just Thinking. Too. Much.

Breathe in, breathe out. Have a coffee and take in the view from the top of the Mensa (cafeteria) overlooking our lake and the Mainau. There is a tension, living in the now, between here and there.

Be still and know that He is God.

On Paternity Leave and Nighttime Soul-Searching

The first bird chirps at 4:16 a.m.

By 4:29 there is a whole conversation twittering forth the dawn. 

I lay awake even after my baby has gone back to sleep, her angel breath faintly puffing in and out, barely brushing against the skin on the back of my hand.

My soul is awake and thinking.

---------

Does everyone do their soul-searching at night? I'm a night person. Getting up in the mornings has always been a struggle. My mother often came to the stairs at the foot of my bed, leading up from the basement bedroom I shared with my sister Jennifer, and banged on the wall calling, "Christina, time to get up! Push yourself!" Ughhh. I still react negatively to any use of the phrase "push yourself." I can picture it very vividly, hear her voice and see that dreaded wall-smacking hand. Now, my husband is always up before me (he leaves for work at 7 a.m.), he grinds the beans and brews the espresso, foams the milk by hand and makes me a great cappuccino every morning. And now, too, he often has to call "Christina, time to get up!" a couple of times as I try to deny reality and soak up every last minute of sleep. Our son imitates him, his little voice nagging urgently, "Christina!!" It is a cross between hilarious and eerily similar to my mother's voice, and I actually pop up like a pop-tart whenever it gets that point. Ahh, mornings. I have fantasies about getting up early, going for a run, enjoying the dawn and reading my Bible. Maybe even before the kids wake up. Some mothers do this. They shower and pack lunches and prepare everything, and then they wake their kids up. My kids have always, from day one until now, always woken me up. They are currently bright-of-eye-and-bushy-of-tail at 6 a.m. (The baby goes back to sleep around 8:30 for her first of two naps. I do not have that luxury, my girl!) 

So I am not a morning person. I have tried. I have accepted the fact that my mind and body function better in the late evenings. German schools start early compared to Canadian ones (my childhood school started at 9, maybe 8:45 in high school), classes begin at 7:30, or 7:50 at the latest. I'm hoping we change countries before my kids start school. (I am not really joking.)

Even before I had kids, I always worked in the evenings, got a second wind after 9 p.m. and usually get my best ideas between then and 2 a.m. The wee hours are my hours. Anyone with young children can testify to how precious those evening hours are, after the little ones are tucked away. This week I have been home alone with my two beauties for 4 nights and 3 of those bedtimes were really rough. We just moved them into one bedroom last weekend, so there has been a lot to adjust to RE bedtime rituals. The first night with the two of them together was The Worst Night Ever, with them so excited to see each other they kept waking each other up. The night featured, among other entertainment, our almost 3 year old son suddenly playing memory on the floor at 3 a.m., holding up the vegetable cards and proudly teaching his sister "Kohl-rab-i" while I whisper frantically "What are you doing, it's the middle of the night!!".

This was September 15, 2012, 4 days after our daughter was born, her first time outside in our backyard (she was born at home). Just found this on my computer and couldn't resist...hilarious!

Added to the new sleeping arrangement (which is getting there and will be advantageous in the end), their Papa is away, something our family has rarely experienced. I have several friends whose husband's are often away for work, either several nights a week or for a week or so at a time. My husband's job as a teacher allows us a lot of stability; we hadn't been separated overnight for 16 months. We have never both been away from our kids for a night, ever. Papa is the one currently at home on paternity leave with our kids day-in-and-day-out as I have the opportunity to fill in as Assistant Professor for the Summer Semester (which runs from April-September in Germany) in our department of North American studies, so me being home with the kids for several days AND solo parenting took some adjustment, and was a bit rocky all around. These past 4 months have been amazingly harmonious and fun for all of us with Papa at home, free from his usually very heavy workload. I have loved teaching (two undergraduate seminars in Canadian literature) and having time to work on my own doctoral research, totally set free and supported by my husband. Academia allows me extremely flexible working hours; I am home to help get the kids ready in the mornings (once I do get out of bed...) and can be there when I need to be, enabling me to keep breastfeeding 4x per day, give or take. I have loved the intellectual stimulation of being back at uni full time, and not having to take the kids to daycare or be ruled by certain pick-up and drop-off times. If I do need to be at the uni all day, my husband just brings them by my office for a quick feed/visit at midday. We've all loved the change of pace; he's had much more time to reflect, read and think "outside the box" now that he's not preparing lessons for school 3-4 nights a week. He has also done 90% of the housework in this time, all of the grocery shopping and most of the cooking (mind you, he did not take over breastfeeding or night wakings, as he just biologically can't wake up at night and I do as soon as my kids whimper. Nor can he breastfeed.) So I forgot what it feels like to have to clean up after 3 meals and two snacks a day - on the table, under the table, sweep sweep wipe wipe... A self-feeding 10 month old could make the hardiest homemaker break down in tears, and a hardy homemaker I am not.

Yesterday, after my dear friend Nicole helped me take the kids to the beach and get them ready for bed she let herself out at 8 p.m. while I put the finishing touches on a hopefully peaceful bedtime. I fell asleep in bed beside my son at 20:15. I sacrificed my precious evening hours for some much-needed sleep, a really hard thing to do but occasionally necessary. I left the dirty dishes on the table, the laundry undone, the Bible & blogs & articles unread and I slept. It was good for the body and soul and helped today run much more smoothly. 

And now it's 23:50...

Disclaimer: that intro was something I jotted down a month ago. This past week I was too dead-tired to lie awake in the night or do much soul/mind searching. Paternity leave, I wish you would never end!

The Blog Backstory

I'm new to blogging. 

The nudge came while on a walk after a particularly stimulating Sunday in church back in November (2012). Start a blog to force me to write regularly and - if I'm brave enough - actually tell people about it. I always wanted to be a writer, writing reams and reams of stories when I was a child, easily maxing out the 100 points we had to earn for Writer's Workshop at school. (I wrote 20+ page stories for about 40 points while some classmates wrote "advertisements" and "recipes" repeatedly for 5 points a pop. Chacun son goût.) My favourite character on The West Wing (best TV show of all time) was Sam Seaborn, speechwriter to the President, a secret fantasy career of mine. I'll admit it: I actually settled on Political Science as one of my two majors in my first year at university because of an episode of the West Wing. (Perhaps not surprising that basing your choice of career on an idealized Hollywood television program is not setting you up for a win. Although I still love following politics, just not mathematically analyzing them.) 

A pic of Sam Seaborn. Why not?

It seems logical from that summary of my childhood passion for writing (and reading British classics my brother brought home from uni) that I should study literature, however I came to do my Ph.D. in literature in a roundabout way. I've been writing and proofreading scholarly articles and books for years, but it feels good to have another outlet for other thoughts.

The idea of blogging freaked me out in several ways. I started reading a few blogs in the winter of 2010-11, after our first child was born and I found myself at home, breastfeeding and holding the baby for long periods, but with my mind free to roam and also a loneliness from being at home so much. (It is no mystery why so-called mommy blogs are so popular/prolific. Moms of babies and toddlers are desperate for contact with the outside world and mind-food.)  I found several blogs that I loved, and which gave me new ideas about all range of matters. But the whole mommy-blog scene, and the often negative-critical-soapbox-Christian-opinion-blogs in North America made me very hesitant to start one of my own. Among my friends in Germany, few read blogs and I don't think anyone I know has one.

Another thing that freaked me out was sharing my life, my thoughts, my quivering, vulnerable creative efforts, openly and publicly with the Whole Wide World. Even scarier, showing it to people who actually know me.  (At first I didn't post it on FB for fear that everyone I know might read it.) The possibility that your in-laws or your neighbour or your boss could read it are legitimate threats. Which adds to the thrill, the bravery required and the honesty. So far, I'm loving it. It totally scares me still, but a month of blogging is already stirring up more creativity in me than the intervening 13 years since OAC Writer's Craft. And so far, it's a lot of fun.

I didn't actually act on the nudge to start this blog until 7 months later, as is obvious from the links to previous posts over there --->. There were more nudges and prompts, so I finally just threw myself into it, screw the terrible layout and colour scheme. (Help me, please, designer and programmer friends!) I just want to write. To fan into flame the gifts within me. To throw my shoulders back, look you in the eye and declare: I am a writer.

A day after I started, my husband reminded me that I actually had a blog before. I had totally forgotten this fact. How bizarre, to totally blank out on something of that nature. I was tickled to discover this blog still exists online! So if anyone wants to read the (sometimes hilarious, sometimes embarrassing) musings of a much younger me about my early days of living in Germany and adjusting to life here, go to JoyIsMyMiddleName. 

Out of the pond

"Only later would I discover that most other people simply floated in mossy little ponds labeled 'French and Catholic' or 'English and Protestant', never wondering what it might be like to step ashore. To be out of a pond is to be in unmapped territory." ~ Mavis Gallant, The Selected Stories of Mavis Gallant. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1996, 691.

There was a time when I didn't like Montreal. In my self-important, navel-gazing 19-22-year-old phase I was both too Ontarian and too francophile for Montreal.  I was living in Québec City at the time, and only traveled through le metropol on my way back to see my family in Ontario, changing trains in Montreal, or visiting some friends of friends from the islands for a party. I found Montreal to be a strange mix of the things I loved about Toronto and Québec City, neither one nor the other. A vast urban centre second only in size in Canada to Toronto, the city of Montreal is roughly half French-speaking and half Other. I found being greeted in English in stores or restaurants in downtown Montreal off-putting (and if someone detected my accent and switched to English in a conversation: downright insulting! I considered it one of my Major Life Achievements when people stopped switching to English upon hearing me speak.)

Montreal seemed to be a mix of too many other things that didn't fit into the image of Quebec in my head. Having always had an intrinsic desire to become bilingual, a life-long love of the French language and Quebec, I wanted to throw myself into Québécois culture.  During the two years I lived in Quebec City, the only times I spoke English were to my family on the phone once or twice a week. My only English input at the time was occasionally watching the news on CBC, unless it was one of the rare times my francophone coloc wasn't at her boyfriend's place, and she asked me shyly if we couldn't watch the news in French while eating dinner?

Having lived in Europe for the past nine years, I have loosened up about language. When I first came to Germany, I was shocked - shocked! - to hear English (read: American) music on the radio most of the time. To see English signs and slogans liberally scattered over the landscape. And nobody cared. We're not in language-law-territory anymore. 

Montreal is a famously divided city, The Two Solitudes and all of that. I am quite in support of CanCon legislation and measures to protect the French language in Quebec, and I'm not trying to stir the pot today. Living in Europe with its many languages, learning to survive/thrive in my third and being forced to teach business English to pay the rent in our early married days brought me back down to earth. I'm glad I can speak English, it is helpful and I'm no longer too cool or too Québécoise or whatever I thought I was back then to care too much what language people address me in. Whatever the language, it is the heart of the person I want to get to know, and whichever means helps me to do that I'll use. 

The I'm-back-in-Montreal-and-it's-snowing! face, 2009.

Somehow, whenever we have visited North America over the past 9 years most of our travels have brought us to Montreal, and my fascination with this enigmatic city has grown. I love Montreal, the diversity, the cold, the pastries; my old friends who have migrated there from St-Jo or Québec or the islands; the crazy, suicidal outdoor staircases; the code-switching mid-sentence and cacophony of franglais. The quote above is from one of the best short story writers on the planet, Mavis Gallant, born and raised in Montreal in the 1920s-30s. Rare for an English-speaking child at the time, she was sent to francophone convent schools, thus resulting in her rather unique perspective on Montreal, out of the pond, in unmapped territory.  

Many would say that this contact zone of cultures and languages, everyday bordercrossings and forays into unmapped territories is what makes Montreal such fertile ground for cultural creatives. Today I read that, among its many other illustrious cultural achievements, Montreal has been called "the spoken word capital of North America" (see Anglo-Quebec Poetry 1976 to the 21st Century edited by Jason Camlot and Todd Swift). Cultural geographers have a field day with Montreal, attempting to chart its the depth and width and breadth. 

What I love about this international life I've been called to, married to a German, having left chunks of my heart in Quebec and Ontario, Greece and Austria and Uganda and Konstanz, is being out of the pond. Out of breath and laughing on the sandy beach, exhausted but jumping back in again. Sloshing water from one pond into another, disrupting stagnant ecosystems, adding a little fresh water, a little salty. Bathing in alterity and resurfacing with new perspectives, wider range of vision, beyond any one cultural or linguistic group. Crawling back into my kayak and learning to surf the waves.

Narrative Saves Lives

So there is a new "narrative mapping" tool out there, touted as the "new instagram for writers." You (may have) heard it here first.

Story + maps = me happy! 

A lot of my research has to do with concepts of place and space and how the spaces we inhabit shape us and we shape them, and how all of this is represented in fiction. (I am working on my doctoral dissertation in North American literature and cultural studies, specifically focusing on comparative English-Canadian and Québécois fiction.) These ideas can seem very abstract, or even "obvious," to the uninitiated. ("You are writing an entire book about 'the North?'" Eyes glaze over.) I have always had trouble wrapping my mind around some philosophical concepts, and I am thankful for those scholars who have summed up and deconstructed Lefebvre, Soja and Bhabha for the rest of us.

It took me a long time to decide to pursue a Master's degree in literature because I struggled with thoughts that it wasn't "important enough." (I started in 2008 and finished my final oral exam in 2010, the day before my maternity leave with our first child began.) I always wanted to make a difference in the world, to do something of eternal value. I had a five-year break between finishing my Bachelor's degree (from U of T while living in Quebec, another story) and starting my Master. During those intervening years I got to travel and volunteer at two Bible schools in Austria and Greece, met the man of my dreams (and beyond what I had on my little checklist), got married and settled in Konstanz. I started, then stopped, another M.A. program that wasn't for me. (In Toronto, we used words and books to study political science, not the statistics and SPSS of the KN school of public policy and management! Numbers are not my friend.) Getting over the shock of not succeeding in my studies for the first time was a major life lesson in not putting my self-worth in what I do and achieve, but who I am in Christ.

I had often felt divided, pulled between a career in academia and serving in "ministry." I knew doing an M.A. would take time and hard work and thus would leave less time to be directly invested in other things. A desire to learn, research, study and write has been inside of me since I was an embryo (or, as we tell our son when he asks where he was when we got married, or when mommy lived in Canada, since I was "in God's thoughts, but not on Earth yet.")

So back in 2006-08, I took a long time to decide to do an M.A. in literature. My husband has always encouraged me, he has always supported me in chasing my dreams and fulfilling my potential. Finally, I found encouragement in Daniel's story. Yes, that guy with the lions, though not that part specifically. Daniel the man God used greatly in a foreign kingdom to have a place of influence in society, he did a B.A. in literature and cultural studies (check it out.) Good enough for an OT prophet, good enough for me. But before this epiphany, I struggled with thoughts that literature didn't "really matter." I mean, this isn't medicine, it isn't going to save someone's life. 

Or could it?

Could narrative save someone's life? Could telling a story, and telling it well, actually give hope to someone in the pit of despair? Actually resonate with a stranger on the other side of the planet and make them feel less alone? Could it shine light on the evils of forced sex slavery, motivate just one person to kick up a fuss, to spread awareness, to raise funds, to facilitate freedom for a victim? Could narrative literally save the life of a 13 year old girl who is at this very moment locked in a dirty room near Hamburg's port, handcuffed and brutalized up to 40 times a day?

Hot tears burn my eyes as I write these words but they must be written. I must tell their stories.

Freedom starts with us.

Join me in the fight against human trafficking, won't you? To learn more about the problem and see how you can be part of the solution go to the A21 Campaign, whose goal is abolish the injustice of human trafficking and sex slavery in the 21st century. They are on the ground in several European source and destination countries, working to rescue and rehabilitate victims as well as prosecuting perpetrators. Join us in spreading freedom in Europe. It isn't just happening “over there,” it happens here. In our city, our country. Freedom starts with us.

St-Jo

As I progress along the way I have taken, the mist continues its steady, silent descent. It creeps around the cape as if on tiptoe and seeps earthward from its undefined mass above. Perhaps it is merely a blurring of the eye, its gentle descent so subtle that it is impossible to determine where the mist begins until the formless dark mass of forest evaporates into grey tinged cloud.

Somehow the minute village had developed an all too familiar urban likeness. The two main streets, however provincial to some, had become like highways in relation to the town's size. As soon as the frost breaks from the rocky soil the construction crews invade, bringing their backhoes and jackhammers. It is meticulous work, a painfully slow series of closing and then reopening the narrow streets and their hastily constructed replacements as the workers attmept to carry out their task wedged between the river and the steep, tree covered slope of the mountains.

But there are other roads in the village, those dusty, winding trails that are hidden from the constant stream of tourists rushing through town to catch the ferry. The diligent work of the construction crews has, over several years, accomplished its goal of making stretches of the roadway smooth as glass, and reduced the slope of the mountain by a  fraction, enabling the sleek cars of Quebec City lawyers to blaze by seconds faster. This is alright. For those that do know of these forgotten trails, no traffic is wanted here. 


{I found these words scrawled in the back of a notebook from 2001 when I spent May-August in St-Joseph-de-la-Rive, Quebec}