Life builds in expectations. It's hard to see structural expectations when things fall in line the way they are supposed to. Absence reveals structure. You don't see the posts and joists in your house because they are covered up with drywall and paint and carpet. What if the contractors never showed up to install any of that stuff and you moved in anyway?
Our entire life has been built in anticipation of children. We married young, went to university, bought a three bedroom house in a decent neighbourhood close to good schools. We have reliable four doored vehicles, good steady careers, and a dog.
The foundation is good. The roof doesn't leak and the walls are solid, but it's still hard to tell what each room is going supposed to be. You can see from one side all the way across to the other and it echos strangely. Apparently drywall isn't my thing and I can't get a contractor to call me back.
It occurred to me the other day, changing the floor plan at this stage could be pretty easy. Knock down a few walls, add a window here and there, maybe just pick the whole damn thing up and move it on down the road. A few changes to the structure might make the absence into a cool minimalist thing instead of just some unfinished suburban cutout. I'm left with a decision: is redesigning the same as giving up?
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Monday, January 27, 2014
Friday, July 12, 2013
Moving Pictures
One of the most exciting things that could happen when I was a child was my father bringing home a borrowed videocassette player. We had a little 13" black and white television with rabbit ears that could pick up three channels most of the time, if you were careful. Two of them usually showed the same thing, so there wasn't really much TV to watch, but a movie was something else. The average movie would run about double my usual daily allotment of TV with no commercials and no twiddling with the antennae.
Dad would bring the big yellow padded suitcase into the living room and go to work connecting this exotic piece of equipment to our TV. There can only have been a couple of wires to the TV and one to the outlet, so it can't have been complicated, but to me it was pure wizardry. The top of the machine would pop up to accept a cassette, and we were ready for an adventure.
As kids, we had no say in when this machine would visit our home and we had no choice in the movies we saw. We could watch what Dad brought or go to bed. I had friends with colour television sets, VCRs, cable vision and less supervision, but there was little sense that I was being deprived of anything. My parents generally made time in front of the TV into a sort of currency, so we could negotiate a trade in foregone viewing time for things they would have bought us anyway. I earned my first canoe paddle and sleeping bag this way, one month each.
As a child, my view of history was entirely static, so the idea that watching recorded films at home was something new, or that one day perhaps it would become completely ubiquitous didn't enter my head. Videos were rare, the machines to play them were expensive, and all I knew was that getting to watch Herbie the Lovebug's black and white antics was the very definition of a treat. If the stars aligned just so, there might even be popcorn and half a can of soda to go with it.
Fast forward 25 years and I can stream Netflix on my phone any time I want. My TV is 6 times bigger than the old black and white model, remote controlled, highly defined, and rabbit ear free. I still have a VCR somewhere, but it is unnecessary. There is a little black box that gives me access to just about any movie I could think of to buy, borrow, or rent. I do hope I can always hear my five year old self having his little mind blown that we get to watch a movie tonight, no matter how easy it is.
Dad would bring the big yellow padded suitcase into the living room and go to work connecting this exotic piece of equipment to our TV. There can only have been a couple of wires to the TV and one to the outlet, so it can't have been complicated, but to me it was pure wizardry. The top of the machine would pop up to accept a cassette, and we were ready for an adventure.
As kids, we had no say in when this machine would visit our home and we had no choice in the movies we saw. We could watch what Dad brought or go to bed. I had friends with colour television sets, VCRs, cable vision and less supervision, but there was little sense that I was being deprived of anything. My parents generally made time in front of the TV into a sort of currency, so we could negotiate a trade in foregone viewing time for things they would have bought us anyway. I earned my first canoe paddle and sleeping bag this way, one month each.
As a child, my view of history was entirely static, so the idea that watching recorded films at home was something new, or that one day perhaps it would become completely ubiquitous didn't enter my head. Videos were rare, the machines to play them were expensive, and all I knew was that getting to watch Herbie the Lovebug's black and white antics was the very definition of a treat. If the stars aligned just so, there might even be popcorn and half a can of soda to go with it.
Fast forward 25 years and I can stream Netflix on my phone any time I want. My TV is 6 times bigger than the old black and white model, remote controlled, highly defined, and rabbit ear free. I still have a VCR somewhere, but it is unnecessary. There is a little black box that gives me access to just about any movie I could think of to buy, borrow, or rent. I do hope I can always hear my five year old self having his little mind blown that we get to watch a movie tonight, no matter how easy it is.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Smile When You Lie
Eyes shining, smile moulded into permanence, he tells of the birth of yet another son. The grandfathers, the other fathers, the other men, they nod and smile and pat him on the back like he was a liberating soldier to a long-sieged city. He speaks of the bravery of his wife, the awe in his other children, his own calm handling of this newest arrival. Everything a man could want has fallen into his hands easily, though he speaks of it now as if he snatched it from the flaming jaws of a dragon.
I smile dishonestly yet again, but congratulations stick in my throat as I look for any reason to leave. These reminders of what I do not have and cannot be come more frequently these days. Dwelling on the fact is a road to bitterness, so I do my best to force the disappointment down and drown it out with a busy life.
I generally barricade the door with forced indifference. Friends and coworkers announce pregnancy, birth, and proudly tell stories about the latest phase their offspring are going through. Social convention dictates I smile and congratulate and nod sympathetically like all the other men. I do it mechanically and try to move either myself or the conversation on. Occasionally, regrettably, I become the focus of these discussions, with questions about when or if I will have children of my own. About why I don't already have a few. As if it were a simple choice, yes or no. I equivocate, maybe, we'll see, perhaps after (insert event here)...
Three and a half years of trying, surgery, praying, timing, and supplements. If it were a choice, we'd need a school bus by now. We've tried to force the issue and adopt. We are still thankful to have not experienced miscarriage, but when our adoption agency closed down suddenly last year, part way through our file, it felt about like that. We're nearly back on track now. Still haven't sent in the stack of paperwork for the new agency sitting ready on the desk. Once bitten, twice shy, and all that. Soon.
I smile dishonestly yet again, but congratulations stick in my throat as I look for any reason to leave. These reminders of what I do not have and cannot be come more frequently these days. Dwelling on the fact is a road to bitterness, so I do my best to force the disappointment down and drown it out with a busy life.
I generally barricade the door with forced indifference. Friends and coworkers announce pregnancy, birth, and proudly tell stories about the latest phase their offspring are going through. Social convention dictates I smile and congratulate and nod sympathetically like all the other men. I do it mechanically and try to move either myself or the conversation on. Occasionally, regrettably, I become the focus of these discussions, with questions about when or if I will have children of my own. About why I don't already have a few. As if it were a simple choice, yes or no. I equivocate, maybe, we'll see, perhaps after (insert event here)...
Three and a half years of trying, surgery, praying, timing, and supplements. If it were a choice, we'd need a school bus by now. We've tried to force the issue and adopt. We are still thankful to have not experienced miscarriage, but when our adoption agency closed down suddenly last year, part way through our file, it felt about like that. We're nearly back on track now. Still haven't sent in the stack of paperwork for the new agency sitting ready on the desk. Once bitten, twice shy, and all that. Soon.
Friday, January 11, 2013
Change is coming
My parents are moving at the end of this month. Their house is sold, half their stuff is already moved, the rest is packed. Dad is retiring after 32 years of public school teaching. They will be moving away from the town they never meant to move to, let alone stay in. As it turned out, they built a life and raised a family there.
In some ways it seems like someone is dying. They have been going around doing things "One last time." Skiing the local alpine mountain, driving by their first house, visiting people they may not see again, remembering. They are excited about the move, being closer to family, not having to shovel nearly so much snow, but when we talked this week I thought all three of us might cry.
We talked about that first house, the climbing tree (story in process), and the street out front where I learned to ride a bike. The neighbours still live there, their children also flown from the nest. Before I left home, I spent my winters cross-country skiing. We started out at a golf course, then at a provincial park, then finally our club was able to put in dedicated trails with a proper warming hut. We all helped, marking out trails, clearing brush, putting up the building. Our family was heavily involved and deeply connected with that club.
I've been away more or less since high school, and each year my connections to that little town have faded a little more. Friends have moved away or drifted into acquaintance-hood. I know maybe half a dozen people at the church I grew up in. With my folks living there, there has always been a reason to return and a place to stay when I did. I can't say when the next time I'll visit will be. Maybe one day I'll have kids of my own to take on a road trip and tell boring stories about what used to be in that old building. That house I helped build when I was 13. When that whole hillside was just trees and I would run around building forts and spears with my friends and my dog. The old sledding track has been gone for years already, but we spent hours hauling sleds up that hill and building jumps at the bottom.
I worry that my memories of childhood will fade and distort without occasionally visiting those old places. It's as though one of the last ties between who I was and whom I will be is being cut. "Where I'm from" will slip ever deeper into myth. I've never had any intention of moving back; it was a fine place to grow up and to visit, but I don't want to live there. I don't think I expected or even wanted things to stay the same as they have been. Nothing wrong with looking back now and then, even if the old things seem so far away as to have been perfect. The view forward is dim and hard to make out, but it is coming regardless. It should be an interesting year.
In some ways it seems like someone is dying. They have been going around doing things "One last time." Skiing the local alpine mountain, driving by their first house, visiting people they may not see again, remembering. They are excited about the move, being closer to family, not having to shovel nearly so much snow, but when we talked this week I thought all three of us might cry.
We talked about that first house, the climbing tree (story in process), and the street out front where I learned to ride a bike. The neighbours still live there, their children also flown from the nest. Before I left home, I spent my winters cross-country skiing. We started out at a golf course, then at a provincial park, then finally our club was able to put in dedicated trails with a proper warming hut. We all helped, marking out trails, clearing brush, putting up the building. Our family was heavily involved and deeply connected with that club.
I've been away more or less since high school, and each year my connections to that little town have faded a little more. Friends have moved away or drifted into acquaintance-hood. I know maybe half a dozen people at the church I grew up in. With my folks living there, there has always been a reason to return and a place to stay when I did. I can't say when the next time I'll visit will be. Maybe one day I'll have kids of my own to take on a road trip and tell boring stories about what used to be in that old building. That house I helped build when I was 13. When that whole hillside was just trees and I would run around building forts and spears with my friends and my dog. The old sledding track has been gone for years already, but we spent hours hauling sleds up that hill and building jumps at the bottom.
I worry that my memories of childhood will fade and distort without occasionally visiting those old places. It's as though one of the last ties between who I was and whom I will be is being cut. "Where I'm from" will slip ever deeper into myth. I've never had any intention of moving back; it was a fine place to grow up and to visit, but I don't want to live there. I don't think I expected or even wanted things to stay the same as they have been. Nothing wrong with looking back now and then, even if the old things seem so far away as to have been perfect. The view forward is dim and hard to make out, but it is coming regardless. It should be an interesting year.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Presents
Presents are fun. I like both the giving and the getting, as long as the motivation is good. Christmas can be an awful time for obligatory gifts.
My sister's in-laws diligently make lists, set budgets, and share this information with each family member months ahead of Christmas. They even email each other once they've bought something from someone's list so there isn't duplication. Then, on Christmas morning, they give each other the things they specifically asked for. Of course it fits, the colour is right, the model is the exact one they wanted. From the outside, it appears to be an entirely joyless exercise. My own family was heading this direction the last few years, so I decided to do something about it.
Last year, we were all together in my parents' house for the holidays for the first time in years, maybe since my niece was brand new. It was the last time too, as the house is sold now. We put everyone's name in a hat, Mom and Dad included. No keeping your spouse's name, but otherwise, that's who you're responsible for next year. You have a whole year to make a gift specifically for that person. Spend what you need to for materials, no budget. I told them I didn't want their money, I don't need anything, each of them have skills, and I would be happy to have a handmade gift from any of them.
I drew my mother. I'm quite proud of how my gift turned out and the reaction I earned in the giving. It represents about 40 hours of work between design, layout, and execution. It cost me less than $10 and it was fun to make. The rest baked, sewed, stitched, and nailed gifts together. I haven't surveyed the crew to see if it was good enough to do again next year. I hope so.
My sister's in-laws diligently make lists, set budgets, and share this information with each family member months ahead of Christmas. They even email each other once they've bought something from someone's list so there isn't duplication. Then, on Christmas morning, they give each other the things they specifically asked for. Of course it fits, the colour is right, the model is the exact one they wanted. From the outside, it appears to be an entirely joyless exercise. My own family was heading this direction the last few years, so I decided to do something about it.
Last year, we were all together in my parents' house for the holidays for the first time in years, maybe since my niece was brand new. It was the last time too, as the house is sold now. We put everyone's name in a hat, Mom and Dad included. No keeping your spouse's name, but otherwise, that's who you're responsible for next year. You have a whole year to make a gift specifically for that person. Spend what you need to for materials, no budget. I told them I didn't want their money, I don't need anything, each of them have skills, and I would be happy to have a handmade gift from any of them.
I drew my mother. I'm quite proud of how my gift turned out and the reaction I earned in the giving. It represents about 40 hours of work between design, layout, and execution. It cost me less than $10 and it was fun to make. The rest baked, sewed, stitched, and nailed gifts together. I haven't surveyed the crew to see if it was good enough to do again next year. I hope so.
My in-laws buy stuff for each other, but they go about it with good intentions. They think about a person, what they do, what they might need, things they like, then they go shopping. Inside jokes in place of exhaustive lists prioritized by level of desire. Both brothers bought toys for the other. Grown men giving BB guns and remote controlled helicopters. Usually Mom puts some sort of cheap toy in the stockings, something guaranteed to break within the hour, and we run around racing wind-up cars or shooting each other with Nerf arrows like we're eight years old.
I hope your Christmas was a good one. Mine sure was. Now go make something.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Blue lights
I have already established I am a creature of habit. A byproduct of my adherence to daily routine is that I'm a sucker for traditions. My family has historically been one of immigrants and poor people, so our traditions are few and small, but those few carry weight. Christmas is nothing if not a time for traditions, and since we've managed to stay in the same country for going on three generations, leaving poverty behind, family traditions are starting to accrete.
My father claims his father made it up out of convenience one year, and so far between Google and people I've asked, this may be so. Grandpa put only blue lights at the top of the Christmas tree. Whether he accidentally bought a string of only blue lights, a string came from the store with all the blue bulbs at one end, or he only had blue replacement bulbs one year, the reason he gave is the reason we carry on now, more than 50 years later. We put only blue lights at the top of the tree to remind us of the people who can't be with us this year.
My grandfather was born to German-speaking Mennonites in Ukraine in 1920. Stalin ruled the land, and people starved. Through a convoluted series of events I may never get sorted, the end of WWII found my grandfather in Hamburg, his parents, sister, and one brother exiled in Siberia, and one other brother in a POW camp in Holland. After my father's uncle was released from the camp, he was reunited with my grandfather through an improbable series of coincidences. They came to Canada in 1948 on the first civilian trans-Atlantic airline, arriving in Montreal for Canada's Independence Day, which they took as a welcome party. Neither of them spoke a word of English or French.
Those brothers survived starvation and war and more uncertainty than I can comprehend and never saw their parents or brother again. If he did make it up, I don't think Grandpa realized that he had the ingredients of an icon: the act and explanation are simple, the act is noticeable. Of course, he never forgot about that family in Siberia. He was able to rescue the survivors to West Germany in the 1980s via German ideas around ethnicity and citizenship that don't make sense to my Canadian mind. I met Grandpa's sister and sister-in-law before they passed away, as well as several of their children and grandchildren.
My parents' tree always has blue lights at the top, as does my sister's. My aunts and uncles and cousins put blue lights at the top of their trees. Rosie's Mama and I will be setting up our tree on Friday, blue lights on top and prayers whispered for ones who aren't with us.
My father claims his father made it up out of convenience one year, and so far between Google and people I've asked, this may be so. Grandpa put only blue lights at the top of the Christmas tree. Whether he accidentally bought a string of only blue lights, a string came from the store with all the blue bulbs at one end, or he only had blue replacement bulbs one year, the reason he gave is the reason we carry on now, more than 50 years later. We put only blue lights at the top of the tree to remind us of the people who can't be with us this year.
My grandfather was born to German-speaking Mennonites in Ukraine in 1920. Stalin ruled the land, and people starved. Through a convoluted series of events I may never get sorted, the end of WWII found my grandfather in Hamburg, his parents, sister, and one brother exiled in Siberia, and one other brother in a POW camp in Holland. After my father's uncle was released from the camp, he was reunited with my grandfather through an improbable series of coincidences. They came to Canada in 1948 on the first civilian trans-Atlantic airline, arriving in Montreal for Canada's Independence Day, which they took as a welcome party. Neither of them spoke a word of English or French.
Those brothers survived starvation and war and more uncertainty than I can comprehend and never saw their parents or brother again. If he did make it up, I don't think Grandpa realized that he had the ingredients of an icon: the act and explanation are simple, the act is noticeable. Of course, he never forgot about that family in Siberia. He was able to rescue the survivors to West Germany in the 1980s via German ideas around ethnicity and citizenship that don't make sense to my Canadian mind. I met Grandpa's sister and sister-in-law before they passed away, as well as several of their children and grandchildren.
My parents' tree always has blue lights at the top, as does my sister's. My aunts and uncles and cousins put blue lights at the top of their trees. Rosie's Mama and I will be setting up our tree on Friday, blue lights on top and prayers whispered for ones who aren't with us.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Throwing waffles
We were broke when we married. Lots of schooling and not much training. I dropped out of college and took a dead end job, she stayed in school. If that job hadn't come with so much overtime, we wouldn't have made it. We scrounged dimes to rent a VHS movie and we would walk to save the gas. We donated blood as a date (Mama's idea) because, hey, free cookies.
Trips to the grocery store in that state of affairs are nerve-wracking. Bread, milk, eggs, a bit of ham for sandwiches, not much more. We ate a lot of pancakes and grilled cheese sandwiches. I was turned away from donating blood once for being anemic. But, as Tevya says about Motel and Tzeitel at the end of Fiddler on the Roof, "They are so happy, they don't know how miserable they are."
Our first weekend at home after our honeymoon, I made waffles for breakfast. I don't remember how it started, but I threw a waffle at my bride. She probably dared me to do it. It turned into a ridiculous game of trying to catch each other off guard with a flying waffle, or to get it down the other's shirt. We ran around laughing ourselves silly. That first place we lived was a dank little hole, but our memories from there are of mostly good times.
Money or no money, newly married is newly married. We had no television, no internet, just a library card and each other. We're still happy together, though we have more things. If we aren't getting along, I can always throw a waffle at her and we remember when we only had each other and it was enough. It still is.
Trips to the grocery store in that state of affairs are nerve-wracking. Bread, milk, eggs, a bit of ham for sandwiches, not much more. We ate a lot of pancakes and grilled cheese sandwiches. I was turned away from donating blood once for being anemic. But, as Tevya says about Motel and Tzeitel at the end of Fiddler on the Roof, "They are so happy, they don't know how miserable they are."
Our first weekend at home after our honeymoon, I made waffles for breakfast. I don't remember how it started, but I threw a waffle at my bride. She probably dared me to do it. It turned into a ridiculous game of trying to catch each other off guard with a flying waffle, or to get it down the other's shirt. We ran around laughing ourselves silly. That first place we lived was a dank little hole, but our memories from there are of mostly good times.
Money or no money, newly married is newly married. We had no television, no internet, just a library card and each other. We're still happy together, though we have more things. If we aren't getting along, I can always throw a waffle at her and we remember when we only had each other and it was enough. It still is.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Hug of the decade
It was the most awkward thing I had ever seen. It should have been simple; a man should be able to hug his son without looking like he's trying to shag a cactus. He was a millionaire (if that means anything anymore) who remembered fondly every dime he had brought in the same way most people remember a favourite aunt. His son, on his 25th birthday, worked for dear old dad learning the trucking business from the shop floor up to driver, presumably soon enough into the office. Hard working kid, if a tad entitled. He would take any load any place, but he might make an unauthorized detour on the way. He'd fix his own equipment, but he might take tools with him from the shop, and he might complain too loudly about little things. Nice kid, if a bit arrogant.
The old man had, according to the company legend, built a sailboat back in the 70's, which he sold to finance the purchase of an old trucking company. Not that he knew trucks, or how to drive them, only saw an opportunity and hired people to do the work. Equipment was scrounged, stretched, and over-used. Nothing was to be thrown away. Trucks, trailers, chains, employees, use it until it falls completely to pieces. Duct tape and wire and scabbed on pieces of steel kept most things on the road far beyond what reasonable expectations or safety concerns would allow. All in service of another dollar.
Predictably, there had been a failed marriage, doomed from the start by long hours and four tight fists. She had her own company, counting other people's money, and in the end they had two grown children and lawyers with new summer homes. It was a topic best avoided. The daughter only called for money, though it was hard enough to get she might might have had an easier time with a second job. The son worked for his dad, impatiently biding his time, waiting to inherit the kingdom.
So it was that I witnessed the worst hug of the decade. Wealthy, clueless daddy had clearly wandered through a hardware store the day before, hoping for something to jump out at him, and so presented his son with a torque wrench for his birthday. Present unwrapped, Dad went in for the embrace, and there was a long moment where the son didn't understand what was happening. He eventually realized what was expected, and moved to assume the position. Neither of them knew where they were supposed to put their heads, their torsos, how long to hold on. Whose arms go on top? A couple pats on the back and it was finally over. Dad looked proud of how it had all worked out, son stood awkwardly saying thanks for the wrench, and I sat, embarrassed for them both.
The old man had, according to the company legend, built a sailboat back in the 70's, which he sold to finance the purchase of an old trucking company. Not that he knew trucks, or how to drive them, only saw an opportunity and hired people to do the work. Equipment was scrounged, stretched, and over-used. Nothing was to be thrown away. Trucks, trailers, chains, employees, use it until it falls completely to pieces. Duct tape and wire and scabbed on pieces of steel kept most things on the road far beyond what reasonable expectations or safety concerns would allow. All in service of another dollar.
Predictably, there had been a failed marriage, doomed from the start by long hours and four tight fists. She had her own company, counting other people's money, and in the end they had two grown children and lawyers with new summer homes. It was a topic best avoided. The daughter only called for money, though it was hard enough to get she might might have had an easier time with a second job. The son worked for his dad, impatiently biding his time, waiting to inherit the kingdom.
So it was that I witnessed the worst hug of the decade. Wealthy, clueless daddy had clearly wandered through a hardware store the day before, hoping for something to jump out at him, and so presented his son with a torque wrench for his birthday. Present unwrapped, Dad went in for the embrace, and there was a long moment where the son didn't understand what was happening. He eventually realized what was expected, and moved to assume the position. Neither of them knew where they were supposed to put their heads, their torsos, how long to hold on. Whose arms go on top? A couple pats on the back and it was finally over. Dad looked proud of how it had all worked out, son stood awkwardly saying thanks for the wrench, and I sat, embarrassed for them both.
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