Daniela Ginta, Freelance Writer

Gratitude makes the journey better. Kindness, too.

Tag: life Page 6 of 8

Sliced Mango… And Yes, That

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On May 29, 2015

In Learning, Life Stories, Motherhood

brightThat morning the boys asked for mango for breakfast. ‘Cut in squares Mom, you know how you do that, with the peel still on.’ I do. Squares. Orange yellow, a colour so deep that it draws you in. It smelled fresh and it reminded me of summer mornings, of this year, of last year, of so many summers we leave behind never to look at again because life takes us too fast, too far, too rushed.

They ate the mango, square by square. Yellow mustaches, peels left on the side of the plate.

Then it was time for school. We walked to the bus stop, little boy and I, today’s book ready. Peter Pan. A world of boyish everything, following swiftly after Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. ‘Read, Mom, please.’ Yes.

We snuggle, the sun budges in like it should on this mango-bright morning, and we read. I read for both of us.

We get off the bus and the book is not done. We walk and I read… ‘When a baby laughs for the first time, a fairy is born.’

‘You know, I caught your first laugh. Your brother’s too’… Little boy looks at me, smiles. ‘Really, you did? How?’ I knew it will come, so I waited… and they did. Shy and small like a seedling finding its way towards the world. those first laughs make the world I open my eyes to every morning. So much grew out of them since…

Big little boy and I do school later on. We’re outside on the sun-drenched porch, then in the garden, picking things up, measuring, observing, learning. ‘Mom, I love this. How we talk like this.’ I do too. We’re fortunate. Seedlings to grow… We go for a hike, we breathe in sunshine and make it ours. To have and to hold.

LeftThat night little boy looked straight into my eyes for a brief few seconds before another hug laced his sweet smelling hair all over my face. ‘I don’t want to grow up Mom, because when I do you will grow old and die one day, and I do not want that. I cannot live without you.’

I smelled his hair. His words, like summer birds touched by a sudden winter chill, sat silent in between us, cradled between two deep breaths. Where to from here?

‘It’s a long way away my love…’

It sounded almost ridiculous. I am never ready for this. Big little boy once said the same, a few years ago and a few times since. It chilled me the same and I mumbled the (now you know) ridiculous ‘oh, i will be so old by then…’

Hugs fix something like this. Soul patches of some sort, pain over joy and joy over pain, like a game where you keep building wondering if the tower will topple soon. But what if you don’t? What if you know that it does topple at some point, but you’ll build another. And then another.

boyA game is all, children most of all know that. Thoughts come and go, like river waves lapping over shores. But a river is not just the waves. It’s the many shades of blue and green, it’s the murkiness, it’s the breeze and the skies of blue that ask for a bit of peace so that a mirror can be for a bit, it’s the sound of birds that live alongside and keep alive because of it and more.

The game is real.

You can’t complain that time does not deal a fair hand. You take what you get and make the best of it. Now is what we have. Now is ours. Mine, yours. Time is not to worry about, because you should know, time is what we tell it to be.

Time gameWe deal time our own hand you know, and a measure of worthiness. It’s a game, but it’s real.

Life Like A River We’re Better At Paddling Together

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On September 4, 2014

In Armchair Mayor Column, Life Stories, Self-improvement

Initially published as a column in the Armchair Mayor News on August 29, 2014. 

Two days ago I wrote an obituary; my father’s. It’s never an easy thing, even when you know that people wanted to move on because suffering was taking too much out of them.

The hard part is seeing the world reshaping itself after they are in it no more. It’s a feeling we learn to fear, and we forget that the rhythm of life could not be a harmonious one unless we acknowledge death is part of it.

The last few days have been a whirlwind of emotions, ups and down of awakenings, staring reality in the face, knowing that it is the only way to do it right.

Through this and many other rollercoaster jolts life had in store lately, clouds crowding a sky I wanted blue and serene thinking it is mine to decide, I was reminded of the one thing that matters the most: I am not alone. No one really is.

My family has been guarding my well-being with love and patience, keeping guard from winds that would’ve kept me down for too long. Close friends made their presence known and felt, ever so gently, ever so unconditionally bringing themselves into our lives, knowing that when we make room for joy, sorrowful as it was at times, the rough seas will let me see the silver lining. They did.

I went through piles of photos, I dug out my dad’s memories, us four, mom, dad, my sister and I, and through telling stories to my soon-to-be husband and sons, and to our friends, I relived a childhood that was magically beautiful and fully belonging to me.

I’ve been sailing many waters since, walking through sunsets that had me tear up or jump high with the expectations of tomorrow. You soar high one day, and then you tumble and dust off your knees the next.

My dad’s passing, preceded by my mother’s eight years ago, reminded me of the journey they hoped and wished for me when they brought me into the world. It reminded me of how my sons came, started their own and of the flurry of hope I padded their wings with and keep on doing so every day.

My dad’s passing was a sad reminder of how nothing is permanent, and that only makes every day worth more than we are often able to realize and it also reminded me that we are not alone. The most cynical of us will say that we come alone and we leave alone, and that has truth to it. Life is a singular affair by default, at the entry and exit points. But the in between does not need to be.

I have friends holding my heart through this, and I have the kind of family I wish upon everyone. They are present because I let them, because I no longer hold the secrets of life to myself and by doing that I open up doors that all of us know the contour of too well.

There is a wealth of goodness in people around. They open up arms and hearts and through hiccups of discovering who’s in for the long haul and who is not – a necessary part of it all, we learn that being alive is something we never do alone, and it should not be. We all have stories we carry around, we all need to share them because when we do, we give permission to others to share theirs and we find that though details may differ, we build life towers with the same building blocks, we see the same sunsets and sunrises, we love and let go, and through it all, we keep on going no matter what because going while someone is there to share the journey makes it all better.

Losing people we love dearly hurts, it always does and the pain may grow dull but it will never go away. There will be times when you want to throw in the towel, when you think it all unfair, but through the thick of it all, the silver lining makes itself seen brighter than expected: it is all worth it, every moment of it.

Crepes For Breakfast

By

On August 12, 2014

In Life Stories, Motherhood

FuzzyI wanted to go out for a morning ride, I had the itinerary in mind and was all dressed, but I could not get myself to leave the house before the boys woke up. I’d miss the first hug, the nestling of little boy on my lap, the hug from big boy, their hair every which way and eyes drowsily braving the morning light.

Early mornings work for sneaking out and coming back before the wild boys wake up, but late night reading often bites into earliness and leaves me hanging like this.

The day is cool, a relief after days of breathing hot air like we’re inhabiting an oven. It’s too hot, the boys often say; I cannot allow for summer hating though. Summer is the peach tree branches hanging low, heavy with fruit, and tomatoes that turn red and the bumblebees that are all confused about the disappearing of their favorite snack: tomato flower pollen. Everything becomes something before our eyes…

My ride today is short, I follow the river; its surface mirrors a sky that is unglamorous, but why would that matter. Thoughts bounce off the surface of my own rivers flowing relentlessly towards seas of life I have yet to discover. Rivers of thoughts, they need to be taken out each day, they synchronize their incessant dance with that of the real ones…

Summer is apricot jam made yesterday and laid inside hot crepes today, memories of my childhood when my great aunt would make platefuls of them in the outdoor oven, the smell of wood adding hotness to air already hot… I never complained because I knew what came next: tummies full of warmth, sweetness stuck to cheeks and the lazy afternoon to follow. The countryside I miss.

The boys eat with their mouths full, they ask for more and I remember my own eagerness to skip talking just so I could eat more. Funny how snippets of life past ask to be revived. The sharing I do with my boys, life in big yummy bites, life I can make them smile about. But there’s more sides to life. Life is never just smiles.

We talk about school, the topic just tumbled in the midst of another conversation about living in the wilderness… The boys tell how going to school makes many children unhappy for the time they’re there. Not unhappy with learning, but unhappy with other things. Rushed, impatient figures, playing power games with children. The boys see through much of it. My fault, for peeling eyes open and inviting to thinking.

We talk and daydream about schools to grow in. Stunted growth is what I often see instead. Why not schools where wide-eyed innocence breeds joy and curiosity is the very ground children step on? Wings unclipped. Could it be? Why not nowadays? We know so much about what makes the mind soar, why let children fall through the cracks?

The boys have insights that humble, they share as I share. This is not complaining but facing perspective as it presents itself to us and adjusting ourselves to have the courage to take unforeseen, unscheduled leaps, should the said perspective become too narrow for how we envision life.

Growing up is a together adventure, I never pictured my boys being in someone else’s care more than my own. Not when they’re shaken at times and becoming distrustful. Finding the way, the right way, the fair way, as a parent, that is the biggest challenge of all. It makes me both fearful and brave at the same time. What’s the next step? The together adventure is no joke.

Wild boys run into the back yard to play. There’s loud voices, whispers, hiding, laughter, sneaking around and some scraped knees.

Little boy runs up the stairs and hands over a tiny dandelion. ‘From us, the smallest one’ … Mop of sun-bleached hair dances as he runs back in the yard for more playing. Will I ever be able to define gratefulness the right way? It’ll never be enough. Some words will only live on the inside, padding the corners only I know about.

I sit down, check the day’s news and get reminded of a sad story. The ice cream store owner downtown told us about yesterday. ‘Oh, you don’t know? Robin Williams died today.’ I don’t get to ask why. He says it out loud: suicide. The boys’ eyes grow big. Too much information? Little boy frowns. How do people commit suicide? Why?

He was funny, they argued. He made people laugh. How did he with all the struggles he faced at times? The dance we can never enough of, the dance we’re sick of so often…Life. Unkind and monstrous at times, we are its pawns and ride good waves, but a few bad ones can make most people lose their way. People sometimes do that when they’re sad and discouraged and depressed, I tell the boys. Not just sad, but awfully sad. That makes loneliness darker than dark. No one knows, no one should be judged…

TearsIt’s a grip you let go of. In that moment of darkness, all is distorted. The boys listen, ponder… Do they understand? Do we?…

I take their lead; they live in the moment. More playing, getting hungry, eating peaches off the tree, asking for treats to be baked later in the day, arguing, finding common ground, trading sticks and Lego pieces. Life. They don’t think too much of it but live it fully. I do though. Too much is a side effect, enough is what I hope for just so I can have them live theirs with joy.

Crepes for breakfast? Why not?

Memories And Their Keepers

By

On August 9, 2014

In Life Stories, Motherhood

I remember being very young and resting my head on a small pillow in my mom’s lap. My ears were hurting and all I can remember is the warmth of my mom’s hand on my head. That is my first memory.

I remember climbing the quince trees in my yard and finding a comfortable branch to sit on and I remember the feeling that nothing in my world was even remotely upsetting. I remember my sister trying to coax me to get down to play with her and the others. Nothing could make me. As I think of it, I hear laughter and loud children voices and if I close my eyes I can almost feel the rough surface of the branch I was sitting on.

I remember sitting under the grapevine with my dad, late in the evening when the moon was up and talking about life and its meanders; it was summer and the night breeze was gently warm and carrying my dad’s cigarette smoke into the dark night. I came to be very adverse to smoking but the ever so familiar smell of that particular brand my dad was smoking when I was little (always outside, never indoors) will forever be a reminder of my dad, his voice in the dark and the comfort I felt sitting next to him on nights like that on the green bench under the grapevine.

I remember that every time I went home from university my mom would be at the train station watching every train car carefully until she found me. Her face would light up and she would hurry to be there when I got off. Her hugs, her smiles and her ‘I am so happy you are home’ bear the strongest imprint in my heart. My mom passed away more than eight years ago. Pain never went away, it has dulled and made itself a home in my heart and it made me realize that I am the keeper of our common memories, and I will remain one until.

I remember my mom’s hands as she made coffee, or reaching out to caress my hair. I remember her touch.

I often wondered about the photos on my childhood. They mean so much to me. They mean the same to my sister. They meant the world to our parents. Beyond that… Hard to tell. There was a time when memories stayed with people because they were told as stories. Others stayed in writing, scribbles and drawings on walls. I envy that. My armfuls of photos, yours too, the many faces of us passing through life, they are as permanent as they are perishable. Armfuls of paper, easy to dispose of by others who cannot relate to them.

There is no solid surface to keep them alive more solid that my heart’s. My memories are alive because I am.

It startled me a few days ago when I was sent a link. It prompted me to create a memory. I did. After I did and ‘Finish’, I teared up watching the memory depart into an ocean of bright bits – other people memories. It is a site that reminds of Alzheimer’s disease and its dreadful toll on memory you see. Seeing the memory I wrote there disappear as a dot was humbling. Here it is. It struck me of how many dots I am carrying around not even aware of them, long lost from the conscious mind, settled forever in pockets of brain that may or may not reveal them.

Like play cards facing down on a table… I wonder if I will ever be able to turn them all face up and shuffle through one more time…

My sister has turned many of my forgotten cards face up. She is one of my precious keepers of memories. She would tell me of things I am too young to remember, and as she does, I see them contouring as memories, becoming mine, as they rightfully are.

My parents used to be the keepers of many of my memories as well. Voices, faces, bits of life, precious as life itself and so empowering when they happen, so easy to forget; not out of carelessness but because life keeps on happening.

I want to remember. Seeing the memory I created disappear into the sea of many made me think of all the ones I will never be able to pull back from the ocean of life past. I am slowly becoming the keeper of my own memories, I am the keeper of my boys’ memories. Just like it should.

I remember saying goodbye to my dad last time I visited. We hugged and cried; like never before, he let himself be seen by me and I did too. I did not realize that I was becoming, right then and there, the keeper of that memory. My dad’s health has been deteriorating since and he remembers very little now. Though they are with him, he does not remember the cigarette butt volcanoes he used to make for us as children, making our eyes grow wide with wonder, he does not remember the Sunday mornings of ‘true stories’ he would tell us as we were snuggled under warm blankets, and he does not remember the starry winter nights when he would take me and my sister for long sled rides, all wrapped in blankets and staring at a sky that was as infinite as my belief that nothing could change my world.

Everything did, many times since. Life did. It is what life does.

That’s how it makes us keepers of memories. Oceans of them.

Life Is Only A Part Of It All

By

On June 26, 2014

In Life Stories

Passing onThe mood is somber today. The two guinea pigs that squeaked their way into our lives for the last four years died suddenly, one after another.

Digging a grave, no matter how small, is not a small thing. It just isn’t.

But I had to. One last night and one this morning. We chose the spot under the lilacs, it’s out of the way and lilacs are suitable guardians.

The ground was soft at first but then it turned rock hard. All I could think of was digging a real grave, it’s overwhelming in all possible ways. It was a flurry of convoluted feelings that ruffled my mood for a long time.

You can’t think further than that, there is a lot of murky stuff you don’t know how to approach. Life, as real as it gets. Life and death are the opposite image of each other, continuations of each other, complementing each other.

Every day, all around us, life grows roots in what was alive yesterday and dead today. It feeds the next blooms, it powers the next laughter and it reminds of the only thing we hold solidly at all times: the moment we’re in. A short, revealing ownership that carries us into what’s next.

I dig, we lay the piglets in, the boys cover and we hug. It makes everything easier. They had a good life, we all agree. And passed the five-year-old mark, which many say it’s a good age for a guinea pig. We made small crosses out of wood and twine, the boys wanted to.

A few steps away the garden abounds with green; growing, from the roots up. Continuation.

Pumpkins are in bloom, bright yellow, small suns staring into the big one in the sky. By afternoon, the flowers will start to wither, they only last a few hours… Right next to them, spinach, lush and green and loved by the piglets. Dandelion leaves, spinach and peppers were among their favourites.

The boys sighed… Now we have no more pets.

Indeed. I cannot be persuaded to buy any from the pet store and they don’t want that either. Hosting the piglets (SPCA-adopted orphans) made us think of how unfair it is to the animals. All the cuddles in the world and vitamin drops do not make up for freedom. A golden cage is still a cage.

Ours were not big on cuddles though. Just like bunnies, they are skittish creatures, guinea pigs, and like to be among their own kind. And who can blame them. Being prey animals, they also hide their sickness to not be vulnerable to predators, the ones who know write. It’s sad to know that. It means their instincts are still within, so the longing for freedom must be too… It’s unfair to restrict that.

The day moves along. I tend to the garden, the boys pick the slim strawberries harvest and they munch on baby carrots. I open a pea pod and they eat the bright green blobs. They’re sweet just like that, out of the pod, we’ll have some more for dinner.

The pods go in the compost, to die and live at the same time.

Life continues, it’s the circle that has no beginning and no end. Today we caught a glimpse of it, and we got to feel, again, how it rattles the illusion of permanence.

Once again, I am grateful for reminders, they are but soul dwellings where I stop and look to what’s behind and what’s in front of me. Life: to see, to heed, to be part of. We are.

 

Unconditional Acceptance? Is What You Make Of It

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On June 8, 2014

In Life Stories, Motherhood, Self-improvement

If clouds were hunks of cheese and you’d take the biggest one, grate it and spread the shredded bits all over the sky, you’d get a milky-white cupola cradling early morning light like one does in a white tent.

That’s the sky this morning. It smells of roses and the noises from far away are dimmed down to a light buzz.

The street I walk on has old fences, shy cats, and garlands of head-heavy roses, bowing to the morning light. I like it. Two blocks more then I switch streets.

This one has been touched by inner city life more than I care to accept. Graffiti is not artsy but offensive. Dirty. Is offensive sprouting from artsy instincts? Creativity is a beast of many shades but is this one?

Cigarette butts and a few empty beer bottles guard the outside of a restaurant that has an intriguing sign in the parking lot. ‘The most amazing show on Earth.’ What, where? Is it a live show? Why not say more. I’ll leave it to remaining a mystery for now.

My walk to the library is complete. I drop the books into the slot (already two days late,) then I head back. The streets are still empty.

It is early Saturday morning. The boys were still asleep when I left the house. I like that. It is like they are left sleeping in a cocoon; they know some early mornings are for running or some quick errand and they usually wait in bed, reading. I like that too.

Today they are just about waking up; warm faces and fuzzy hair, trying to remember yet another dream forgotten in between the place between asleep and awake, the repository of lost dreams.

Since the first sleep after they were born, I’ve loved to watch them sleep and then wake up. The fluttering of eyelids, the first glimpse into the world they’ve missed a bit of during sleep. The smile that follows, an offering of their most inner being. I take it all, I am greedy that way. I like those moments of full acceptance. Arms wide open, eyes lazily hugging my face, slow paced sweet human beings returning from a world of their own and stepping into mine.

The day unfolds. They’ll move from sweet beings to wild, loud, mischievous, unkind and they’ll challenge me to bits. Again. I know they will.

Acceptance will wane during the day and I will logically remind myself of it. It is a trap, I know it is, and it is everyday learning… to accept my boys not when they shine in all that they do, not just when they’re sweet and surrendering to hugs, but when they simply are.

If I don’t accept them whole, how will they ever accept themselves?

I learn to do it every day, sometimes I fail, and then I try again.

As parents, we are stopped frozen in our tracks by memories of conditional acceptance. So did our parents. It is a bad spell that needs to be broken, yet there are no instructions. How to then?

We become more every day, and our children do too, all sides showing. We yearn for acceptance, in all that we are. Gracious, ungracious, sparkling, dull. If we’re loved, all sides show. And we become better.

A giant yellow swallowtail butterfly flutters around the front yard, a dance I perceive both indecisive and fascinating. Latter is accurate, and I will never know about the first. Assumptions can be traps sometimes. Still, I’d like to stop the butterfly. Beauty is captivating in a most primal way. That part of us never grows up, never becomes bored with seeing.

‘Mom, a wasp is eating the pollen off the daisy I gave you!’

Oh, let it. Little boy is not convinced. In his world, wasps are enemies, reputable ones.

‘No, it’s yours. I’ll chase it away.’

Don’t, look at it… The daisy is mine as much as it is the wasp’s. Or less? Wait, it is not pollen. I see legs. Do you see them?

‘Eww! Now I should chase it away?’

No. Let’s not. Daisies come with pollen and tiny spiders and sometimes wasps that eat them. It’s all that could be, and it’s real. Chase the part we don’t like away and then what?

Can we do that all the time? Chase the unwanted, the ugly, the scary, the parts we don’t understand or accept?

Life is unkind, ungracious, ugly at times, but fascinating in how it expands minds and souls. Real is all we get, if we’re ready to accept it. Real is what we grow from. Selecting but the good parts will never give you the full measure of what life is…

Half the sky has cleared up and it is blue. We sit on the porch steps, holding the glass with the one daisy, with many tiny spiders, with a wasp, with a chunk of life explaining itself, no shortcuts.

‘Mom, can you please make some pancakes? It’s Saturday.’

It is indeed. We always have pancakes on Saturday.

 

Come As You Are (Because Nothing Else Makes Sense)

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On May 15, 2014

In Life Stories, Self-improvement

YouThere’s nothing like a botched haircut when it comes to revealing how we insecure we feel about our appearance. Except that the haircut was not botched. I am no Edward Scissorhands but I’ve been the master of haircuts since my boys were born.

But boys grow and as they do, so do their worries. Their eyes open to a world that judges for no particular reason. ‘Am I done?’ has been replaced by ‘How does it look?’ and the verdict is never positive.

How could it be? We live in a time when pressure to be more and better than we are actually is an everyday reality.

We’re simply not good enough. If no one says it loud enough, we know they think it. They must, we think back. We assume and assumptions grow thick as trees.  Hollow trees that is.

We grow up being as curious about ourselves as we are scared of what curiosity may reveal. We are eager to create better versions but are disappointed with being just today’s version of yesterday. Not enough.

Should we be? Self-growth is real and necessary. Adjusting as we grow, taking cues from life, people and our inner guidance system, we become, we flourish and then we collapse. Not enough. Because in the end. no matter how much we aim to grow and how big the pressure, we cannot be more than ourselves, the person that once was unencumbered by fear of being judged. The person that dared to wear mismatched clothing, had the bangs hanging sideways and was never afraid to affirm who they were by talking dreams, everyday happenings and the miracle of seeing the world. Where did that go?

In time we learn to conform and we learn to fear changes because what if they’ll bring rejection of some kind or even a raised eyebrow? Or something we cannot see but we know it’s there and we’re fearing it, simply based on the assumption that it is there… Ridicule. A word that hides a monstrous concept; a word that follows the two words we dread the most, ‘not enough,’ like a hungry predator ready to pound on prey that’s hurt already.

Children, growing, grow apart from themselves, simply because of that, some more than others… Like getting far into a forest we do not know at all, we are walking paths that take us further away from ourselves than ever. We seek to find ourselves yet in the process of it we build the tracks of a creature we struggle to recreate from bits of ourselves…

Writing's on the wall Here’s the thing though: If you’re not brave enough to reveal yourself, who will you be? Can you keep up being someone else? Will we have time to know who we are though before we will cross the point of no return?

What are you afraid of in saying ‘This is who I am?…’ That someone will say ‘Not interested’? What would their contribution to your life have been and theirs to yours anyway if it was based not on real people but fictional ones?

What is it that you’re after? To understand the reason of being here, you’ll have to see who you are, truly so.

Where to from here?Do you think yourself beautiful? Don’t run to the mirror. Features of the soul are never traced by the same pencil as the one tracing the contour of your face.

You see, I don’t know your face, the way your hair looks, or if you have any. Maybe your ears are floppy and too big, or maybe they are too small. There must be at least one part of you that you think fine and would not swap for a better one… Yet for the ones you don’t like… If you could, would you trade them for better ones? But then what will you get? Anything would be better you say?

It never is. Better applies to becoming, to growing. Better grows out of accepting the reality of today. Better can only grow from real and because we want to. Never because we’re pressured to.

Mirrors of inside and outside reflecting into each other…Which is the one you will choose to represent you first of all? If you will reject the image any of the mirrors reflects, you’ll reject both. And if you do, who will come to accept you, mirrors and all?

If you’d have a choice to be your friend, would you? Make it so. Let yourself be seen in who you are. You’ll be that much better simply because you allow for that.

You are more than your hair, or eyes or the contour of the face. There’s a whole lot of you behind every feature everyone sees.

Come as you are. Nothing else will ever make sense or keep your step balanced. That’s who you’ll carry through life, yourself. You. As you are.

 

 

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