My people

You left beautiful comments on my last posts and it really touched my heart. A friend who just had a baby talked about transition during birth, when one feels on the verge of vertigo and looses ones point of reference. As tremendously sharp and intense as this transition phase is, it doesn't usually last, as long as one doesn't fear it or push it away. Through the pain, one needs to welcome it, loses ones footing and surrender to better move on to the next phase.

I am already moving into that next phase, getting acquainted with the pleasures of daily sedentary life. I am finding my feet again. And spending wonderful moments with dear friends and family members is making me feel at home. It is grounding me. My people.

  :: The adorable Laurel, our godson (he is the third child of our dear friends Steph and JF). And yes, beet lipstick (next photo), the best invention by crunchy mamas! ::

Switching gear

I feel like a bike that has been going downhill fast for too long... The gears are rusty from the salty sea breeze. It stubbornly refuses to move back into granny gear, missing the big strides, the fluid movements, the fast-changing landscape.

It doesn't like the dripping sweat of hill-climbing, the teeth-clenching...

I'd skip the long grind up and move on directly to the top of the next summit to bike down, but sometimes life has its own idea, and surrendering is not my forte...

Embracing the hardship until it's dealt with internally.

I will soon find joy again.
 

Right now, I need to face the pain.

It would be much easier to sell everything and keep going.

But I'd skip the lesson...

Embracing my mom-ness

The return isn’t smooth sailing for me. I feel like I am stepping back in time. It feels awkward. I feel clumsy and incompetent in that job that I used to do with so much pleasure and efficiency. That ʺroleʺ I was so proud of. I feel like I spend most of my time tidying up, cleaning, cooking, working… being a mom, the way I used to do it. The way I feel done with. I feel like the girls are also back to their old selves in a way, leaving the doors open, fighting over toys, saying mama-mama-mama all.the.time. Needing projects, needing activities. It’s weird. It’s so different. So fast. I expected to have more time to deal with the transition, but I don’t and I’ll be honest with you, I am struggling.

  :: On the first night we arrived, they asked me to show them how to do long additions (with thousands)... at 9 pm! ::

As I pace around the house, folding the upteenth batch of laundry, picking more Lego while scraping my calves on the half-emptied boxes from storage still waiting to be taken care of, I try to chase the negativity that wants to take over. I felt like we had reached a place of peace as a family this year, a place of joy. A nagging voice inside of me wants to say that it’s easy to be happy and joyful when one travels, but much more challenging when one is back in a different reality and that maybe, just maybe, I haven’t changed that much, we haven’t changed that much…

Right now, amidst a little girl that wants to sew a Waldorf doll and knit another doll and bake rhubarb and strawberry pies and make kale chips and plant a garden all on the very same day (ohhh Mathilde!), lots of translation work to do, lots of other kind of work to do and lots of adaptation to do, I give myself permission to feel like my world is upside down. I am not planning to dwell on it or to wallow in it, but I need to just feel it.

 :: Rediscovering the beloved dress-up chest! ::

I am truly happy to see my friends and family members, however, and they really make our return exciting. Hugging my dear friend Nini who lost her husband this year while we were away was a moment I had been waiting for for a long time. I was so happy to see her and it was so beautiful to see my girls and her boys play together all day as if they had seen each other the day before, without a single fight!

Meeting 4 month old Naomie, the first baby in our family, the girl’s cousin (JF  sister’s baby) was a very special moment for all of us. She is so adorable!

I know this too shall pass. There are much worst things than feeling down after a wonderful family travel experience... but this is my truth right now. Being a mom on the road and a mom at home is so very different. I did not realize how much until I came back.

A week in Chelsea

We arrived at our dear friends Marie-Claude and Christian before they came back home. We climbed the uneven rock stairs amidst the wild lily-of-the-valley patches and lilac bushes that created an arch over our path. We arrived on top, short of breath, and opened the door of that nice little chalet and made ourselves at home. The girls dug into the bag of library books, while I looked around, trying to piece together the last 8 months of my friends' life... We hadn't spoken very often and I was trying to imagine what their life back in Quebec might have felt like after years in the Yukon... A photo of a cute couple on the board: maybe some new friends, the Juniper organic farm flyer, on the calendar, I could see that Ali and Xav both had soccer practice on Saturday morning. And they had tickets to go see Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros!

Those friends had been such a big part of my (almost) daily life in the Yukon for so long, the idea that their *new life* was so foreign to me was kind of strange... and I could not wait to see them and hug them and find out more! And in the meantime, I was grasping at straws...

 :: Mara found a butterfly and took care of it until it was ready to fly away by itself. It stayed with her for a few hours. ::

 

:: My friend Marie-Claude is going back to school to become a midwife and she was preparing for her final chemistry exam. She was studying hard while we were there. I admire how determined she is in following her passion and making that dream come true by going back to school for 4 years at 42. What an inspiration! ::

We went to work and study together in a cute little coffee shop and I felt like I was at University again!

  :: Mara "helped" Alizée with her homework ::

   :: Every week, they go fill their bottles at the local spring in order to have great water to drink. ::

   :: Micha, the baby of the family, is just adorable and incredible at the same time. She is someting! I love her! Just before dinner, we could not find her. Chris looked for her everywhere and finally found her at the neighbor's (we're talking country neighbor, where she had to walk for a while along a high traffic road) sitting on a lazy boy, wrapped in a blanket with bowls of candies beside her. She gave Chris a big smile when he walked in, with smoke coming out of his ears. The neighbor had asked her if she had asked her parents if it was fine and she had said yes... Needless to say, Chris was not happy. So during our dinner, he repeated to her that she had to ask first before going to the neighbor. And that little 5 yo turned to him and said: Papa, can we stop talking about it now?! And I just burst out laughing! I know I totally killed the educationnal moment, but she is just so sure of herself! Two minutes later she said: You are not the boss of me, papa, you know! ::

   :: We had a dance party! When Chris is in the house, there is always lots of fun and laughter! ::

Our other good friends (and the girls' godparents) Val and JF just bought a house in Chelsea (they have lived in Ottawa for a decade) and they met us in a nice little restaurant and we went for a hike in beautiful Gatineau Park (King Mountain). We even got to see a beaver and her baby building its lodge!

We ended up being so busy with work that we didn't even go to Ottawa... Chris brought the girls to the beautiful Children museum and they had a blast. We went for short walks in the neighborhood, had an impromptu visit at a felt artist friend of Marie-Claude who was preparing a piece for a contest in which she was felting pieces of a 1850's wedding dress... The girls were enthralled!

On another day, Chris and JF took the girls on a hike and stopped at Pipolinka, the most amazing bakery in the area, and met a sweet French hitchhiking couple and invited them to pitch their tent on their property for the night. Mathilde and Micha spent the evening chatting with them and the morning after, we had coffee with them and great discussions. It's always lovely to meet with other travelers!

So now my friends, it's for real, we will be home in a few days!